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“I’m sorry, Jenna. I’d have to pay you,” I said.
“Yeah.” Her shoulders lifted in defeat. “I know.”
We stared at each other.
When her gaze fell away again, I pinched my eyes shut and rubbed at my face.
“There’s gotta be something,” I mumbled. This couldn’t be it. No fucking way was this over. We just got started.
“Nathan, when you were dreaming you…you were calling out for Sadie, and you were holding me, and—”
I stopped her with a look. She was acting different with me. “I can explain that.”
“You don’t have to.” Jenna shook her head, hands raised defensively as she crept closer. “I’m not mad about it. I understand—God, of course I do. I’m just, I’m wondering if maybe we should wait.”
“Because of that? Jenna, that dream—”
“Because of everything, Nathan.” She stopped a foot away. Her eyes drifted to the cash. “This entire night…This happened pretty fast, all things considered.” Jenna looked at me. “I don’t know, waiting a little more might not be so terrible. I’m only watching Marley through the summer—that’s two months. Barely that. We could wait and see if what we’re feeling is still there.” She gave me a tight smile.
Two more months. That wasn’t long, yet I knew how difficult a delay like that would be. I barely lasted three weeks with this woman. She was asking me for eight more?
Did the amount of patience needed for this even exist? I wasn’t so sure.
I exhaled heavily and raked my hand through my hair.
We had moved fast. She wasn’t wrong. Maybe I should’ve thought about this longer before I acted on it. I went from acknowledging my feelings to learning my condoms had expired. I hadn’t even considered how this could affect our working relationship. That complication aside, was I even ready for this with Jenna? For everything this could become?
Fuck. I couldn’t answer that.
“Yeah…I think you’re right,” I said. “It’s probably for the best that we wait.”
“Probably.”
When I smiled easily, she smiled back. “And, you know”—I gestured between us—“it won’t be weird. We’ll just go back to the way it was.”
“Okay, good.” Jenna’s stance relaxed. “I’d like that.” She retreated toward the door, smiling back at me when she reached it. “See ya.”
“Yeah, later.”
She slipped out into the hallway.
When the door latched shut, I collapsed onto the bed, my mind whirling.
Back to the way it was…heavy flirting and doing absolutely nothing beyond that.
I’d just agreed to two more months of torture.Chapter ThirteenJENNAI didn’t hear from Nathan at all the next day.
Which wouldn’t have been strange—it was his day off—but lately he reached out to me in some way or another on the days I didn’t keep Marley for him. We’d text a little. Sometimes he’d call. Maybe we’d end up getting together with the kids…
Nathan never reached out on Saturday. I wondered if he was at least thinking about me, because I couldn’t stop thinking about him.
I remembered our night together. The wild hunger in his kiss. The way he gripped at my body. Our mutual grinding session and round two when we touched each other until we both came. It was difficult not thinking about it. I’d never experienced pleasure like that, not with anyone before. I kept replaying moments inside my head.
I thought about what happened after too. How quickly things got awkward and the agreement to put us on pause—that was also a memory I couldn’t shake.
Sunday when we got to his house, Oliver and Olivia went hard at Nathan the moment we walked in the door. They couldn’t stop talking about the Fourth and occupied all conversation while I got Marley set up with breakfast.
Nathan didn’t act out of the ordinary at all with them. He smiled at Olivia when she tugged playfully at his tie and reciprocated the little hug she gave him. And when Oliver showed off his football, as if he hadn’t seen it before, Nathan matched my son’s excitement over the signature.
Maybe I was worrying for nothing. They could’ve simply been busy yesterday. And it wasn’t a requirement for Nathan to check in. Why was I acting like he had to? I was reading too much into this. If anyone was making things weird, it was me.
When it was time for him to leave, Nathan walked over to the kitchen table and kissed Marley goodbye. The twins had moved into the family room.
“What did you end up doing yesterday?” I asked him, grabbing hold of Marley’s wrists so she wouldn’t touch Nathan with her sticky syrup fingers.
“Nothing,” he answered, straightening up. “We just hung around here.”
Huh. Okay, not busy.
“Yeah, us too.” I tucked my hair behind my ear. “I mean, we didn’t do anything either. Just hung around.”
He smiled at Marley, then slid his eyes to me, where I sat beside her. I waited for it—that warm, easy look we shared now, but it was as if we’d just met. There was nothing familiar in the way Nathan regarded me. He was being polite, nothing more.
