We both chuckle before my smile falls off like cold water runs down a glass.
“Mitch and I were young when we got married, you know? And we had Jacob right away. I’ve always been a wife and a mom,” I say, gulping, scared to say this out loud. “But Dax makes me feel different.”
“And when you say you feel different, you mean…” My mom tilts her head to the side.
“Like a woman,” I say without hesitation, but I instantly cringe. My cheeks redden as I peer at my mom in my periphery.
She nudges me with her shoulder. “Come on, Clara. You’ve been married and had a child. I think it’s okay to say the word sex around me. He makes you feel sexy.”
I bury my face in my hands, embarrassed for many reasons.
“Honey.” She pulls my hands down, her expression serious. “Why does it have to be a comparison at all? Why are you pitting Mitch and Dax against each other?”
“I don’t know.” I pull my lip between my teeth. “I feel guilty. I don’t want my marriage to feel like a sham.”
Squeezing my upper arms, she says, “It was not a sham at all, just like my marriage to your father wasn’t. We loved each other very much. At one point, anyway. And I don’t regret it or him, because he gave me you.”
I nod, the weight of her loving words swirling in my chest.
“This isn’t about whether you love Dax more than Mitch, or vice versa. You either love Dax or you don’t—it’s that simple, sweetheart.”
I blow out a frustrated breath because she’s right. But there’s still so much nagging at me. “I feel like I’m betraying Mitch.”
“I can understand that.” After a short pause, she says, “But he wouldn’t want you to be alone forever. You’re young. You deserve to be happy, even if it is with someone else.”
I shake my head, rubbing my temples as we get this out in the open. “Mitch used to ask if there was anything more than friendship between Dax and me.”
She faces me again, her expression open and loving and understanding, nothing like the shameful feelings forming a knot in my stomach.
“I constantly reassured him that Dax and I had only ever been friends before Mitch and I even met. I laughed him off as I did everyone who asked or assumed. There was a time when I thought we could be more, but with everything that happened, it started to feel like a fantasy. We were always friends. Now, there’s so much more between us.” I laugh at myself, kicking at the ground. “Listen to me. I don’t even make any sense.”
“You’re making perfect sense.” She places her warm hands over mine the way she did when I got rejected from some of my top colleges. “I know it can feel like a sense of betrayal by being with Dax, but let me ask you this. What does your heart think? You can’t control your heart. It tells you what you need to know simply by the way it beats. If it speeds up when you’re around Dax, if it flutters and changes course, you just have to go with it. Follow your heart wherever it takes you.”
My breath is knocked out of me. That’s exactly what happens with Dax. My heart beats in my chest like it’s rattling a cage.
A cage I’ve built around it after it broke.
With Mitch’s cancer and his death, my heart was broken.
But it broke years ago too, when Dax kissed me and didn’t do it again.
Now, here we are. Over fifteen years later, and not only has he kissed me, but he’s worshipped my bare body in ways I never imagined. Like he completes me.
Like I’m right where I’m supposed to be.
“By the dreamy daze on your face, I’d say my job here is done.” There’s a knowing gleam in her eyes as my mom pats my hands.
Again, I blow out a breath. “What about Jacob? I don’t want to upset him,” I say weakly. At this point, I’m only reaching for straws, and it’s because I’m scared of how strong my feelings for Dax are.
She cups my cheek. “When I married Andrew, were you upset?”
“No, I wanted you to be… happy.” I whisper the last word, understanding dawning as I place my hand over hers and lean my cheek into it.
“Now, listen to me. You can’t keep making excuses. People who fall in love once are so damn lucky. But twice? Falling in love twice is as rare as lightning striking the same place twice. You can’t predict it. You can’t stop it. You just revel in the beauty of it.” She peers across the lawn at Andrew with a wistful twinkle in her eye, then steps toward him.
Her words strike a chord in me like I’m the dusty piano in the corner of our old living room. One strike of a key brings it back to life.
“Where are you going?” I rasp.
“I’m reveling,” she calls over her shoulder as she reaches Andrew and plants a kiss on his lips, uncaring about the people around us.
It makes me smile.
And when he squeezes her hand, a joy spreads throughout my chest like a flower blooming.
I know exactly what to do and who I need to see.
It’s time I start reveling too.
Twenty-Four
Dax
“You’re not answering my calls.”
I look up from my desk and find Clara in a flowy dress and boots. She’s holding a vase of various colored flowers I don’t know the names of. Grinning, I wave around the room. “As you can see, duty
