Page 95 of Kiss the Girl
But he didn’t smile. “It’s not just us. She thrives in routines. Paige isn’t going to want to yank her out of kindergarten and her daycare.”
“Would you at least talk to Paige about it?” It was an embarrassing, last-ditch plea. Right now, most of all I wanted him to be the guy who wanted me enough not to make me beg. To not have to be talked into this. To be willing to make sacrifices instead of expecting me to give up a career I couldn’t have here just to stay with him.
He slowly shook his head.
I opened my car door and stood staring at the steering wheel without seeing it, sick with myself for even asking. I’d wanted to make it work so badly that I’d engaged in magical thinking to convince myself that these were differences we could solve.
He grabbed the top of the door, his hands closing over mine to hold me in place. “Grace. If this was just about Paige, I would ask her. But it’s not, and I can’t. Please don’t ask me to choose.”
I wanted to dive into the safety of the car and drive off, leaving this whole scene behind me. But his eyes were soft, pleading for understanding, and I did. I did understand. Instead, I picked up one of his hands, and pressed a kiss against his knuckles. “It’s okay, Noah.” I let go of his hand and mustered a last wobbly smile. “If we’re being real, you’ve chosen, and I won’t make you say your choice out loud again.”
I eased into the driver’s seat and pulled the door closed as Noah stepped back. Then I lowered the window and smiled at him. “Good job tonight. I think Dr. Boone will also make the right choice. Merry Christmas.”
I rolled my window up to cut off the saddest Merry Christmas I’d ever heard in return and drove toward home.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Noah
It was late enough when I got home that I knew Evie would be asleep and Paige wouldn’t be dropping in.
I almost never minded when she did, but tonight I needed time and space to think.
I was in a relationship. With Grace. I’d known it for a while. Grace knew it too.
We hung out, worked together, discussed life problems and relationships, joked around, spent Thanksgiving with each other, kissed. Like, mind-blowing kisses. I loved her work ethic, her family, her sense of humor, her brain. I’d never had more fun doing nothing with someone than I did with Grace.
So how could everything be so right between us, and it still not work out?
Because…
Because I still hadn’t told Grace the whole truth. There was more to it than not wanting to leave Paige and Evie or uproot them.
I’d been here before with Lauren. Lauren had needed me to be more and want more than I did. I wasn’t the guy who needed to climb a career ladder for the prestige of it. I loved what I did, and Lauren had seen my passion for teaching as lack of ambition.
I loved teaching. I wanted to be a principal eventually. Principals made a comfortable income with good benefits. The downside being, of course, that the job politics were some of the toughest around. But I loved kids. And I’d be walking into administration someday with my eyes wide open, ready to take on the challenge of transforming a school.
The fact that Grace could argue in one breath about how essential her job was to her happiness and then try to convince me to “just do mine anywhere” was the ultimate irony. She didn’t understand how I felt about my work any more than Lauren had. It took time and tenure to build the relationships and roots that would lead to administration jobs down the road. If I keptliterallymoving down the road, I couldn’t do that.
Grace wasn’t Lauren. I knew that. But this similarity was too strong for me to ignore just because my feelings for her were strong too.
I flopped on my couch and stared at the ceiling. Not just strong. Damn near overwhelming. And not just wanting her, although that nearly knocked me flat every time I was around her. It was everything about her: the fact that she’d dropped everything to come home for her family even though she loved her career, her problem-solving mind, her can-do attitude. The way she took life seriously without taking herself seriously.
Everything about her was perfect except her future address.
I couldn’t trade pieces of myself for her. But most of all, I couldn’t trade Evie and Paige for her, no matter how badly I wanted her.
And I wanted her badly.
I stared at the ceiling as if the dull white surface could give me an answer.
It didn’t.
* * *
“Noah?”
I blinked awake. I’d fallen asleep on my couch in my clothes. I felt gross, and Paige was smiling down at me.
