“Honestly, it wouldn’t be my choice to live far away from everyone I love, and everything I know. But”—I stroked his stubbled jaw with a wet hand—“this is serious, right?”
“Us?”
I nodded.
“It’s very serious,” he confirmed in a very serious voice.
I felt that settle, it did in every pore, every molecule, and I rejoiced in it.
“Then,” I began quietly, “if I have to look after my man, and he needs distance from his family, I’d go.”
“You’d go,” he whispered, his eyes aimed at my lips like he couldn’t believe the words that just slipped through them.
“Of course I’d go.”
His gaze came back to mine. “Ever fuck in a pool?”
I smiled. “Not yet.”
He smiled back and ordered, “Lose the suit.”
I allowed myself to experience the delightful tingle his order caused.
After that, I lost the suit.
He lost his too.
And…see?
Expanding your horizons was always rewarding.
When the banging on the door came, I knew it was him.
Knox.
After the drama I’d participated in so fully and the ensuing unfortunate occurrence of needing to escape, but also needing to wait for Lyft and not wanting any of my friends to come out to see if I was okay, so I’d had to jog three blocks away before I called it (and I was so far from a jogger, it wasn’t funny), I wanted to cower in my bed and ignore it.
But I’d let my inner wimp loose far too often lately.
That wasn’t me.
I could let it be me when the occasion warranted it.
But this time, it didn’t.
We’d both fucked up (though I would note, he started it). We needed to sort ourselves out and move on.
Therefore, I hauled my ass out of bed and trudged down the hall with an anxious Jacques at my ankles (my baby was so feeling me, then again, he’d been present through my festival of sobbing last night so he couldn’t miss my mood hadn’t shifted all that much).
I opened the door to exactly who I expected.
Knox, tall and handsome in his green button-down, faded jeans, brown boots and sling.
“Okay, right. We fucked up—” I started.
That was as far as I got.
Jacques woofed with delight and circled us exuberantly as Knox put a hand on my belly, pushed me back, entered my apartment, and closed the door behind him.
