I sighed, a definite sense of dread suddenly creeping in. Today had been an absolute dream—for them, sure, but also for me. Yet, there was so much still up in the air right now that I had no idea how to respond to all of these questions.
“Will you tell me the story?” Jennifer asked around a yawn, her eyelids already heavy as she peered up at me in the dim light filtering in from the bathroom. “The one about the princess and the prince.”
My heart skipped a beat. She had no idea that for years, I’d been telling her the story of me and Zach. The love story she adored more than any other wasours, starting with our friendship and ending with the day he’d told me he was in love with me, and the crush I’d thought was unrequited for a long time ended up being the best thing that had ever happened to me.
Other than my girls, of course, but that went without even having to think about.
“How about I tell it to you tomorrow night?” I asked quietly, surprised that Lu hadn’t interjected again yet. “You’re exhausted, baby. We’ll come to bed earlier tomorrow and I’ll tell you the whole thing from start to finish.”
Her lids were already fluttering. She managed a sleepy smile before giving up the fight and letting them drop. I swore she was asleep before I even stood up, and when I strode across the bathroom to check on Lu, she was fast asleep too.
I smiled.I forgot how much spending a day in the sun and water tires them out.
It had been a long, long time since we’d had that. I kissed both their foreheads and hovered for a beat, just making sure that they were both well and truly out before I left.
Already dressed in pajamas, I crept back downstairs for some water before I’d probably retire for the night myself. The girls had stayed up late, forcing Zach to watch an old-school Barbie movie, Swan Lake, from the early 2000s.
Strangely, it hadn’t taken much force, if I was being honest. Jennifer had asked if he’d seen it, Lu insisted that he had to, andless than a minute later, he’d bought it on a streaming service to watch in the theater room.
I padded down the stairs quietly, wondering why I was hoping that he was still downstairs, awake, and maybe even waiting for me.Oh, who I am I kidding? I know exactly why I want that to be true.
The fact was that I wanted some time alone with him. Not because I wanted to dredge up the past or try to apologize again for the way I’d left him.I just missed him. For a long time, I missed him so, so much, and now he’s here, and he’s doing everything I ever dreamed about, and I haven’t had enough of him.
While I would never,eversay any of those things out loud, they were all true. It was also true that I was wondering if today had been a one-time thing. Honestly, it had been a perfect day, a family kind of day the girls had never experienced with a father-like figure around.
As I walked to the kitchen past the back patio, I noticed a light was on and I slowed, suddenly realizing that he was out there. Sitting alone on the deck overlooking the pool, he had a glass of white wine in his hand and a bottle in an ice bucket on the table.
With another, still empty glass right next to it.
My heart thumped in my chest.That’s for me. He has a glass ready. For me.
I had no idea why that meant so much, but just the thought of unwinding with him after the day and that he clearly wanted me to made all the difference. For so long, I’d felt so unwanted, and despite everything I’d done to Zach, he’d never once made me feel that way.
When I walked out onto the patio, he looked up, his features relaxed and those green eyes still warm, even if he did seem kind of wary. “Do you happen to know where Bear is?”
“He’s sleeping on the rug in the bathroom between the girls’ rooms,” I said quietly, though I didn’t really know why I was keeping my voice down. It wasn’t like I could wake neighbors or even the girls in a house this size. “I think he likes keeping an eye on them.”
“He definitely does,” Zach agreed, absently reaching for the spare glass and filling it before handing it over. “This is the best thing that’s ever happened to him. He’s been herding Theo around for the past year since I got him. I guess even though he flunked out, some stuff they taught him still stuck.”
“Flunked out of what?” I asked as I accepted the glass and sat down at the table with him.
“The Police Academy,” he explained, turning to face me with a wry smile on his lips. “They basically said he was too excitable and not focused enough. I adopted him on the spot.”
My heart melted into a puddle of animal-loving goo. “Why am I not surprised?”
He shrugged. I settled in, moving my gaze away from his when the eye contact became a bit too intense to handle without kissing him. I caught sight of the label on the wine bottle and my mouth formed a quiet, “Oh.”
I turned to look at him. “Did you remember my favorite wine or is it a coincidence that you bought that specific bottle from that specific vineyard?”
“Considering that said specific vineyard belongs to my cousin, it can’t be that much of a surprise.” He looked at the bottle for a moment. “I never stopped drinking it, actually.”
“That’s rich, coming from the guy who used to call white wine too girly for him,” I teased, the words popping out before I could stop myself from saying them.
Unfortunately, this particular wine also held a different kind of significance for us. Especially in the context of the first nighthe’d actually admitted to liking it, finally copping to the fact that maybe it wasn’t so girly after all.
We’d gotten horribly, horribly drunk after he’d been given a case of the stuff by Sterling, the cousin in question. When we’d woken up the next morning, sprawled out next to each other on the floor of the apartment he’d lived in just after moving back to Chicago when we’d graduated from college, he’d made another admission.
He’d told me he was in love with me. That he couldn’t handle being just my friend anymore. Tingles still shot through me at the memory of the anguish on his face when he’d told me that I could hate him if I wanted to, but that he hadn’t been able to keep it from me any longer. He’d looked right into my eyes and claimed that it had been killing him.
