Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 124320 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124320 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Still only mine.
Our bodies have cooled when he rolls away.
“No,” I protest, my voice raw and husky. “Don’t go yet.”
“I’ll be right back.” He leans down and kisses my forehead.
I close my eyes and pull the duvet up and over my shoulders, relishing the warmth, the scent of us in the sheets. When he gently turns me over to face him, he’s on his knees beside the bed, elbows propped on the mattress.
“Hey, handsome,” I say sleepily, caressing the line of his brows, the bridge of his nose.
“Hey,” he replies, his lips quirking, even though his eyes remain serious. “I want to talk to you about a few things.”
“Okay.” I drag myself up to sit with my back against the headboard and the covers tucked beneath my arms. “Talk.”
“We kind of jumped right in,” he says, linking our fingers on the sheets. “But I want to talk about what happened while we’ve been apart.”
A chill skitters across my skin, stiffening my back and tensing my muscles. Is this where he confesses he did give in to temptation and sleep with Aiko once, twice, three times?
“What happened?” I ask, keeping my voice even and just the right degree of curious.
“I did what I needed to do,” he says, studying the sheets. “I wanted to be there for Mai and Noah and Aiko, of course.”
I gulp at the tears threatening, grit my teeth and brace for disappointment.
“I stayed there until Mai came, stayed for the first few months so I could be around to help as much as possible. Changing diapers, midnight feedings—the whole thing.”
My heart clenches into a fist at the picture he paints of their family, their baby, their life together while we were apart.
“But we needed our own places to establish a new normal,” he says. “Especially for Noah. He needed to see that separation to understand how our relationship was changing.”
“Look,” I say, deciding to just address my worst fears. “If you need to tell me that you…slipped…that you and Aiko—”
“I’m trying to assure you there is no me and Aiko,” he cuts in, holding my eyes in a steady stare. “Not beyond Mai and Noah, and a long friendship. I knew what I wanted then and I know what I want now.”
I don’t ask, afraid to ask, to assume, but look away, hold my breath and wait.
“You.” He squeezes my hand, tugs my fingers until I look into his eyes. “I only want you.”
A relieved breath escapes the tight line of my mouth. “And Aiko? What does she want?”
“At first,” he says, his mouth a wry curve, “she didn’t know. It was hard for her to think of us differently, but she had no choice. She knows I’m in love with you, and she had to accept that she and I would never be what we were before.”
“And?”
“And she gets it now.” He chuckles, shaking his head. “Chaz helped.”
“I saw him at your house. Your old house. I went there first.”
“They’re together. Chaz started coming back around when she was still pregnant. Now they’re dating, sickeningly sweet, the whole nine.”
“Well, that’s unconventional.”
“At no point has Aiko ever been conventional.”
“And how is Noah adjusting to all of this?”
Ezra shrugs broad, naked shoulders. “He’s pretty mature, unusually intelligent and open in a way that most kids aren’t at his age. I think it helped that we never had a conventional relationship, never married. It has been an adjustment not seeing him quite as much. I mean, I’m around the corner, so I still see him every day, all the time, but it’s different when you don’t live under the same roof. He’s with me a few days and with Ko the others. It works, but I’m always checking in with him, getting him to talk and tell me how he’s doing.”
I watch the man I love, the man I’ve known since he was a child, an awkward boy finding himself. I know him so well, and never have I seen him more in need of a pocket to shove his hand into.
Except he’s nude.
He clears his throat, and some of the red that used to crawl over his cheeks all the time colors his neck. “So I thought now that my…situation is settled and the governor’s race is over, maybe we could discuss our future.”
I open my mouth and he rushes on before I can speak.
“First of all, if you want a baby, I do, too. Natural. Frozen eggs. IVF. I don’t care. I want to make you happy, Tru.”
I stare at the rugged symmetry of his features, the prominent nose and sculpted lips. The dark wing of his brows over African violet eyes. The cap of clipped curls. I remember this man as a boy, the awkward, lanky, too-big-for-his-body parts boy. He had to grow into the beauty of his face. I’ve seen the arc of his life, how he developed over time. Emotion scalds my throat and my lips tremble. Before I even knew how babies were made, I imagined ours.