Page 20 of Playing With Forever

Evan stood to his full height, unfortunately that meant I lost the safety his closeness afforded me. With his forehead on mine, he couldn’t see me, and that made it easier to have what was surely going to be a painful conversation.

“Yes, Lindy.”

When he said no more, I filled the void.

“I get the sense you’re not comfortable with me spending time with her, and part of that has to do with us spending the night together.”

Evan nodded and took a step back. For some asinine reason, that hurt more than it should’ve.

“Since her mother left, she’s never been around a woman I’ve been involved with.”

I could read between the lines: she’d never been introduced to a woman he’d had sex with.

“How long have you been divorced?”

“Thirteen years. Lindy was seven when I left Celeste.”

Surely in thirteen years, he had been in some sort of a relationship.

“That’s smart, not introducing your daughter to a woman until you know the relationship is serious. Especially at a young age.”

“No, Josie.” He shook his head. “I haven’t been with a woman beyond sex in thirteen years. This is going to make me sound like an asshole, but the women I slept with knew what they were getting—no promises, no commitment. And in the rare times the sex happened more than once, they knew I had no intention of something exclusive or permanent and didn’t expect the same from them. So, with that, what I mean is Lindy has never so much as laid eyes on a woman I’ve been involved with.”

I wouldn’t go as far as thinking he was an asshole, he was simply honest about who he was and what he wanted, and if a woman was okay with that—no harm, no foul.

But his commitment issues, especially the part about not being exclusive, were a deal breaker for me.

“Again, that’s smart. But I think now’s the time when I tell you I don’t share. And while I haven’t been in a committed relationship since my husband cheated on me and I left with the understanding that commitment was wholly one-sided, I do not wish to start something that will undoubtedly end ugly because I know myself. I know what I need, and I forgave infidelity once. I know I could never forgive it again, and I will not knowingly enter into something with a man who has no problem with me sharing my body or my time with someone else.”

There was a flare in his eyes when I mentioned Dameon cheating on me. But it didn’t hold a candle to the way his eyes flamed when I talked about sharing my body with another man.

“As I said, it’s complicated,” he rumbled. “Part of that complication is I’d lose my mind if you shared any damn thing with another man.”

That made my heart rate kick up a notch. But it wasn’t enough.

“Evan—”

“I’m not a cheat,” he declared. “I was married ten years, with her fifteen, and never once did my mind turn to another woman. Not even when my marriage imploded and I spent the last three years of it trying to salvage what Celeste was hellbent on breaking. I don’t have a problem with commitment. I’m a single father who loves his daughter and wouldn’t allow my time or attention to be diverted to anything or anyone.”

The red flags that had been flying turned green.

But he was still a single father of a lovely young woman.

“I understand that. As you know, I’m a single mother of two boys. What you don’t know is that it was up to me to teach those boys how to be men whom I would one day have to turn out into the world. Part of what I had to teach them was to love a woman, and I did that by leaving their father. So, truly, I understand the time and attention it takes to raise children by yourself. And just to say, you’ve raised an amazing young woman who is wise beyond her years and immensely talented. I understand your wish not to take that time away from her, but I will not be anyone’s secret.”

“Secret?” he spat, as if the word tasted foul. “You’re sitting in my kitchen after spending the afternoon with my daughter. I think that ship has sailed, and even if it hadn’t, a woman like you is no man’s secret.”

Evan shifted around the island and gently pushed the lid of Lindy’s laptop closed before he rested his elbows on the granite and pinned me with a stare.

“This could turn to shit,” he warned. “All of it could blow up in our faces—those being mine, yours, Lindy’s, and our friends. I can’t see the future, I can’t promise this will be smooth, or that I won’t fuck up, or that we won’t find out we’re not right for each other and whatever we start won’t end. But I can promise I won’t step out on you—you have my word on that. I don’t want to hide whatever it is we have, but I have to tread cautious with that, and I think you get why. But just in case you don’t, I’ll explain; not only have I kept Lindy clear of the women I’ve spent time with, I’ve kept her away from women in general. Very recently, and by that I mean it started Monday night at dinner with you, it was pointed out again this afternoon that what I saw as protection was really me hiding my kid from women who could hurt her.”

I very much liked his honesty about the possibility of us exploring what was between us and not making promises he couldn’t keep, but Lindy took top billing in my response.

“Women who could hurt her?”

“Celeste and the damage she wrought is a conversation for another time. But the CliffsNotes version is my ex-wife liked drinking and going out more than she liked being a mother that didn’t change after we divorced. She exercised her share of custody for approximately a year before she was skipping out on Lindy more than she was seeing her. We had discussions about her not keeping her word to her daughter, Celeste didn’t like those conversations. I gave her another year to get her shit straight before I filed for sole custody and won. Shared custody turned into Celeste having visitation, something it’s worth noting she didn’t fight. She was happy to see her kid every other weekend. It freed up her time to go out to the bar and go out on the prowl. But those visits dried up when she met someone. They restarted when she became single. Lindy was ten when I told Celeste she either committed to being a mother and stopped jacking my girl around, or I’d put a stop to it. In the end, I didn’t have to do anything. Celeste removed herself from her daughter’s life, leaving a trail of destruction in her wake that ended with my girl heartbroken from her mother’s desertion. Watching Lindy go through that, I vowed no woman would ever get close enough to her again to cause her pain.”

Fury and revolution battled for supremacy.