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Arden nestled into the crook of his arm. “I know some people aren’t into morning sex—”

“I think that’s a myth.”

“A myth?” Arden crawled on top of him and drank in the look of pure delight on his face as he gazed up at her naked body.

He nodded. She felt him grow hard under her instantly.

“Do you have another condom?”

He reached over to his wallet on the bedside table and extracted one, flourishing it triumphantly.

Arden leaned down and kissed him.

After, they slipped into easy conversation. Sam informed her that his family’s company did not have today, the day after Christmas, off, but nobody actually worked.

“That is just wrong,” Arden said.

“Teachers get like two weeks off for the holidays, right? Plus spring break and summer vacation?”

Arden nodded.

“I got into the wrong career field,” Sam joked.

“Do you like your job?”

“Some days. I like that it’s challenging. I like a lot of the people I work with. Being the boss’s son has its perks, too, sometimes. The thing that grinds me down is the—what’s the point of it all?”

Arden looked at him, unsure what he meant.

“I mean—it’s probably hard to explain to you, because your job is chock-full of meaning, right? Do you ever question why you’re doing it?”

“No. That’s true. I complain about the red tape and the low pay, but I’m there for the kids. I can’t imagine doing anything else.”

“See, I envy that. For me…” Sam rubbed his brow. “I can fool myself into getting lost in the daily challenges, feeling like I’m accomplishing something, but in reality, I feel like a fraud. Like my dad handed me this job, and that’s the only reason I’m there. I’m not sure if I’m any good at it. I’m not sure what the point of it is other than following along in my dad’s footsteps.”

“That must be hard.” Arden had never felt conflicted about her career. She knew being a public school teacher had its drawbacks—ask her bank account—but she felt fulfilled. She couldn’t imagine spending her days at a job that didn’t offer that soul-deep fulfillment. “Do you think you’ll stay there?”

Sam thought for a long moment. “I think about leaving all the time. I think about going back to grad school. Or finding a job at a nonprofit. Or finding a job at a different company, just for a new experience. But I don’t know.”

“What’s holding you back?”

“I guess the fact that my dad expects me to stay. He always thought he’d leave his company to all, or most, of his kids. But it’s only me and Ethan. The others wanted to follow their own paths. And even though I’m not as brilliant as Ethan at all the business stuff, I think Dad would be pretty devastated if I left.”

“It’s your life, though,” Arden offered.

“I know.” He sighed and rolled onto his side to face her. “Enough about me, though. What about you? Do you ever think about changing your life?”

“I mean, when I was younger, I would daydream about moving to Mexico City or somewhere cool. But…” She thought about High Springs, about the fact that she’d grown up nearby but now had no family left in the area. Did that matter, though? It was still her home, because she had built a life there. She loved her students, her friends, her little house.

“I love where I live,” she said. “I love my job. I think it’s where I want to stay, even though it’s not perfect.”

Sam nodded, and Arden’s heart twisted. They weren’t talking about them, but they sort of were, in an offhand way. She knew that Sam had his entire family here. And she also knew that she didn’t want to leave her home. The very fact that she was thinking about this was so over the top that she felt suddenly embarrassed. Surely, Sam wasn’t thinking about how they might be together in the future. She was projecting that on him. That was what she always did: got carried away with her romantic fantasies. She was determined to stop being delusional.

“Anyway,” she continued, putting some robust casualness into her voice, “I’m jealous that you have so much family around you. That’s one thing I don’t have back home. But I don’t have much family, anyway. You’re lucky.”

“I don’t know. I mean, I know I’m lucky. I love my parents and siblings. But it can feel kind of suffocating sometimes.”

“What do you mean?”