Page 50 of Fairy Godmothers Aren't Cheap

And yeah, maybe I was weird for feeling lonely and wanting what my parents had—their best friend, confidant, and lover all wrapped into one person, one relationship.

But who wouldn’t want that? Other than Char. But I had a feeling she’d been hurt in a way that made her believe she couldn’t have it.

My guy friends rode me hard for wanting to be married. But when you could see the future, there was no point screwing around. You found the right woman, someone you wanted to spend every hour with, and you took it from there. Done deal.

Char wasn’t on that same page with me, which meant I needed to head home and go for a very long run to work her out of my system. Then I needed to find someone new to obsess over. And definitely not think about how Char’s jeans hugged her curves in a very enticing way every time she dropped down into catcher’s position.

Just imagine what kind of baseball kids we’d have. Summers spent in a fifth-wheel, travelling to games and tournaments, camping out as a family, living the baseball lifestyle.

Shake it off, man. Shake it off.

That wasn’t the future she was actively looking for.

“James?”

I was almost to my car when I heard her sweet voice from her front step where I’d dropped her off like the sucker gentleman I was—not even trying to angle my way inside or finding an opportunity to see what her cherry lips tasted like.

Why couldn’t I get her out of my head? She’d even told me that pursuing her would be a waste of time. On Friday she said that she saw no point in dating someone you knew wouldn’t make the distance.

We were looking for different things. We weren’t two people that would make the distance.

And still, I turned too fast, too eager. “Yeah? Do you want to go donate blood?”

What?

That was embarrassing. Donate blood? Total cringe, man.

“Um. Okay. Sure.”

I nodded. I had no clue where you donated blood or when. “I’ll, uh…text you.”

“Great. So, um, that lot…” She was gazing down the street, and I craned my neck to try to see what she was referring to. “The empty one.”

“Oh. Right?” She’d told me about a kid getting hurt in it last night.

“Do you think… How hard would it be to make that into a park?”

She’d left the step, moving closer. The streetlight above us clicked on, and she looked up at me with perfect eyes. Gentle. Kind. Sweet. And still totally wild and untamed. That was my Char.

She wasn’t the type of woman I could run out of my system. Not even if I ran all day and all night. I had a feeling that I’d just loop right back to her each and every time I thought I was finally far enough away that she’d no longer have an effect on me.

“You want to make it into a park?” I asked.

She nodded, eyes lit up with determination and inspiration. “I’m going to find out who owns it, but I don’t know what to do after that.” She was holding her breath, like admitting she might be in need of help was new to her.

“I know some people.”

“Yeah?” Her whole face brightened, hooking my heart like a fish on the line. I’d do anything for that smile. Anything.

CHAPTER13

~ Char ~

After work on Wednesday, I waited for the walk signal to change several blocks from Estelle’s office. I was feeling good. James had sent me numerous milkshake memes over the day, and I’d replied with baseball jokes. It was silly and juvenile, and I’d loved every second of it. We were flirting so hard, it was like my brain had forgotten that, romantically, he was a nonstarter because of our relationship expectations.

All it could scream at me was “HE LIKES ME!! THE HOTTIE LIKES ME!!”

So maybe it didn’t matter that I’d never be the kind of woman he wanted for his long-term, love-nest plan. We were young. We had the ‘right here, right now’, to take advantage of. Maybe I could allow myself to forget about all the ways I wasn’t the ideal woman for this hunky Viking of a man who was crushing on me, and just crush back on him and enjoy the feeling.

---