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Twelve
Emery
I couldn’t be more furious with myself about last night. I’d been so close to paradise. Spending the night alone with Holden in his house. Coming as loud as I wanted to. Seeing all of him. Allllll of him.
Had I tried to win the masochist award?
I’d apologized to him for leaving him unresolved. His hard-on had obviously flagged with the topic of discussion, but when I apologized—because I felt like I should still be profusely apologizing—he’d given me a kiss.I’m a grown man, Em. I can handle an erection.
Em.
I liked when he called me Em. When Henry had said it yesterday, I’d had an immediate urge to wash his mouth out with soap.
I pushed the vacuum through the house like I was being timed and the prize was that someone else would dust.
Before I left my job at the hospital, divorced friends told me to use the time without the kids to treat myself. They said that I’d need it after the rat race of working full-time with four kids and no full-time partner. I could understand that, but it was also a treat to clean with music blasting and not have to splinter myself into a cleaner, a babysitter, a delegate, and an entertainer.
My downtime joy was cleaning. How fucked up was that?
Mostly it burned off the anxious energy that’d been gathering since I’d left Holden’s.
What had I been thinking?
Like I could be the one to break his heart? That I was so special and he’d be so devastated when I told him I didn’t want to get married and have to juggle how my kids would adapt to a stepdad.
The poor guy…
I shut the vacuum off. Pushing hair from my face, I glanced at my phone. Dammit, it wasn’t even noon yet. I’d have plenty of time for self-care.
Was this how my weekends alone would go?
I missed my kids, but they needed to be with their dad when he was willing to be involved in their lives.
I jumped when my phone rang. It was Holden.
I was staring at the screen like I was waiting for the letters to rearrange into another name when it rang again. Shit. I answered. “Hello?”
“Hey, Em.” There it was again. “I just wanted to make sure everything’s all right. Landon wasn’t at the game.”
I closed my eyes. Henry had the school schedule and sports schedule. “That asshole probably didn’t want to bring him back to town and go back again.” His time was so precious.
“Oh, good. Okay. I just wanted to make sure.”
I’d left this guy with a set of blue balls and told him rumors that had filled his eyes with a stunned hurt that broke my heart, and he was checking in about my son. “Are you still in town?”
“Yeah, the game got done. I was going to grab a bite and head home.”
“Want to come over here?”
He paused, and I was certain he’d turn me down. Why would he want to see me after I ditched him the way I had?
“Sure. You want anything to eat?”
“No, I was just—” I bit down on my lower lip, but the words spilled out anyway. “I was just thinking that I was worried your place signified too much but my house is just some rental…”
I squeezed my eyes shut. Oh, God, that was bad.
“Be right there.”
