“Right. But we miss storytime and crafts. We’ll be back as soon as you restart it.”
“It’ll be a few weeks,” I said.
“How are you handling all this? You didn’t have much time to talk the other night.”
“I’ve been overwhelmed,” I said.
Nicole came in with Cooper on her hip and hugged me with one arm. She shifted him to my lap. I sniffed his sweet baby lotion smell and snuggled him. When she came back with a bottle, she took him and sat in the recliner, rocking him. I leaned my head on my arm and watched her with him. She was so happy, it just glowed on her face. And the way she bent her head to kiss his curls as she rocked and fed him squeezed my heart. Trixie got on the floor to get a truck that Ashton had rolled too far under the couch. I watched my friends with their babies and felt a pang about what it would be like to be a mom. I’d put the idea out of my head for so long. I hadn’t found anyone I wanted to have a family with in all these years.
I hadn’t wanted to be a judge’s wife, with a future of campaigns and benefits and shepherding the Boden and Lilly Pulitzer-clad offspring through formal events and hissing at them to behave and keep their hands to themselves. He had been a nice man, but not the one for me. And I knew he would not have a sense of humor if our hypothetical kid picked its nose in public or something. That was the closest I’d come to being with anyone seriously as an adult. I’d been slowly giving up the expectation of raising a family of my own. Little by little I’d let go of the idea, with some grief. I’d been a lonely only child growing up and wished for siblings, wished my mom were alive, wished for more than my stern father and a housekeeper rattling around in a big, expensive house alone.
Now, I felt a spark of almost irrational hope. If things with Drew actually worked out this time—I felt like I could have what I was always supposed to get. A life with him. His babies. A home we shared, a bed we shared, watching our kids play in the yard on a swing set. I must have zoned out into my daydream because Nicole asked what was on my mind.
“Something happened the night of the storm,” I said. I hesitated to tell them.
Just then, Noah came in and collected a sleeping Cooper and took him to the nursery. Then Trixie’s phone beeped with a message that Damon was on his way. I decided to wait until Ashton went home for the night before I told them what went on with me when the storm was battering Rockford Falls. I munched a piece of pizza from the box in the kitchen and waited.
Once Ashton was kissed good night and bundled into Damon’s truck with all his toys and his diaper bag, we were on our own.
“Okay, spill,” Trixie prompted.
“I closed the library when the storm was coming. I was getting ready to go down the basement when Drew showed up on my porch wanting to talk to me.”
“Ooooh!” Nicole said. “I like this story. Did he kiss you again?”
“He more than kissed me,” I said wryly.
“You did not!” Trixie hissed, drinking her wine.
“Oh, we did. Twice. In the basement.”
“Details!” Nicole said.
“Well, his clothes got soaked so I put them in the dryer for him and he was just in a towel…” I began. I couldn’t suppress a grin. “We were arguing about what he told me the other night, how he decided I deserved better so he dumped me. I told him how I cried and how miserable I was when he broke my heart, and I said something about how he was probably with another girl as soon as he left me and he just grabbed me and kissed me.”
“Damn. That’s good,” Trixie said, fanning herself. “And then what?”
“You know what,” I said.
“No. We don’t know. Spell it out in very descriptive words,” Nicole teased.
“We had sex on the couch.”
“And?”
“And it was even better than I remembered, okay? I told myself all this time that I just overdramatized our connection and how good the sex was and everything because I was young and it had been a long time since then… well, I was wrong. It was every bit as perfect and intense and mind-blowing as I remembered. Plus, then he said ‘tell me what you want, tell me your fantasy, I’ll do anything,’” I confessed.
“Oh. My. God. I am going to tell Noah he has to say that to me,” Nicole said. “That’s really hot.”
“Do not tell anyone anything about this! Ever!” I said. “This is a secret. It can’t happen again. It was—the storm.”