He’s parenting both your boys.He was, wasn’t he? He didn’t have to. Only Henry was his son. But I could no longer ignore how good he’d gotten with Tommy. Or how much Tommy had opened up since Sam had come into our lives.
“Also,” Kit continued, “whenever we talk, you bring him into every conversation. ‘Sam this, Sam that. Sam said blah blah blah.’”
“I donot!”
“Do too. I bet the sexual tension between you two is indescribable.”
“Kit,” I groaned.
“What? You deserve to hook up with someone who looks at you like the goddess you are.”
“You haven’t seen how he looks at me.”
“Yes I have. The day we met him. Long before he started helping you out. He looked a little terrified, but that was just about being a dad. He still stared at you like you were the best thing he’d ever seen. And like you came back from the dead or something.”
Funny, that was how I’d felt when I saw him too.
Kit smirked. “When you were showing him how to hold Henry… I think he would have gotten down on his knees and barked like a dog if you asked him to.”
I pressed my hand over my eyes.
“What? I don’t see what the problem is.”
I dropped my hand. I should have been thrilled, I think, by what she was telling me. She was validating what Sam had said.I’m crazy about you.But she didn’t understand. No one seemed to.
“Why is this man being obsessed with you an issue?” she asked.
“Because!” I said, maybe a little too sharply. “Becauseyousaid ‘I deserve to hook up with someone’. But there’s no ‘hooking up’ when there are kids involved.”
Kit’s face fell. “You deserve to have fun just as much as anyone else, El.”
“Yes, but I can’t have anything blow up in my face, Kit. It’s not just about me.”
Yet even as the words left my mouth, I questioned their veracity. Was I just rehearsing the same protests over and over again because of what had happened in the past? Could it be that it wouldn’t go sideways with Sam? But what about the way he couldn’t stand still?
Because I liked him. Ireallyliked him. Tommy liked him, too. And Henry? Henry loved him.
I felt a little dizzy.
Kit meanwhile, had blanched. “I’m sorry Ellie. I didn’t think of that.”
“Kit, it’s fine.”
“No, it’s not. I’ve heard Con talk about it. I saw last year, when his ex showed up to take Archie away for the month. He could barely communicate with her. Con looked like he was going to die handing Archie over. And he was in a funk for pretty much the whole month. And they only have to interact once a year.”
She’d let that out in a breathless whoosh. She had big feelings about her best friend’s pain. Kit was a serious empath.
“Hey, it’s okay,” I promised. “It’s not like that between me and Sam. I’m sorry you had to see Con hurting like that.” I swallowed hard. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it could work.” So long as I controlled the narrative. And my feelings. Because why couldn’t I ‘hook up’?
In the past, I’d always looked at relationships as if they’d beforever. And each time I’d be devastated when it didn’t work out. Sam was going to stick around forever as Henry’s dad, I knew that in my bones. So what if this attraction was passing or he needed to take off for a while? I could just plan for that. If I kept this light and with no expectations, maybe I could be okay. My therapist back in California was always telling me to let go of expectations and outcomes. As a planner, this was hard to remember, but I could do it. I knew I could.
I don’t know how this had turned around so I was convincing myself, but the relief at feeling like maybe Sam and I could get this ridiculous tension out of our systems felt incredibly freeing.
“Maybe Sam and Icouldhave a little fun,” I said. There was something tugging at the back of my mind about that, but I was sick of letting myself be dictated by worry. I’d been doing the responsible thing since I was twenty years old—I deserved to have fun, too.
Kit nodded. But she looked close to tears.
“Kit, come on. It’s okay, I promise. I’m just nervous. I’ve never ‘hooked up’ with anyone before.” Except Sam, that first time, of course. And look how that had turned out. But I’d survived. And look where we were now. Two mature adults. Who desperately needed to have sex.
