Page 53 of Burden to Bear

“Do you have the tools you need to do it?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know yet.”

He laughed, the sound relieving so much of the tension I’d been feeling, as he continued to hold me close. “If this is something you feel compelled to do on your own, I get it. But if you’re just afraid to ask me for help for fear of inconveniencing me, then I’d like to make the offer to come over tomorrow and help you get this assembled.”

I tipped my head to the side, my eyes roaming over his handsome face. “That’s really sweet of you to offer, especially because you told me today on our walk that you didn’t have any work you needed to do in your garage and that you intended to relax. Helping me out with this would prevent that from happening for you.”

“I don’t find spending time with you to be particularly taxing, Mia.”

Spending time with me.

He didn’t say building a crib or helping me out. He referred to it as spending time with me.

Maybe it was okay for me to have hope about Brock’s intentions. It was entirely possible he was just being a really good man to a woman who needed some support. But what he’d said to me tonight made it clear that it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility for him to have some interest in me that went beyond friendship.

Wouldn’t I be a fool to look the other way?

“Okay, Brock. If you have nothing better to do with yourself, I’d love to have some help assembling this crib tomorrow.”

Brock grinned at me. “Looks like I have plans for tomorrow. What time do you want me here?”

If I was honest, I would have told him I never wanted him to leave. Not wanting to ruin his opportunity to sleep in and relax a bit if he intended to do that, I said, “How about around one o’clock? Would that work for you?”

“That works for me. Should I bring some lunch with me?”

Did he want to have lunch together?

Feeling so much better about where we were, I felt safe enough to tease him. “You’ve never tried my peanut butter sandwiches. Maybe I could dazzle you with one tomorrow.”

Laughter spilled out of him, and his arms tightened briefly around me. “I’ll prepare myself to be dazzled.”

He released his hold on me, and we descended the stairs again. Once we were at the front door, I held his stare for a few seconds. “Thank you for doing this for me tonight and for offering to come over tomorrow. It means a lot to me.”

“You’re welcome. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Goodnight, Brock.”

“Goodnight, Mia.”

The next thing I knew, Brock was gone. No matter how easy it had been for me to fall asleep recently as I made it to the end of each day, tonight was different. Because I couldn’t stop replaying Brock’s words in my head from the second I closed the door behind him.

FIFTEEN

Mia

“Okay. You win.”

Already feeling exhilarated, those words caused me to perk up even more in my seat and beam at Brock. Surprisingly, I was as relaxed as ever and feeling great.

It was Saturday afternoon, and Brock was currently joining me for lunch before we got down to the task of assembling the crib.

I was thoroughly enjoying myself, doing my best to stick to the decision I made last night, not long after Brock left my place and went back home. I wasn’t sure exactly what Brock’s intentions were when it came to what was between us, but I knew I liked what was there now. I didn’t need to get caught up in my thoughts about what ifs and how things could possibly be, only to lead myself to losing the friendship I had with him.

So, I was going to do my best to try to stop questioning it, to stop thinking about things I couldn’t control, be myself, and go with the flow.

Today, that meant pulling out all the stops to impress Brock with a delicious lunch. We’d already settled on peanut butter sandwiches, so I had decided to spice things up and make some fresh, homemade sandwich bread.

While I thought that might be enough to do the trick, I wanted to take the sandwiches up a notch, so I added banana slices and a sprinkle of mini chocolate chips to them.

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