Page 71 of Kiss Me Tonight

“Because there have been nights my entire life when I’ve felt so goddamn adrift, it threatens to pull me under.” I hear his deep, indrawn breath, followed by a slow and steady exhale that brings goose bumps of awareness to my skin. “But tonight I don’t want to feel alone and I don’t want to feel like I’m in an ocean swimming all by myself without an anchor to keep me moored.”

It hurts to breathe.

I know my lungs are in my chest and I know, logically, that they’re healthy and pumping oxygen as they should be.

And yet, blood roars in my head and my heart pounds to a rhythm I don’t quite know and for the first time in fifteen years, I feel my inner recklessness rearing its head and demanding its due.

I step back from the window and move toward my bedroom door. Cracking it open, I slip through on quiet feet, all the while Dominic waits on the other end of the line—in a house only twenty feet away from mine. I feel my way down the hall with a hand trailing the wall. Down past the bathroom Topher exclusively uses. Down past the guestroom Topher passed up when we first moved in because he claimed it was too big for just him.

We can keep that one open for when Mariah and my friends come to visit.

My boy—always looking out for others.

His door is shut, and I turn the knob with my heart in my throat.

For fifteen years, I’ve played it safe. I’ve stayed behind the metaphorical curtain and kept my own needs silent—sometimes out of fear, because I knew Rick was vindictive, and sometimes out of an effort to put my head down and keep hustling. Just because I was a young mother didn’t mean I couldn’t be the best one for Topher. When Rick started flaking out on us, I worked even harder to be everything my son needed.

Topher’s snoring greets me, even though I still can’t see a damn thing without my glasses. He’s passed out cold, like always. Even as a newborn, he slept like a rock. He won’t be up until his alarm has gone off twice and I’m ripping the sheets away from his curled-up body.

“Levi?” Dominic says softly in my ear as I back out of my son’s room. “Forget I asked, okay? I’m not trying to make you do anything you don’t want to do. I’m not that kinda guy. Maybe the three of us—me, you, and Topher—can go out on the water this weekend. I’ll grill some burgers or something. Make a day out of it or—”

I close Topher’s bedroom door behind me and press my back to the wood. I pray I’m not making a huge mistake when I give in with a hushed, “Thirty minutes. Not a minute longer.”

Dominic’s lingering pause tells me I’ve surprised him. Then, “Thirty minutes, Coach. That’s a promise.”

21

Dominic

Iwait for her by the hedge that separates our two courtyards.

Any moment now, I’m convinced my phone will ring and she’ll tell me she’s changed her mind. I wouldn’t blame her. My request came out of left field for the both of us. One minute I was sprawled out on my couch, scrolling through the latest sports news—Tampa Bay news, in particular—while suffering a raging case of insomnia, and then I was searching my contacts and tapping on her name.

I held my breath as I heard the ringtone and prepared myself to hear the beep of her voicemail.

Crushed misplaced hope beneath the imaginary heel of my shoe when I allowed myself to stop and think about what I was really asking of her.

Dominic DaSilva, party of one.

Aspen Levi, team of two.

The fact that she saidyes. . . Jesus fuck, it’s hard to wrap my brain around it.

Probably why I’m standing here, preparing myself for the inevitable when she comes to her senses and tells me to take a hike.

My ears prick up when I catch the sound of shoes crunching over gravel.

And my chest . . . my goddamn chest expands with the sort of relieved sigh I haven’t experienced in years, since that long-ago day when I went to the Buccaneers as the third overall draft pick.

“You there, Coach?” The words emerge raspy and hopeful. I should clear my throat, maybe say something else to reestablish the back-and-forth banter that’s been the foundation of our relationship from the start, but so late at night . . . when all of London is asleep save for us . . . it seems disingenuous to pretend I don’t need this moment.

Knowing that, even though I’m alone in the world—no family, few friends—Levi chose to meet me tonight is humbling.

Instead of answering, she simply walks toward me. Immediately, I sweep my gaze over her, from head to foot. Thankful for the moon being directly overhead, I take in her loose blond curls that dance around her shoulders and the black, square-framed glasses perched on her nose. Glasses that I didn’t even know she needs.

She’s bundled up in a wrap with a sash cinched at the waist. Bare, toned legs from the thigh down. A pair of flip-flops on her feet.

Beneath one arm, she holds two perfectly folded towels.

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