Page 58 of Dating the DILF
“I’m going to move Lulu to her bed. Will you stay tonight?”
I agree, and as we move wordlessly through the house, I watch him care for his daughter, and it strikes me how much I love his kindness. How huge his heart is and how rare his need to protect is.
I think I’ll always rebel against that a little. I’m so used to being the protector myself, it’s an odd feeling knowing someone will fight for me with the same intensity I would for them.
At the same time, I welcome it and I make a silent promise to myself to never get scared again.
He pulls his t-shirt off and climbs into bed beside me in his boxer briefs. I’m lying on my side and I watch him as he slides through the bed until he’s beside me, mimicking my position. We’re nose to nose, breathing each other’s air and it hits me how much I’ve missed him.
A silent tear leaks down my cheek and he leans over and kisses it.
“Are we okay?”
“No,” I whisper. “But I promise to be not okay by your side, instead of alone.”
He considers me seriously. “I accept those terms.”
“I’m so glad.” I snort out a quiet laugh.
“I missed you.”
I lift my hand and run my fingers along his jaw. His eyes are still tired, but they’ve regained a bit of their spark. “I missed you, too.” I kiss his nose. “Is your dad really going to be okay?”
“Yeah.” He sighs and rolls over onto his back. “It looks like it was angina, not a heart attack, so they’re confident there will be no permanent damage. He’ll need to go on medication and make some lifestyle changes.” He turns his head and rolls his eyes. “Which he’s thrilled about.”
“I bet.” I giggle. “Did you see Grayson and Addy at the hospital?”
“Did I see them? I can’tunseethem.” He pretends to shiver in disgust. “Once everyone was sure Dad was going to be okay, they excused themselves. When I went looking for them later, I found them practically dry humping in the stairwell.”
“I wish I could say that surprises me, but Addy’s a bit of an exhibitionist.”
“Says the woman who let herself get fucked against a window.” He scoffs.
“Hey!” I slap his chest. “That was a one-off.”
“Really?” He rolls back to me and drops his arm over my waist, his hand grabbing my ass. “I bet it won’t be.”
“Dream on, ice cream hater.” I scoot a bit closer. “Are we going to talk about last week?”
“If we have to,” he grumbles.
“Lying to me doesn’t protect me, we need to get that straight right now. You should have told me you were doing the show—”
“You would have tried to stop me.”
“Yeah, I absolutely would have.” I lift my hand to cradle his cheek. “But if you had insisted, I would have supported you. And I wouldn’t have been so blindsided. Do you have any idea how it felt to find out like that?”
He bends his head down and presses it to my shoulder. “It wasn’t how I intended it to happen, but I do accept that, even if everything had gone to plan, you still would have had every right to be pissed.”
“And trust me, I would’ve been.” I run my fingertips through his chest hair, enjoying the feel. “What happened after I hung up?”
“Uhhh…” He ducks his head and looks embarrassed. “I kind of stormed off the set, swearing at everyone.”
I purse my lips and close my eyes, imagining how well that must have gone down. “So, basically you made everything a hell of a lot worse.”
“Yeah, it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better.” He turns serious. “I’m sorry it’s affecting your job, Chicago. That’s the last thing I ever wanted.”
“It’s fine.” And it is. Somewhere along the line, my job became the least important thing in my life and I’m more than okay with that.
