Page 33 of Remember Me

“I’m fine. Sorry.” He got himself together and continued. “The Farmer’s Wife. What took you in there?”

“I just saw a help wanted sign, and something about it seemed interesting.”

“Huh. Okay. I hope you enjoy it.”

I was taken aback by his about-face but shrugged it off. “Thanks. I’ve been doing some thinking,” I said, pushing my plate away. He had been right about the extra honey mustard.

“Okay.”

“I think a romantic relationship right now is too much for me.” I didn’t trust myself to look at him. “It’s crazy enough to contemplate the fact that I’m going to be a mother. I can’t…I don’t have the mental energy for all of it.”

For an infinite moment, silence stretched between us, taut and ripe with things unsaid.

“I guess I should have been expecting that,” he replied at last. “What are you proposing, exactly?” He cut his hand sharply as Serena-the-Waitress approached and she did a one-eighty.

I folded my hands on the table to still their trembling. “I think we should do the friend thing for a while, until I feel like I know you again.”

“Isn’t that what we’re doing? How do you think you’re going to get to know me again, if we’re not spending time together?”

“I’m sure we’ll see each other. Just not romantically.” I cringed.That was lame. This whole thing sounded better in my head.

Hayes must have agreed with my internal assessment, because his mouth pressed into a thin line. “You’ll have to be more specific, Birdie. I think I’ve been pretty patient…pretty low key as far as that goes, anyway. It’s not like I’m all over you, demanding things that I know you’re not ready for.”

“I know, and I’m grateful. It’s not anything like that. It’s more…the walks down memory lane. The nicknames. The visits to places where we used to hang out. Coming into the exam room at the doctor’s office. These are all things people do when they’re involved and comfortable with each other, and it’s making me sonotcomfortable —”

“Shhh, shhh.” Hayes’ hand reached out and brushed gently at the tears I hadn’t noticed on my cheeks. “Please don’t cry.”

“I’m sorry, Hayes. I don’t want to hurt you, but —”

“Don’t.” He tossed a wad of money on the table and rose, taking my hand and tugging me up with him. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

I followed without speaking. Outside, the wind cut through my coat and I shivered. Hayes looked up and down the street. “Where did you park?” I pointed, and we started walking. He hadn’t released my hand, taking it instead and tucking it into his own coat pocket. The feel of his warm fingers curled around mine in the tiny space was at once disturbing and comforting.This…right here…this was exactly what I meant.

I could feel the warmth of his thigh through the interior lining of the coat, the heat of his hand curled around mine. It was making me feel things, things I didn’t know what to do with. I wanted to rub my thumb over his palm and see if it made him shiver like it did me. I wanted to pull my hand loose, and retreat into my own space. I wanted to chase those feelings and run from them at the same time.

It was making me crazy.

I wanted space, but the little things like this that he did made me forget that.

When we reached my car, I leaned against the driver’s side door and he faced me, reaching out his free hand to smooth a stray hair back from my face. “Here’s the deal, Birdie. If you knew how much we loved each other, you’d never ask me to back off. But you don’t, and all of this—” He made a looping gesture with his hand. “It’s scary. Intense. It was like that for both of us in the beginning, so I get it.” He sighed and looked away. “I can’t just walk away. Especially not with you being pregnant.”

“Hayes, I —”

“No, let me finish. I won’t walk away. But I will take us back, to our starting point. You don’t remember, but I had to work for you a year ago.” He smiled ruefully. “You didn’t make it easy.” I saw his eyes harden infinitesimally. “All the more reason I’m not giving you up. You want to make me work for it again, no problem. You’re worth it.”

I didn’t know what to say. I had expected anger, irritation. Not this renewed sense of purpose.

Hayes wasn’t finished, apparently. Removing his hand from mine, he lifted both to my jaw and tilted my face up to his.No, no, no…my inner alarms were flashing. “But before I do, I want a kiss. To remind both of us of what I’m working for. To keep me steady when you make it tough.” His lips quirked. “To keep you unsteady.”

“But —”

He sealed off the words with his mouth on mine, and of their own volition my eyes drifted shut.I don’t want to be unsteady. But that’s exactly what his kiss did. It wrapped itself around me, binding me to him as though his arms were holding me close instead of the loose clasp of his hands on my face. His lips were warm and mobile and searching on my own, and I felt my mouth parting to allow him access, a tight, almost painful pressure in my chest unfurling as he stroked inside.

One hand slipped down to my waist, slipping inside my coat and around the flesh there. His fingers slipped under the waistband at my lower back and I startled from their cold press against me. They clenched and held me firm. His chest rose and fell against my own and I arched instinctively into him, feeling his heart thump against me, hard. Fast. This wasn’t only affecting me, I realized. It was both of us.

I heard a low, needy sound and realized as I felt Hayes’s mouth curl in satisfaction that it was me. He lifted his head and looked down at me. “You’ll ask for the next one,” he predicted, and then he was opening my car door and depositing me in the driver’s seat. “Drive safe.”

I sat for a full minute in bemused silence, watching as he walked back the way we’d come. Then, giving my head a slight shake to clear it, I pressed the start button and went home.

---