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“Then let me help.”
“Only if you’re sure?”
I want to smooth the hair from her face, cradle her cheek, lean down and press my lips against hers as tenderly as I’m able. But even if that wouldn’t be completely insane, I know I wouldn’t be able to stay tender for long.
I’d end up snapping into carnal passion, gripping those wide hips, and pulling her into my lap.
“You’re going to give me a family,” I’d growl in her ear. “Your body’s going to swell with our baby soon. We’re going to be tied together forever. No other man will ever get to touch you.”
“Triston,” she says, calling me back to the present. “The light.”
I look up, seeing she’s right. The light has turned green.
I press down on the pedal and continue down the road.
We don’t say anything for a few minutes. Tamia rests her forehead against the glass, watching the city drift by. I look at her every chance I get, wishing I could take a picture of her, capturing her when she looks so beautiful, so vulnerable, so perfect for me.
Suddenly, the age gap doesn’t matter.
At least, to me.
That doesn’t mean she wouldn’t find it strange.
“Thank you, Triston,” she says, breaking the silence. “I’ll select a few cameras and maybe send them to you, in an email? Or I can text you the links. That way you can tell me if they’re too expensive or not.”
“You can text me,” I growl.
That way I’ll have her number.
But what the hell am I going to do with it?
“You can give my number to Alexis, as well, if you want,” she says. “It might be nice to text a little before we meet.”
There it is, another reason I can’t act on this.
What if Alexis and Tamia become friends?
I can’t ruin that.
CHAPTER FOUR
Tamia
I lie in bed, holding my phone to my ear, my body sore after a long day at the restaurant followed by a couple of hours at the sports center where I work as a cleaner.
“I’m sorry to call so late,” Alexis says, the woman who now has Lisa’s heart. “But texting felt rude. Dad told me you weren’t angry. You wanted to meet. But…”
“It’s okay. You wanted to make sure. I understand.”
She sighs. “Thank you. Yes, that’s exactly it.”
My tired mind recalls the workday, how difficult it was to focus on serving the restaurant’s patrons when all I could think about was Triston.
I kept remembering the way he would glance at me in the car, with that unreadable look in those intense eyes of his.
And then there was that moment when he specifically told me he didn’t have a wife or a girlfriend.
Did he want me to know he was single?
Surely he was just being nice. That’s far more likely than the alternative.
Smoothing my hand over my chest, I wish I could quiet the pulsing deep within, the spiraling feelings that originate in… I can hardly think of it.
But it feels like it comes from my heart.
It’s like my body is telling me I’ve found the man I’m going to be with forever, the man who’s going to gift me with the family I never had.
“Tamia?” Alexis says.
“Sorry,” I murmur.
I was daydreaming about your dad.
But I’m not going to add that part.
“Do you want to meet?” she asks tentatively.
It’s like there’s a war being waged inside me, my pounding heart the battleground. One part of me wants to say yes because it’s what Lisa wanted and she was my best friend, my sister in all but name.
And yet getting close to Alexis, what would that mean for me and Triston?
But there’s the thing.
There is no me and Triston.
And, really, there’s no world in which I go against Lisa’s wishes.
“Yes,” I say. “I think that would be nice. Your dad said you’re into photography?”
“Yeah. He said the same about you.”
“I am. I try to be. But it’s difficult… he said he was going to help pay for my equipment. Is that okay?”
“Of course, it is,” Alexis says ardently. “If you need help, we’re here. Plus – well, this is a little awkward to say… Dad has money. He has enough that it’s not a big deal to him. Don’t get me wrong. He’s worked his butt off. He wasn’t born rich. But now he’s able to enjoy the fruit of his labors.”
“What does he do if you don’t mind me asking?”
Alexis laughs softly. “Why would I mind you asking?”
I smooth my hand over my chest, trying to calm my erratic heart. I can feel a thousand instincts rising up inside of me, telling her father is the man meant for me.
I’ll never be able to let her father go. I’ll never be able to forget about him.
I feel like we’re already together.
In my mind, we’re ready to start a life, a family, even if we’ve only met once.
