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“I feel the same way. When I’m around you, it feels like something inside me just”—I struggle to find the right words—“takes over. I literally have to restrain myself from kissing you good morning every day. At night, I can barely fall asleep because it’s like there’s this craving inside me. I swear I can hear your heartbeat through the wall and I just want to get into bed with you and—”
He puts his hands up. “Whoa. Don’t say any more.”
“Why? That’s how I feel.”
“I know. And I feel it, too.” He leans across the table and whispers, “I fucking feel it, too.”
“Isn’t that good?” My voice wavers with brimming hope.
“If things were different, hell yeah, it’d be fucking amazing. But you’re eighteen.” He punctuates each syllable, driving it like a wedge between us.
I blink at him while pushing my spoon through my melting ice cream. “So?”
He stares at me with his full lips slightly parted. “The teen at the end of that word is a real fucking problem for me, Penny.”
“I’m almost nineteen.”
“Still have that teen attached to it, sweetheart. I don’t think I can get past that, no matter how much I wish I could.”
I’ve never felt my age. I’m a year and a half away from relinquishing the teen title. Does he really want to suspend our feelings for each other that long over a silly word and meaningless number?
“Don’t look at me like that,” he says, shaking his head. “If you cry, it’s going to break my heart.”
Desperate, I force back the tears of frustration. Letting them stream down my cheeks will only cement my immaturity into his brain, which is the last thing I want to do.
I’m not a child. I’m a grown woman fighting for her man.
“I’m not crying, Alex,” I say evenly. “I’m waiting for a better explanation than my age because, teen at the end of my age or not, I am a legal adult.”
“Barely.”
I pin my gaze on him. “Do you think I’m immature? Is that it?”
“No. It has nothing to do with how you look or act, Penny. It’s that I’ve known you since you were a little kid. It’s that you’re eighteen, right out of high school, and I’m thirty-nine. You’re the same age as my daughter.”
“You were very young when you had Lily.”
“It doesn’t change the facts. You’re her best friend. She’ll freak the hell out if she finds out. She might hate us both and never speak to us again. I can’t risk that now when I’ve finally got her in my life.”
My head begins to ache with a horrible game of tug-of-war. Part of me agrees with him. I am much younger than him. And I couldn’t live with myself if we hurt Lily and caused her to shut us both out. But another part of me can’t accept anything he’s saying. A little voice is screaming, but we belong together, from the depths of my soul.
This time, it’s him who reaches across the table to pull my hand into his. His wedding ring presses against my finger. Shiny, engraved, familiar.
“I’m not gonna lie, Penny. I’ve got feelings for you I never thought I’d have again. There’s definitely a connection here that I can’t even explain. I wish things were different. I can see myself happy with you. I want that so fucking bad. For the first time in eighteen years, I can see something other than a dark, endless tunnel in front of me.” Our hands squeeze each other tighter, wanting to hold on and run from that tunnel. “You inspired me to get out of the house. To get a damn car. To want to look good again. To want a new beginning. I love being with you. But as right as it might feel, I can’t sit here and ignore that it’s wrong.” His beautiful brown eye searches mine. “It’s the totally right person, wrong time, and I fucking hate it. It’s another cruel twist of fate.”
My temple twitches, sending warmth down the side of my skull, then travels to my chest, where it lingers like burning embers. A subtle shift straightens my spine, calms the rhythm of my heart, and dries my eyes. I wet my lips and smile.
“Then time will do what it always does. It will move forward, and it will bring me closer to you, where I belong. I have faith in that.”
Cocking his head to the side, he squints at me. “What just happened there?”
“What do you mean?”
His brow divides with curiosity. “Your entire demeanor changed. Even your voice sounded different.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m just agreeing with you. I don’t want to see you torn up this way. We know in our hearts we want to be together; it’s just not the right time. Right now. But until it is, we can enjoy each other’s company, right?”
