Page 150 of Double Fault

“I know.” She scrolls to another email from Lucy, this one with images of a nautical-themed nursery. “You’re just so…you. It surprises me that anything would rattle you.”

“I don’t know whether to be flattered you think I’m so impenetrable or hurt.”

She types out a response to Lucy’s question about whether the nautical thing has been overdone. “Just be flattered.”

“Do Lucy and Alyssa know what they’re having yet?”

“No.” She clicks on another email. “They’re team green.”

“Team green?” I shift to face her. “What the fuck is that?”

“They’re waiting until the baby is born to find out the gender.”

I frown. “I don’t know if I could wait.” With a thick swallow, I assess her, one particular question rolling around in my head. “Do you want kids?”

Her sigh is a light one. “Yeah, one day.”

I try to hide my smile, but when her lips tip up, mine follow. We still haven’t put a label on what we are, but I can’t help but think this is as serious for her as it is for me. I could see a future like that for us. One with marriage and babies. But not until I retire. I don’t plan to play forever. I’d rather stop while I’m ahead and hopefully, in a few years, have more kids and be a present father figure. Maddie’s wonderful, and she’s taken this lifestyle in stride since it’s all she knows, but I want to do things differently in the future.

All of my thoughts drift away when I spot one of her email’s subjects.

Position Opening.

I point at it. “What’s that?”

“Oh.” She turns to me. “I was going to talk to you about that. There’s an open teaching position back home. It’s fifth grade, which I’d love, but it starts in August. I asked for more information but I… I’m not going to take it. I can’t leave you and Maddie like that.”

Chest tightening, I press my lips together.

I knew from day one that her aspirations did not include being a nanny. Teaching has always been her goal. As happy as she seems with us, it’s understandable that her dreams haven’t changed.

“Sabrina.” I swallow past the lump in my throat. “If it wasn’t for Maddie and me, would you take the job?”

Her silence is deafening. The way she keeps her focus on the screen rather than on me is telling.

“Sabrina?” I prompt.

She clears her throat. “Yes.” The answer is succinct. Unsurprising, really.

Heart sinking, I shove my fingers through my hair.

“It’s okay,” she goes on. “There will be other jobs.”

Jaw locked tight, I side-eye her. “If I remember correctly, you were struggling to get hired on at the local schools. That’s why you’re stuck with me.”

Her shoulders fall. “Don’t say it like that.”

I rub my jaw, my brain frantically scrambling for a solution that would allow her to follow her dream without taking her away from me. Time and again, I come up empty.

If she stays on the tour with us, it’ll be well into November by the time we head home. By then, finding a teaching position will be next to impossible. I’d have no problem paying for her tostay with us and care for Maddie, but if we’re going to date in earnest, I don’t know how she’d feel continuing to work for me. Sabrina doesn’t strike me as the kind of woman to like that her boyfriend’s paying her salary.

Bitter regret forms inside me, turning my stomach. Why the fuck haven’t we talked about this? God, I’m a selfish asshole. My career has taken the front seat day in and day out, and that’s not fair to her. She has her own dreams, and they existed long before I came along.

“Sabrina.” I grasp her hand and rub my thumb over her knuckles. “You have to take the job. This traveling thing… it worked for me and Annie because she wanted it too. She didn’t care about college. Once Maddie was here, all she wanted was to be with us. But you have other dreams, and you deserve the opportunity to pursue them.”

Heat pricks at the backs of my eyes, but I choke it back.

“And shit. Annie and I… I’ve been so fucking selfish. Maybe she did have other goals and I was too blinded by my own to see them. I don’t want to hold you back.”

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