It was the first time I’d woken up with him next to me.
It was like a dream.
His hand slid up my thigh until he hiked my leg over his hip. He moved in and kissed me. “Morning.” His deep voice was raspy like he hadn’t fully woken up just yet. “It’s nice to see you first thing when I open my eyes.”
My hand cupped his cheek and felt the stubble on his face with my thumb. “Yeah…it is.”
He moved in and pressed a few kisses to my neck and shoulder, smothering me with his love.
I held him close and hugged him, enjoying the most beautiful Sunday morning of my life.
His hand moved up my back and gently rubbed me, his touch warm and affectionate.
“I don’t want to get up.”
“Neither do I.” He pulled away so he could look at me again.
“The second we walk out of here, my daughter is going to be a cockblock again.”
He chuckled. “A cockblock?”
“She hogged you all night long. It was ridiculous.”
He smiled. “I thought that would you make you happy.”
“It did, but I was also over it.”
“Well, I’m yours a little longer.”
“Yeah.” I continued to feel his stubble with my thumb. “How was last night for you?”
His eyebrows furrowed. “Baby, you’re the best I’ve ever had, even when we have to be dead silent.”
“That’s not what I meant,” I said with a laugh. “But thank you. I mean with Lizzie…my parents.”
“Oh,” he said, grinning at his assumption. “I had a good time. Your dad reminds me of my dad. You know…warm.”
“Yeah, he is.”
“I thought it went well, and I’m happy to do it again.”
“That’s great.” Wow, this really was a dream. My daughter brought us closer together, not further apart. “Would you want to get breakfast with us and go shopping?”
“Shopping for what?”
“Clothes. I try to do something with her outside the house every weekend.”
“Sure. I don’t need any clothes, though.”
“You can hold our bags for us instead,” I teased.
He smiled. “I’m fine with that. I’m happy to do whatever—as long as I’m with you.”21DerekEmerson left to pick up Lizzie from school, and I continued to work. Now that I wasn’t nervous to be around Lizzie, I didn’t dread the moment of her arrival, and I got back into work without thinking about anything else.
Pierre and Jerome left, so I was alone, moving around the lab to find what I needed to keep working, to run the simulations and troubleshoot everything before we even tried to build it.
The door opened and closed behind me.
“Whoa!” Lizzie’s excited voice echoed throughout the entire lab. “Look at this place.” She walked to one of the tables and started to play with the 3-D model sitting there.
“Lizzie, don’t touch anything.” Emerson grabbed her wrist and pulled it down. “These are not toys, alright?”
“Toys?” Lizzie asked incredulously. “Do you think I’m five?”
“I do when you act like you’re five,” Emerson said.
I stepped away from my laptop and joined them. “Hey, Lizzie. It’s okay. You can touch it.”
Lizzie turned to her mother and stuck out her tongue.
Emerson narrowed her eyes, but it was obvious she was more amused than annoyed.
Lizzie grabbed the model and continued to inspect it. “So, you’re going to build this?”
“It’s just one example. We’ve actually made a few others. This was our first try, though.”
She rolled it over the surface and watched the tires spin. “What’s wrong with it?”
I shrugged. “Just not right. When it comes to stuff like this, you have to think of every single scenario, and some scenarios are just impossible to anticipate until we make an attempt. With this one, we realized the material of the tires was corrosive to some of the elements in the sand, and then there was an issue with the placement of the brakes. Just a bunch of little things.”
“So, you have to do it over and over?”
“Pretty much.”
“Wow, that sounds like a lot of work.”
“Yeah, it can be a pain sometimes. But when it comes to the final product, it has to be absolutely perfect. And in order for it to be perfect, it takes a lot of work.”
“That’s really cool.” She set down the model and continued to look around. “So, you want to show me around, Derek?”
“Sure, Liz.” I walked with her and showed her the different parts of the warehouse, along with the models of the other rockets we’d built. Emerson hung back, like she wanted to give us the opportunity to be alone.
I spent the next hour showing her the simulations we’d worked on because she was so interested in everything, and we got deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole of my work. It was technically a waste of time because I should be working on the things that needed my attention, but I didn’t mind it.
She walked to one of my whiteboards and looked at the equations and calculations written there. Her mouth dropped, and she turned to look at me in shock. “This math doesn’t even have numbers.”