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“It’s too bad you don’t live here, Eddie. You could take over my role as Sullivan’s best female friend and he could harass you endlessly instead of me.”
Edwina laughed, though it sounded weak to her own ears.
She couldn’t get the “message” from her grandmother out of her head.
She thinks you’re settling.
The words kept her up half the night.
Edwina pulledup the hood on her sweatshirt and yanked the drawstrings tight. “I forgot how cold it gets in the rink when you’re not the one on the ice.”
Sullivan eyed her as they sat side by side on the bench overlooking the rink. “I can barely see your face now. You’re just two eyes and a nose. A perfect nose, but just a nose.”
He couldn’t even see her lips, which was probably a good thing. He was becoming obsessed with her mouth, with tugging that lower lip with his teeth. Her hair had been drawn in over her cheeks before popping out of the bottom of the sweatshirt hood, giving her the effect of a lion’s mane. She looked beautiful and adorable and very, very kissable.
“Don’t you dare talk about my nose,” she said, but she didn’t sound angry. She hunched over and shivered, sticking a sweatshirt string in her mouth and chewing on it.
“Are you hungry?”
“No. Chewing the string warms me up.”
Totally adorable. He wanted to cuddle the hell out of her. “That makes no sense, but would you like my flannel?” He’d brought one for over his T-shirt but he was used to the cold. Both inside the rink and Minnesota in general.
She nodded eagerly. He draped it over her shoulders.
She went the extra step and slid her arms through the sleeves. Even with her bulky hoodie it was still too big for her.
Sullivan had to look away. He couldn’t look at her in his clothes. It was doing strange things to him. Warm things. Hard-on things.
He rubbed his temples and focused on the ice. Finn was sitting down, running his finger over the ice. He was oblivious to the instructor and the other kids, who were practicing how to balance on their skates.
It was tempting to yell out to him to pay attention, especially considering what the damn lessons cost, but he didn’t want to call Finn out in front of his peers. He also had a habit that he wasn’t sure was good or bad, but it was heavily ingrained, of giving Finn a pass because he’d lost his mom.
Sullivan figured he’d handed Finn a topic for therapy later but better he was overindulgent than “Dad ignored me after Mom died,” or “Dad was a dick after Mom died.”
He’d take “Dad was a pushover.”
Besides, the kid was cute. He and Kendra had made preschool perfection. His silky floppy hair, his chubby cheeks, his big button eyes. His baby lisp he hadn’t quite outgrown yet. Sometimes Sullivan felt like he was going to just die from how much he loved Finn when he looked at him. Like, fucking keel over.
Fortunately, that hadn’t happened.
“If you could see your face right now,” Eddie said. “You love your son so much, don’t you?”
He nodded. “He’s the best thing to ever happen to me.”
“Do you want more kids someday?”
That was a tough one. “I’ve never really allowed myself to think about the possibility of having more kids.”
He couldn’t go there. He didn’t want to go there.
But if let himself float into a future where he did manage to fall in love and get married again?
Hell, yeah. Give him a whole starting lineup of kids.
“But yes, I would love to have more kids. For myself, and for Finn.”
“I can’t wait to have kids,” Eddie said.
