Page 3 of The Dating Pact

“We were all stunned,” I went on, “but then Youmna talked to me later. Brought up the fact that the kids need someone. Apparently, I need someone.”

“Do you?” Liam asked.

“No.” I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Mira and I had been together since high school. She’d been mine since she’d smiled at me in that first biology class freshman year, and I’d been hers since that day sophomore year when she’d finally let me kiss her outside of school. Fifteen years. We’d had each other for fifteen years.

I’d expected at least another fifty.

I cleared my throat. “She told me Mira wouldn’t want to see me like this. She made me promise I’d try to find someone.” I squeezed my eyes shut when they went unfocused in front of me. “So I did, but…”

I’d been on a handful of dates in the last year or two. Although the word “date” was a stretch. I’d either make the date and bail last minute or go and invent an excuse to leave a few minutes in. It wasn’t like I didn’t want companionship, because I did, but allowing myself to go out with another woman who wasn’t Mira felt wrong. Unfaithful. I couldn’t do it.

“So what happened?” Nate asked, bringing me back to the present.

“Last night, my mom reminded me of my promise to Youmna. Said she knows someone she wants to set me up with. I told her I’d think about it. But then this morning, Amelia brought up the mommy thing again, and…” I dropped my hands into my lap. Everything felt heavy today. “A part of me feels like, yeah, that little girl deserves and needs a mommy, and another part of me feels indignant, like, am I not enough?”

“You’ve been doing it on your own for four years,” Nate said, as if I needed a reminder. “You have every right to be indignant, but you also have every right to… Move on isn’t the right term, but I’m not sure what is.”

“It’s okay to admit you want someone in your life,” Liam filled in.

“I don’t, though.” I stumbled only a little over the words.

Dylan eyed me. “What do you want?”

“Mira,” I answered immediately, and all three of them turned away from me, giving me a few moments to get myself together. I rubbed my hand over my mouth, forming my thoughts into words. “I miss her. I miss what I had with her.” Once my friends focused back on me again, I gestured toward Dylan and Liam. “I guess I’m jealous of what you have. What I had.”

Nate patted my shoulder. “You could have that again, if you wanted.”

“Could I?” Because I seriously doubted it. “Mira was it for me. You only get one love of your life.”

“Says who?” Nate removed his arm from behind me to help himself to more cookies.

Liam, ever the academic, offered an introspective nugget. “I think you can love a lot of people in different ways. No one way is better or worse than the other. And I don’t think you should feel bad about wanting love in your life again.”

Dylan nodded in agreement.

“Setting philosophy aside, I don’t know if I’m ready to put myself out there again. Not to mention, what it would do to Amelia and Sebastian.” Answering my friends’ unasked questions, I said, “Amelia’s so desperate for a mom, she would be disappointed if I started dating and it didn’t work out. And Seb…” I waved in my son’s direction. “You guys know how much he’s struggled. He hates whenever Amelia brings up having a mom. He doesn’t want to talk about anyone who isn’t Mira, and I don’t want to hurt him.”

Nate held up his hand, half a cookie clutched in his fingers. “I don’t know anything about being a parent, but letting your kids drive how you make choices doesn’t seem like a great strategy to me.”

“Well, you did say you don’t know anything about parenting,” I snipped.

Dylan slanted his head toward Nate. “He’s right, though.”

Nate grinned. “I’m right.”

Dylan shot him a glare before telling me, “You gotta make yourself happy to make your kids happy.”

I hated that advice. Because if my kids weren’t happy, I wasn’t happy. That was what made this all so hard. My kids weren’t happy without their mom. I wasn’t happy without her either.

But I’d been trying to make the best of it.

Which hadn’t been easy.

Nate flicked a careless hand in the air. “I say you should put yourself out there to have some sex, man. You don’t need to get married again, but you could, at least…” He craned his neck around then whispered, “Bust a nut.”

Liam rolled his eyes while Dylan winced, like he didn’t want to admit it. “He does have a point, though.”

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