She nodded slowly. “I get it.”
“Jillian.” Setting my bag down, I sat at her feet and put my hands on top of them. They were chilly, and I wanted nothing more than to get naked again, wrap myself around her, and tuck us in under the sheets. But that wasn’t an option. “I wanted to wake up with you so fucking badly.”
“Me too,” she said. “Next time.”
“Next time.” Was she wondering, like I was, when that would be? And if we’d actually get to see it through? I wanted to say I promise, but I couldn’t. I’d never be able to promise her anything. The weight of that reality made my limbs heavy and my chest ache.
“You better go.” She tucked her hair behind her ears and gave me a tiny smile. “He’s waiting for you. He needs his daddy.”
I nodded and said what I had to, even though I had to rip the raw words from my throat. “Jillian. I want you to give this some thought. These kinds of things…they’re going to happen. I can’t promise they won’t, and I can’t prevent them.”
“You don’t have to—”
“Listen to me. Please. I love you, but I will understand completely if you don’t want this in the morning.”
She looked at me for a moment, then got to her knees. Wrapping her arms around me, she laid her head on my shoulder. “I love you, too. And I don’t give up easily, Levi.”
I kissed the top of her head, love and gratitude for her swelling in my chest. “I’m glad to hear that. I’ll call you tomorrow, OK?”
She sat back. “I’ll walk you out.”
After throwing on a robe, she saw me to the door and gave me a quick hug and kiss on the cheek. When I tried to kiss her lips and linger there, she gave me a gentle shove on the chest and laughed. “You better go. Or I’ll never let you leave.”
One last kiss on her forehead and I went out the door.
On the way to my sister’s house, I kept thinking about her, about everything we’d done, everything we’d said, everything I felt. As amazing as the night had been, I didn’t want our relationship to be nothing but these short, intense bursts. I wanted more, but I didn’t know how to get it.
Yes, you do—you have to stop trying to be two people. You can’t be Dad here and Levi there and expect to keep everyone happy. You’re just going to end up feeling more guilty all the time. You have to bring her into your life as it exists, into Scotty’s life. You have to let her in.
I rubbed a hand over my beard, wondering if that was really the answer. Wasn’t it too soon to introduce her to my son? What if she got to know him and thought he was too much of a challenge? What if she didn’t understand him? What if she saw the way I had to live and realized she couldn’t handle it? Or thought I was dealing with him wrong, like my family sometimes said?
It’s too soon. I should wait.
For that matter, was it too soon to be so in love with her? Was there a schedule for these things? I was so used to doing things a certain way—my life at work and at home was governed by calendars, plans, lists, charts, deadlines, routines. I was an architect, for fuck’s sake. You don’t build a house without a foolproof design first. But…it felt liberating to have this other thing happening in my life, something impulsive and extraordinary, something instinctual and unstoppable. When I was with her, I felt so alive.
Yet it was frightening too. I’d never been in love like this before. Without experience or wisdom or a plan to guide me, how did I know if what I was doing was right for my son? Or for Jillian?
I was just feeling my way.
It was scary as fuck.
• • •
Scotty fell asleep briefly in the car on the way home, but he woke up when the car stopped and refused to go back to sleep in his bed, even though all his usual comforts were there. He’d gotten himself too worked up to feel calm, and I had to lie down with him in my bed with my arms wrapped around him like a baby simply to get him to stop moving. When his body and mind finally were settled, he played with my ear as he drifted off and I felt bad again for being angry about tonight. He didn’t ask that much of me, and he struggled to feel good about himself in so many ways. School this week had not gone well…he threw his pencil again during a math test, refused to do a writing assignment after getting frustrated with corrections, cried twice, and shut down once. He actually wet himself on Thursday morning (the day of the test) in an attempt to miss the bus, but I’d cleaned him up and driven him to school. He’d seemed happy enough at swim therapy and during dinner Friday evening, so I’d hoped Saturday night would be fine, but I’d been wrong.
You should have canceled tonight. You said you’d only do it if he had a good enough week, and you knew in your heart he hadn’t. You convinced yourself he’d be fine just so you could get what you wanted, and that’s fucking selfish and mean.
Fuck! My stomach churned. Had I been mean to make him sleep away from home so I could wake up with Jillian? Did it serve me right that it wouldn’t happen? Maybe this was the universe telling me to be thankful for what I had and not look for anything else.
I hoped not…I loved her. I needed her.
But maybe that was selfish too.
I went back to bed, missing the warmth of Levi’s body next to mine, the sound of his voice in my ear, the press of his lips against my skin. The scent of him clung to my sheets, so I did too, gathering them up in my arms and snuggling them as if they could snuggle back.