Page 50 of Flirty Thirty

I let out a breath, pulling the brush away to study my work. “I would hate think that because you have to make some hard decisions today, that you start to doubt that you have one.”

He meets my gaze, the amused glint in his eyes slowly fading into something else entirely. The power behind his stare sucks the breath straight from my lungs, causing my heart to work that much harder to keep me upright.

“You heard?”

I lift a shoulder. “A little. You mad?”

His hand covers mine still poised near his chest, fingers weaving and making me lose my grip. The paint brush tumbles end over end to the floor, forever staining the carpet with this moment that somehow already feels significant. The small of my back warms with his touch as he pulls me even closer, our bodies melding in a comfort comparable to a warm bed on a cold morning.

He takes the first step into a soft waltz, and I follow his lead, grinning against his chest in a sweet realization that this is another thing I didn’t believe I wanted, or would ever enjoy, yet I find myself wanting to stay under the covers, in a manner of speaking. Impromptu dancing to nonexistent music was more likely to happen in the movies, never to someone as unromantic as I am.

As I was…

My fingers tighten between his, and I leave the foreign emotion I feel in this moment unspoken, though I’m pretty sure I’ve discovered exactly what it is.

19

Love Bug

I flip to my side, blowing out a frustrated breath in the darkness. It’s 2:30, and I haven’t had an ounce of sleep. I never had this problem B.C. (before Cooper), but it seems a side effect of falling for the man is insomnia.

My hands flop onto the bed sheets, nothing disturbing either Tom or Cooper as they sleep soundly on the other side of the massive king-size. Mr. Grumpy Butt has set up camp alongside Cooper’s bare back, stretched out so much that his front paws rest near Cooper’s hip and his tail curls up over Cooper’s upper back.

If Cooper woke up, he’d probably pretend to hate his new cuddle buddy, but I know better, and the realization that I know that much about him crashes into my stomach and makes it that much harder to sleep.

He’s a stomach sleeper. His muscular back rises and falls with his heavy breathing and the comforter rests across his hips. If I wasn’t afraid of waking him, I’d stroke a finger down the line of his spine and trace over the hills and valleys of muscle that cover his body. Imagining it alone has my thighs clenched together, but what’s more concerning is the fact that it isn’t his muscles at all that have my heart pitter-pattering and my mind refusing to shut down.

It’s because when I touch him, he gets a twitch in the corner of his mouth that is so freaking adorable that it makes me want to touch him any chance I can get. It’s the hopeful, childlike look in his blue eyes when I agree to whatever mundane task he’s asked me to do for him. It’s the word vomit he spouts at the most random of moments that make me blush and take my breath away. It’s watching his nose wrinkle when one of my cats jumps up on his lap. It’s the wince that pinches at his forehead when I stick my cold feet on him. It’s the content and joy that rests in his eyes when he held my nephew, or when he had tea with my niece.

I reach out, but stop halfway to his back and quickly flip onto my other side. How did this happen? A couple weeks with him and a lifetime of views have flipped on its head. I push the comforter off of me, flinging Kat to Cooper’s side of the bed and causing Tom to let out a low growl. I stand at the foot of the bed and wait, watching Cooper until I know for certain I haven’t woken him up.

There’s a smile on his lips, and he’s totally snoring. He’s even adorable while sleeping. Damn him.

I tiptoe across the carpet and sneak into the hallway. The house is so big, so quiet. It feels weird to me, suddenly, even though this was essentially my dream. Make money, buy a huge house just for me. No kids to make noise, no relationship outside of the one with my cats. A place to have cocktail parties—if that’s even a thing anymore—or to entertain people, but mostly to just have all this space to myself. As I listen to the silence—minus Cooper’s cute snores—that seems so… empty.

“But I’ll travel,” I whisper out loud, like I’m trying to convince myself that I haven’t changed my mind. “I won’t have to find babysitters or compromise on where I go and what I do when I get there. It’s going to be so great.”

But even putting a voice to it doesn’t make it sound so great. Cooper’s snoring isn’t helping things either because suddenly I feel like I could listen to that sound every night for the rest of my life andthatwould be great.

I shake my head and start down the stairs, putting as much distance as I can between my ears and his snores. I need a wake-up call—some cure for the love bug bite. After rummaging through the fridge and cupboards and coming up with nothing that sounds good, I wander around the house, going from floor to floor, from room to room, arguing with myself the entire time.

When I step into basement and hear water lapping, I slip off my slippers and push open the door to the pool. The air in here is sticky and humid, but it clouds my head with thoughts of that instead of the other, so I already feel better.

The pool is surrounded by windows, all fogged from the heat rising off the water. I can’t see any stars, the night sky either clouded over or the windows too foggy to see clearly through. I rub my arms, not from being cold—I’m very much the opposite even in my pajama shorts and cami—but to try to rub out the jittery feeling running under my skin. I’ve spent two weeks with Cooper here in this house, a house that is neither of ours, and as determined as I was that I wouldn’t fall, I feel myself slipping off the edge. Thoughts of a future with him keep invading my mind, keeping me awake, making me equally excited and terrified.

I’ve been with other men for much longer, and never did I entertain the ideas that have been running wild in my head. I’ve found myself wondering what our house would look like someday, if I can convince him to build one, and then I shake myself out of it, shocked that my mind went in that direction so naturally. I’ve paused at wedding magazines in the checkout, doodled his name on Post-Its in my office, wondered about when I should let him meet the rest of my family.

And now, as I sit on the edge of the pool and dip my feet in the surprisingly warm water, the thought that enters into my head is that if I’m meant to have babies, I want them to be his babies.

I bury my face into my hands and try to breathe. For years I’ve argued my point, driven it home to all my family and friends who asked. It’s okay to not want kids. It’s okay to want to stay single. It’s okay to have fun and live my life the wayIwant to live it. Admitting that I’m starting to see something different,wantsomething different, feels like I’m admitting that I was wrong.

I don’t think I was wrong at all. Some people don’t want a family, and that’s okay. But wanting a family isn’t wrong either. Wanting the wedding, the house in the suburbs, the kids running wild… that’s not insanity. It’s not a false hope. It’s just someone else’s dream. And seeing Cooper want it so badly, and falling for him not despite it, butbecauseof it, now makes it feel like my dream, too.

A low grumble escapes my lips, and I slide fully into the water, clothes and all, just to see if it’ll jolt me back to the person I used to be. My head dips below the surface, and I try to sit on the pool floor, but I’ve never been much of a sinker; I bob right back up to the top. So I float around for as long as I can hold my breath.

As much as I want the water to make my mind shut up, now I’m chuckling to myself at the thought of Cooper trying to clean a pool by himself instead of letting a professional do it. No doubt he’s tried before, if he has a pool in any of his numerous properties.

I don’t think I want a pool. It seems a little scary, to be honest, not to mention the maintenance on one of these things. What if I forget to lock the door or something, and one of my kids finds their way into the water? My heart squeezes just at the thought, and then it jumps as if it just realized that I’ve pictured kids in my future again. Because honestly, I’d want a pool if it weren’t for that.

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