Page 68 of Can't Get Enough

“You be getting that no-kids sleep,” Nelly sighs.

“Honey, I wouldn’t trade it for the world,” I joke.

Rolling her eyes, Nelly slips the sleep mask down and slumps into her buttery soft leather seat. “Wake me when we get to the weed.”

“No kids for you?” Maverick asks, his voice lower, softer, and impossibly sexier with the effort of not disturbing Nelly’s sleep and Kashawn’s concentration.

“Nah.” I rest my hands flat on the table in front of me. “I know most people don’t get it, but I’m just not cut out for motherhood.”

He nods his head toward the empty seat beside me. “May I?”

The quiet enclosing us pulls tight, packed with heat as our eyes lock. I force myself to glance away before I get lost in that searching look. I could tell him that I’m working. I could ask him to sit somewhere else so I can focus.

But I won’t.

“You can sit anywhere you want, right?” I ask, tapping on my iPad. “It’s your plane.”

“Technically, it’s not.” He settles into the seat beside me. “So you don’t ever want kids?”

I roll my eyes and force my shoulders back, relaxing into the soft cushion. “Kids aren’t for everyone.”

“I have one and I agree with you,” he says with a laugh. “I’m in the ‘one is enough’ club.”

He sobers, the smile dying on his lips as he slants a glance at me.

“Zere and I could never see eye to eye on that.”

I turn my head to study him, expecting his expression to be a wall, but it’s more of an open door.

“Do you ever regret it?” I ask. “Like do you think it would have been worth it to compromise?”

“I haven’t regretted it one day. My father tells me he would havedone anything to be with my mother, so maybe that’s how I know Zere and I weren’t supposed to be. I wouldn’t have been able to walk away. I didn’t feel that way. I have a beautiful daughter I’m proud of and would die for, and that’s it. I didn’t want any more.”

“I respect that. My two closest friends are the best moms, and I get why that’s right for them.” I let my gaze drift to the tarmac just beyond the window. “I knew pretty early on that I didn’t want that. When I was really young, I used to say I wanted kids because that’s what the world tells you. That’s what everyone expects, and you don’t always know how to be different at that age. You just fall in line. You’re still a child yourself when they shove a baby doll in your hands and saypretend you’re the mommy. Even that young they telegraph that this is what you’resupposedto do.”

I run my finger along the cool edge of my iPad and smile dryly.

“But by the time I got to college, I knew I didn’t want that. People always ask why I don’t want kids, like it’s not enough to just know you don’t. I don’t ask anyone to defend their decision tohavechildren. So why should I have to defend my decisionnotto?”

“You shouldn’t have to,” he says.

“No, but the world is constantly demanding thatwhy. There are women like me who are mothering in our own ways, but have never carried a child or been a parent. We’re teachers and mentors and social workers and godmothers. We find ways to pour love into the world, to shape the world for good without bearing a child. It’s not about our wombs. It’s about our hearts and how we share them. That is bodily agency—me getting to decide what I do with my body in this life.”

“That’s…” Maverick’s stare doesn’t waver from mine. “Wow, that’s beautiful, Hendrix. I hadn’t thought of it like that, but now I will.”

“Most people don’t think of it that way. Certainly not most men.” I shrug and scoff. “I had a boyfriend once, someone I got pretty serious with in my twenties. He said he understood where I was coming from, that I didn’t want kids, but deep down he thought he could change me.When it came down to it, he thought I would cave and choose being with him over being who I believe I’m supposed to be. That’s not love.”

“Any idea where is he now?”

“He’s a car salesman in New Jersey, last I heard. Beautiful wife and three kids. I hope he’s very happy. I hopeshe’svery happy, but that would have felt like a prison termfor me.”

“Zere felt that way,” he says. “I mean, that she could change my mind. People ask me the secret to my success. I guess I could spout a bunch of bullshit, but I think the thing that stands out to me is that I’ve always been certain. Not about life, but about what I want from it. That has really focused me in a way that a lot of people early in life aren’t. I see that in you, too. I respect it.”

I’m not sure what to say to that, but don’t have to respond right away because the flight attendant walks through to prepare us for takeoff. She offers champagne and food, which we both pass on. Once she returns to the front of the plane, a tight silence gathers between Maverick and me. I try to ignore the heat coming off his body and the clean scent that tortures me if I breathe too deeply. I deliberately keep my eyes trained on the hand-tufted floor covering, ignoring the querying looks he keeps sending my way. He clears his throat and shifts in his seat.

“So how’re your mom and aunt?” he asks. “Things better when you left?”

“Yeah.” Ironically, the most difficult aspect of my life—my mother’s condition—offers a lifeline into safer conversational waters. “After that episode last week, she was better. She’ll go hours, even a few days, where things seem almost normal, and then she’ll just get out of step. Her mind is like this chain on a bike that slips when you least expect it, and you just land in a ditch. Forget riding until that chain is back on.”

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