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“Okay, okay. Next Sunday,” she relented.
Lawson smirked victoriously.
Patience wasn’t a strength of his.
“Next Sunday.”
Nora woke the same way she had the previous two mornings—naked beneath the sheets. Lawson was sleeping soundly beside her. The hour was too early for the sun, but peering at his outline through the darkness was enough to conjure their most recent intimate memories. Their love making felt like something more than making up for lost time. While it seemed plausible that Nora’s celibacy could have attributed to her sexual hunger for such a capable lover, it wasn’t that simple, either.
When they were alone, the pull toward one another was undeniable. But when they came together as one, their connection felt totally and completely desperate—like they couldn’t get close enough; they couldn’t express themselves enough; they couldn’t love each other enough—but they would die trying.
Nora-Jean closed her eyes at the thought. She then drew in a deep breath through her nose. Three days. In just three days, her bed didn’t smell likeheranymore. It smelled like them. The scent was distracting, to say the least. Her longing to be alone with her thoughts had peaked to the point of beingoverwhelming. Even though she was the only one awake, she wasn’t alone enough.
She needed some fresh air.
As quietly as possible, she slipped out of bed. She got dressed in the dark, feeling through her dresser drawers for her warmest clothing. She didn’t much care what she looked like in what was likely a pair of mismatched sweats and thick socks. Rather, aware that time would slip away from her faster than she’d like, she tiptoed out of the room and headed straight for the kitchen.
While she waited impatiently for her coffee to brew, the light from the Christmas tree across the room conjured even more memories. She thought about all theoohsandahhsEvie had murmured from the backseat of Lawson’s truck. She replayed the exchanges between her man and her child throughout the night. She reheard the Christmas songs on the radio Lawson endured as she and Evie sang. Finally, she remembered Lawson’s insistence that he would carry her sleeping daughter to her bed.
It did something to her—seeing Evie draped around Lawson like that.
The moment her coffee was finished, she poured a healthy amount into a tumbler mug, doctoring it the way she liked before securing the lid on top. She took it with her, grabbed a blanket off the couch, and opened the sliding door to her tiny balcony in order to step outside. It was cold, but the air was crisp and fresh, and one breath of it relaxed her. Wrapping herself in the blanket, she curled up in the wicker chair she kept out there and cradled her coffee as she let her thoughts come.
The imagine in her mind of Lawson holding Evie made her think about Creed. Or, more accurately, theabsenceof him. It was thewayhe’d left that made her despise him so much. He’d betrayed her when he stole her music. That had hurt more than the loss of their relationship. Yet, he’d also left her scared andalone. Then when Evie was born, when Nora could put a face to exactly who he’d abandoned, it only solidified how she felt about him.
After so many years, Nora never thought she’d have to confront whether it was right or wrong to keep the truth about Evie’s father from her. He had chosen a life without his daughter, and Evie didn’t deserve the pain that came along with that rejection. In a way, he’d made the dynamic of their family easier. There was no need to talk about a man Evie would never meet.
Now, Creed was a wildcard. If he showed up once, who was to say he wouldn’t show up again? Suddenly, keeping the truth from Evie felt more like a lie than it had before. Her father wanted to meet her, and Nora had said no, for what she considered to be obvious reasons.
Would Evie resent her for that one day?
Like so many other parenting decisions, it was incredibly difficult to weigh the consequences of her choices which wouldn’t come to fruition until her daughter was much older. As short-sighted as it seemed, the best she could do was think aboutnow.
Nora-Jean wanted Evelyn Belle to be a child in possession of all of her innocence for as long as she could be, which meant Nora had to be the shield which protected her daughter from unnecessary complications. Creed would make Evie’s life complicated. Unless he had plans of sticking around and committing—which she didn’t think was possible—her decision was no. He’d had his chance in the very beginning, and he threw it all away for fame.
She still couldn’t say whether she was right or wrong. It was hard to fully grasp whether this was her choice or Evie’s, but she’d made up her mind.
The problem was, denying Creed was a painful reminder that her daughter didn’t know what it was like to have a father. Strong, determined, and committed as Nora-Jean was, she could only ever be a mother to Evie. And while that was far from nothing, she knew it wasn’teverything, either.
Again, the memory of Evie draped over Lawson came to the forefront of her mind. She remembered his invitation to Sunday dinner, and the thought of what it meant to have Lawson as part of their lives hit anew.
Choosing to be with Lawson was way bigger than Evie having a new friend. He came with a family, too—a family Nora-Jean knew would welcome her daughter with open arms. That’s the kind of people they were. But if Creed was a complication, the Steele family had the potential to be cataclysmic. Being loved by them was everything. They were the fairytale to someone who grew up the way she did. Nora knew this from years of experience. But losing them was earth shattering.
As much as Nora wanted to believe in forever with Lawson—like she did when she was fourteen, or eighteen, or even twenty-three—life, and a series of choices she’d made along the way, taught her that nothing was guaranteed.
It had been three days since the kiss that changed everything. The woman in her—the most selfish part of her—wanted Lawsondesperately. But the mother in her was still afraid; afraid because she was in love with a man who made her daughter pancakes for breakfast on Saturday morning, and drove her around for hours to look at Christmas lights, and carried her to bed when she was heavy with sleep; afraid because she knew her mini-me was bound to fall in love with Lawson, too. And as beautiful as she knew it could be, as much as she wanted them to be a family, it felt more complicated than simple.
She’d lost it all before. She wouldn’t be able to bear it if she lost it all again—iftheylost it all.
Nora-Jean pulled in a startled breath at the sound of the door sliding open beside her. The sun was on its way up, but it was still briskly cold—cold enough for Lawson to frown down at her as he stepped outside to join her in nothing but the jeans he’d worn the day before.
“Baby, what are you doin’? It’s freezin’ out here. Come back inside.”
She didn’t move. She stared up at him, her eyes welling with tears as she let herself feel hopelessly in love with him. Regardless of the consequences, she wasn’t strong enough to protect herself from wanting him—for her and for Evie.
“Nora, baby, what’s wrong?” he asked, squatting down next to her.
Extracting a hand from underneath her blanket, she swept a bit of hair behind his ear and cradled the side of his face before she murmured, “I love you.”
