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He inhaled and gazed at me. I experienced a similar longing to the one I saw in his eyes, and with it, new prospects hovered in, presenting alternatives I hadn’t been willing to consider before.
Why not allow ourselves this one night? We could dance again. Embrace. Maybe even kiss and enjoy a nice makeout session or two, but really, what would be the point?
As a custodian, cleaning was my career. I preferred clean breaks, too, and with the mess that every other relationship I’d had ended up being, I was sure to mess this one up as well.
It was better this way.
Once we got back, I’d never see Hawk Danielson again. I wasn’t sure why that thought left me the tiniest bit remorseful.
SEVEN
hawk
I couldn’t stop thinkingabout her.
We were in the same town and had been home from the wedding for about a week now. I tried giving her up, redirecting my thoughts, and focusing on my upcoming marketing plans for the new fiscal year. Heck, I even tried going on a date with someone else, but that worked about as well as one-ply toilet paper.
Ella was in my head, and she wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
I considered asking Adrian for her address, but she’d hate me stalking her. She’d told me a relationship with her wasn’t a good idea.
What if I could help her see things differently? What if there was some way to get her to give me her address herself?
Laughter struck, and I lifted my head away from my phone to the bright blue tube slide leading from my house’supper level to the basement. Gemma crouched, arms outstretched and ready to catch her youngest as he popped out of the bottom of the slide.
“That’s how it’s done,” I said, pocketing my phone and rising to join them as her older two came barreling down.
“I still can’t believe you added all this,” Gemma said, eyeing my basement’s playground-like setup. She then folded her arms and squinted one of her eyes at me.
“What?” I asked.
“You told me once you don’t like kids.”
“I never said I don’t like kids. I said I don’t want kids.”
Her eyebrow twitched. “Uh-huh. If you don’t like kids so much, why go through all the effort to make your basement so fun? Why accept when I ask you to babysit?”
“What else am I going to do with all this money at my disposal but build a freaking dreamhouse of my own? Dad told me to enjoy the success I’ve had so far,” was my reply.
I had told her to avoid procreating, but only because our parents’ relationship was such a sham, it didn’t seem fair to put her children through what she and I had gone through as we’d watched Mom and Dad grow apart.
Gemma and Alex didn’t seem to have the same sinking ship, however. I supposed everything had its exceptions.
She wanted an answer about my slide? When designing this house, I’d tried implementing as many fantasies as my boyhood mind had concocted back when I was much younger. Rope ladder, tube slide, full metal jungle gym in the basement, video game room, theater room, indoor pool.
My house had it all, and I loved every square inch of it.
“And this is how you enjoy it?” My older sister folded her arms and quirked her eyebrow at me as she hung a hand on the rope ladder dangling from the ceiling several feet down from the slide. “Just admit it. You want kids.”
It was my turn to narrow my eyes. “I know you ask me to babysit because you think you’ll convince me.”
Her three-year-old, Jack, tried climbing the first ropey rung, but his foot only slipped right through it. He nearly lost his balance but caught himself. He then turned to his mom and me, displaying an adorable toothy grin.
She heaved a sigh. “So this is how you enjoy all your hard-earned wealth?” She lifted her hands to my epic setup.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because you’re almost thirty years old.”
