Page 79 of Hello Tease

Suddenly his arms around me felt like heavy weights starving me of oxygen.

Knox opened his eyes, asking me, “Did you figure it out?”

I slid out from his arms, handing his phone to him. “I think you should read these messages. Yourfriendswant to talk to you.” My voice shook with anger, with embarrassment. If he let his friends speak to him like this, how did he think about me under his perfect, charming exterior?

His eyes snapped open as he went to the texts, reading them, and his face fell. “Larkin, did you read these?”

I got out of the bed, pacing the floor, and whispered, “I didn't mean to at first. They were just coming over the screen. Is this really how your friends feel about me?” I couldn’t bring myself to ask him if this was how he felt about me too. I cannot believe just last night I was so happy that I was dreaming about what the future held for us. Now I wondered if a future with me felt like settling to him.

He sat up on the bed, facing me, and dumped his phone face down on the tousled sheets. “Larkin, they're just being shitheads.”

I shook my head, tears already building in my eyes. This was not how I wanted to wake up this morning. “You sure as heck didn't say anything back the last time they commented.”

He got out of bed, taking my hands in his. “I didn't text them back because I went and talked to him. That's why Garth apologized in the first place and said I was defensive.”

I wanted to believe him, but Seth had worked things around in his favor so many times that I didn’t know what to believe. “I mean, they're right.” My voice shook. “Why not Della? Why not someone who doesn't have so much ‘baggage?’”

He got a fierce look in his eyes and said, “Don't you ever call Emily and Jackson baggage.”

An uncomfortable, guilty feeling swirled in my gut because he was right. My children weren't baggage. They were blessings. But just because they were my blessings, didn't mean that they needed to be his. I stepped back, putting space between us. “What if your friends are right? What if you wanted to start fresh with someone? You said yourself you wanted to get me new lingerie in case I'd worn mine for another man. What about children that I made having sex with someone else? Could you ever look at them without seeing him?”

A furrow formed between his eyebrows. “Larkin, when I look at your children, I see all the best parts of you and all the pieces that are uniquely them. They’re their own people.”

I drew my arms around myself, feeling so ashamed, feeling stupid for letting this relationship move so quickly. “And what about kids? You said last night you wanted a big family. What if I don't want to have any more? What if I have too much trauma from Jackson’s pregnancy and don’t want to go through that again? Will you be okay with my children being the only ones we have?” I knew it was too soon to ask him something like this, but now a million thoughts were spinning in my mind, and I couldn’t move forward with him without knowing his answers.

“Why are you borrowing trouble?” he asked, a furrow in his brow. “Everything has been going great between you and me.”

I shook my head at him. This wasn’t borrowing trouble; it was being practical. “I'm a single mom, Knox. I don't have the privilege of just living my life day by day. I have two children who are counting on me to make good choices for them, and I know you said you would be there for them always, but what about me? I fell for you, Iloveyou, and I don't want you to resent me because of my family. I don't want you to end up hating me because I don't want to put myself through another pregnancy. I don't want you to feel like you missed out on anything in life, because you deserve so much. And I hate to think that every time you go out with your friends that some part of them thinks the life you have with me isn't good enough for you...” Then an entirely new fear came to mind, and I had to sit on the bed to stomach it. “Is that how your family feels about us too?”

“Larkin, stop,” he said with all the authority he had spoken to me with on that very first day we met. He knelt in front of me, taking my hands in his. “I don't give a shit what anyone else thinks about my life. I don't want to create a life that looks good to other people. I want to create a life that feels good to me.” He brushed his fingers over my cheeks, and I could only imagine how I looked, my hair a mess, my eyes still drooping from sleep, worry creasing every line on my face. But he spoke to me like I was beautiful, saying, “Being with you feels good tomeright now. That's all that matters.”

I shook my head sadly, realizing how different our lives were, our priorities were. Because while Knox could choose what was best for him in the moment, I would always have to choose what was best for my children now and in the future. “Actually, it's not all that matters to me. I need to know that if we continue this, you would be okay with just me and my kids. Five years from now. Ten years from now. Twenty years down the road. Because I don't want to fall in love and get broken up with and go through this heartbreak again. I don’t know if I could survive it and be the best mom to my kids.”

It felt foolish to say it out loud, that I couldn’t survive a breakup with Knox, considering what I had gone through in my life, but I knew deep in my heart it was true. Knox was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of man. And while I didn't want a chance of another man leaving them, I couldn’t risk them feeling like a burden like all of Knox’s friends thought they were.

Knox cast me an incredulous glance. “You think I haven’t thought about our future?” he asked softly. “You think that first day you came over I didn’t imagine what it would be like to kiss you? Do you think that night I babysat I didn’t wonder what it would be like to care for your children as my own? Do you think that first morning I woke with you coming into my bed I didn’t imagine what it would be like to wake up with you every damn morning for the rest of my life?”

I looked him in the eyes, as if I could remember every bit of color in them, as if I could permanently trace the edges of his lips into my mind. “I need you to think about what I said, Knox. Take time to really think about if this is the life you want. And whatever your decision is...” My voice broke as tears threatened to fall. “Whatever your decision is, I promise I'll understand.”

He looked like he wanted to say more, but I held up my hand to stop him. If he argued any more, I didn't know if I could stand strong. This request wasn't just for me and my kids. It was for him too. Knox was like a diamond shining against mud. He deserved everything he wanted and more. And I never wanted to be the person who held him back from the life of his dreams, even if it wasn’t with me.

So I said, “I need you to go, before the kids wake up. We’ll talk soon, okay?”

He nodded sadly, then gave me a slow kiss on the lips before walking out the door. And I hoped that he would come back knowing exactly what it meant to be with me.

44

KNOX

No walkof shame compared to slipping out of Larkin’s house and skulking down the sidewalk with a heaviness in the pit of my stomach. One moment I was on top of the world and now it was all slipping away from me. I understood why she was scared, and Ihatedthat she’d seen those messages. Hated even more the lowlifes that sent them. Couldn’t believe I’d ever called them my friends.

I held my phone in one hand, my bag in the other, wondering why the fuck those guys had to be like that.

I guessed I’d kept them in my phone thinking they were harmless—they could say crappy things, but I didn’t have to wallow in the filth with them. Now, it was different because their behavior was hurting the woman I loved and messing with my life. A life I thought I’d begun building with Larkin.

I walked inside my house, dropped the bag on a chair at my kitchen table, and got out my phone to text them back.

Knox: I don’t want to be a part of this group chat anymore.

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