“I didn’t say you should move her in. I said you should ask her out. It’s not a huge commitment. Although I haven’t seen you date anyone in the, what, three or four years you’ve been here. So maybe it is a big deal to you.”
“I have baggage. Everybody has a history, I know, but my kid is too important to me and my life is too good as-is to mess it up just to go on a couple dates with a woman who’s gonna want more than I’m willing to give her.”
“You’re overthinking this for sure. But whatever,” Noah said, and went to get another drink.
About that time, I got a text from Denise that Sadie swore she wasn’t tired, but she kept yawning. I told her I’d be there in ten minutes. I left a tip on the table and met Noah at the bar, clapped him on the back and said I was leaving.
“It’s eight-thirty!”
“I know. My kid’s tired and I’ve got a story to read and a song to sing.”
“You’re hopeless,” he called after me.
I wondered on the way home if he was right. Not about being hopeless, but about asking Rachel out. Spending an evening with an adult, a woman I liked and wanted to know better—it sounded strange and alluring. I hadn’t been interested in anyone in so long. The first couple of years raising Sadie, she’d needed me so much and it had been so consuming. My love for her, my fear of screwing up, of not being enough because I was a single parent—all of it had been intense. I hadn’t felt like I had time to pause for five minutes, much less make friends, have a social life. It was all parenting and setting up my lumber business and working to sustain it.
Something about a pie-baking, smart-mouthed waitress was making me wonder if it was time to make a change. Make room in my life for the possibility of more. I didn’t have to hustle like a madman to make money. I had more than enough before I ever started this business. Working, being industrious, filling my days had become a habit. If it was time to reevaluate and think about stepping back, hiring help to manage part of the business and take on some of that load, I would consider that in the fall. Spring and summer were prime time for housing starts and remodels in the area, and I wasn’t ready to train someone on top of all that work. It would need to be the off-season. Maybe in the autumn I could get things running smoothly enough to work a four-day week or shorten my hours at least.
Resolving on a timeline to hire and train some more employees and adjust my schedule didn’t seem to resolve the restlessness that crawled over my skin though. I got home, tucked in the little night owl and sat down to go over my upcoming orders for the week. In the quiet house, with nothing but a soft breeze coming in the open window and the distant cry of an owl, I could tune in and recognize what was bothering me.
Not loneliness. Not exhaustion.
Lust, pure and simple.
To say she wasn’t my usual type—if I could be said to have a type after years as a bachelor—would be an understatement. I had been attracted to the sort of women my social-climbing parents approved of. Wasp-waisted girls with expensive highlights in their long hair, fresh, south-of-France tans and a modeling contract or at least a friend who was royal-family-adjacent.
Now what tortured me was no designer-clad runway model with a
practiced pout. It was the heat and energy of a blonde waitress with a ponytail. Thinking of her was like sinking into warm honey—sweet and spicy and clinging. Wanting her was as elemental as breathing. I had fought it all I could. I’d let myself think of her, let myself fantasize, one time. Just once to get it out of my system so I could behave normally around her from now on. Then I could forget the look on her face when I’d made the guy in the bar back off—the mix of heat and vulnerability in her expression that had made me want to crush her in my arms.
That’s what I wanted. A second chance at that moment. Instead of dealing with the asshole, I’d make a different choice.
“Come with me,” I’d say to her, my hand on the curve of her back, reassuring and protective, not presumptuous or crude like the other guy had been. She’d let me lead her out of the bar to get some fresh air, to breathe in the quiet starlit darkness. She’d lean against me a little, sagging with relief, knowing that she could trust me.
“I’ve got you,” I’d tell her.” I’m sorry he did that.”
She’d shake her head, thank me, say it wasn’t a big deal. Then I’d argue and say he had no right to put his hands on her, that no one did unless she wanted it.
“I want it now,” she’d say. “It gave me chills in there, I was scared. Make me warm again, Max.”
That would be all she had to say. I would take her in my arms right there and hold her, tenderly at first, gauging her comfort level and making sure she felt protected. I’d stroke her hair, maybe say something about her ponytail, toying with it in my fingers. She’d look up at me, waiting to be kissed. I’d snuggle her against my chest and lower my face to hers, first our lips brushing together and clinging for an instant, the fiery reaction ripping through me like a tornado. Then I’d gather her face in my hands and slip my tongue in her mouth. Her body would come to life, desire flaring,
