Page 23 of Awaken My Heart

“Of course.” Her voice is gentle. She marches into my kitchen and stashes the ice cream in the freezer before coming back out.

I flop on my couch, and she sits next to me. “What’s happened?”

I hide my face in my hands. “I slept with Bram.”

“I knew it!” she yells. “Y’all have off the charts chemistry. Seriously hot.”

“Yeah. We were definitely hot together,” I say.

“But something happened afterwards?”

“Yes. No, not really. More or less before. When he told me he had nothing to offer me.”

“Ouch. So, a one and done kind of situation?”

I lift a shoulder in a shrug. “I guess that’s what he meant. And at the time I wasn’t expecting anything more. Sheesh that was only a few hours ago.”

Luna squeezes my knee. “But you really like him?”

“I really, really do. It just feels like more. I don’t know how to explain it. When I’m with him, it’s like everything around me stills and I feel calm and settled. I’ve never had that feeling. Alone, or with another person.”

“I get it, babe. It’s how I feel when I’m with Mason. Frankly, all it takes is the sound of his voice. I think that’s how it happens sometimes.”

“Well, it really sucks that it happened to me, but it’s one-sided.”

“We don’t know that yet,” Luna says.

“I’m pretty sure we do. I mean I get it; I can’t compete with the memory of his first wife. She gave him four kids. I certainly can’t offer the same.”

Luna already knows about my hysterectomy. It came up last week when she asked if I had any period supplies in my desk. Explaining to someone why you’re a thirty-year-old woman who doesn’t have periods anymore can be tricky. She handled it perfectly though.

Right now, though, she’s frowning at me. “Did you tell him that? Because I doubt that would be a deal breaker for him.”

“There’s no deal to be broken. It was just sex. Amazing, sweaty, dirty, ridiculously good sex, but just sex.” I hide my face again. “Dammit, we never even fully discussed the set design. I’m going to have to just let him do it all and be happy with whatever he builds. Because I sure can’t be around him now. It’ll be hard enough to face Taylor knowing that I’ve seen her Pops naked.”

Luna giggles.

“It’s not funny.”

“It kinda is though. Not your sadness, obviously. Just in the awkward, sleeping-with-a-students-grandparent-kind-of-way.”

That makes me giggle. “I mean that can’t happen very often. Maybe a student’s parent, but grandparent.”

“Most grandparents don’t look like him.”

“Damn straight. I swear my grandma looked eighty years old my entire life, until she died. Of course that was probably from her meanness. People who scowl so much get cursed with wrinkles.”

“As they should,” Luna says. “I know you didn’t actually ask for my advice, but I’m gonna give you some anyways. Be patient with him. I don’t think this is over between the two of you. Call it a gut feeling. I mean as far as I know, he’s never so much as gone on a date since his wife died. This is probably new for him too.”

I want to believe in her gut feeling, but I’m a realist. That’s not how my life tends to work out.

“How about some ice cream and funny cat videos?” Luna suggests.

“Sounds perfect.” I’ll allow myself the rest of today to be sad about Bram. Then tomorrow I need to put on my sassy pants and focus on my kids and my job.

chapter

sixteen