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What I owe my children isn’t the biggest house or the fanciest trips. What I owe them is simply a place where they feel safe, where they’ll be accepted for exactly who and what they are.
And that place will never be with Jeremy.
13
LUCIE
The man hovering near my cubicle Friday morning is blond and attractive—if you put him in a lineup of Hemsworth brothers, he’d fit right in, and he grins with the confidence of a guy who is well aware he looks like a Hemsworth too. “I’m Wyatt Smith. Kayleigh said you were back here.”
“You’re the marathoner,” I reply, forcing myself to return some version of his smile though I can’t imagine what he wants from me. “I’ve heard about you.”
He shrugs. “Yep. I’m the troublemaker. That’s kind of why I’m here. I figured I should take myself out of the running for the grand prize. I’d rather be the hero than the guy everyone hates.”
“That’s really nice of you.”
His mouth curves on one side. “But I do have an ulterior motive, actually.”
I sigh.Of course you do. At least, unlike Jeremy, he’s admitting it.
“I thought showing you what a super guy I am might convince you to go out with me.”
I freeze. I haven’t been asked out in years.Hit on, sure, usually by married dads at St. Ignatius or Jeremy’s gross fraternity brothers. And it’s what I want, isn’t it—another shot at the fairy tale? He’s as good a candidate as any. I don’t know why I’m more horrified than pleased.
“I...but you’ve never seen me before,” I stammer.
He laughs. “Everyone in the building has seen you. You’re kind of the talk of the fourth floor.”
I’m shaking my headnobefore I’ve even formed a response.
There’s nothing wrong with this guy, but something inside me saysno. No, this one isn’t your prince.
“I just...I have kids, and I’m recently separated. I haven’t even filed for divorce. So I’m not ready to date.”
He smiles, white teeth and smile lines on full display. “So you’re saying...maybe. Once you’ve filed.”
Shouldn’t I be charmed by his persistence, by his cockiness? Somehow, he leaves me cold.
“I’m sorry. I have no clue when I’ll be ready, if ever.”
Agreeing when you’re not sure is how you wind up with another PrinceSort ofCharming, and I want the real thing or nothing at all.
“YOU SAIDNO?” Molly shouts over a glass of wine on my deck. “Chris Hemsworth asks you out and you sayno?”
I laugh. “I didn’t say he was Chris Hemsworth. And if you keep yelling, you’ll wake the twins.”
She wrinkles her nose. Her feelings about children are much like Caleb’s. “Why the hell didn’t you go for it?”
I hug my wine to the center of my chest. “I don’t know. I’ve told you this...I want the fairy tale the next time around.”
“You’re not being realistic.”
“That’s rich, coming from a woman who just told me shewas going to disable her car so her boss would give her a ride home.”
She sighs. “Anyway, you’ve got to fuck a few frogs before you kiss your prince there, Cinderella, and you deserve a couple years of no-strings sex because I guarantee Jeremy sucked in bed. I know his type.”
Jeremy’s the only guy I’ve ever slept with, so I have no idea if she’s right. I’ve always been under the impression that sex is nowhere near as exciting as people make it out to be, while Jeremy insisted I was simply ‘broken.’ I wish I knew which of us was correct. Probably him.
“He just wasn’t the guy. I don’t know why.”
