Page 92 of Someone to Watch Over Me

But a funny thing has happened one dinner at a time, one conversation at a time, one day at a time living under the same roof with the man I once thought I loved with all my heart. I didn’t love him then. I didn’t even know him. But now I know him, and I love him for real this time.

Before I started living with Tom, I hadn’t been on a date or even thought about joining a dating site or anything like that. Friends offered to fix me up “when I was ready.” I was never ready. I rarely ever even thought about anything like that unless one of my widow friends was starting something new, and then I might wonder for a second or two if that would ever happen for me.

Then Iris and our other friends pointed out that Tom and I had been “dating” for months. No man makes dinner for a woman every night if he’s not interested in being more than roommates with her, they’ve all said at one point or another. The keen observations were like a light going on. I started to pay closer attention to the way he tended to me. And I started to see what Iris saw from a distance.

He was interested.

Very much so.

I wasn’t ready then.

Now, though…

Now, I’m ready, or at least I think I am.

“Whatcha thinking about over there?” he asks as he drives us to my parents’ home in his truck.

“About timing and how everything revolves around it.”

“How so?”

“What you said before about what you pictured for us?”

“I hope it was okay to lay it out there like that.”

“I loved hearing how you see things unfolding going forward. I was thinking about how I wasn’t ready for any of this when we first met up and how our friendship has evolved into this new and exciting thing.”

“If you’re still not ready, there’s no rush, Lex. I hope you know that.”

“I do, and that means so much to me. I think I am ready, but only because it’s you that I’d be taking this step with.”

His scowl is adorable and comical. “I should sure as hell hope it would be me.”

“It is. Don’t worry.”

He glances over at me, seeming uncertain.

“What?”

“I want you to know that for all this time, I was hoping for where we are now, but I also was willing to step aside if you ended up falling for someone else. I never would’ve gotten in the way of that.”

“That’s very sweet of you to say.”

“But I would’ve wanted to have him killed.”

My shout of laughter echoes through the cab of his truck. I howl with it. I’ve forgotten what it was like to lose my shit laughing and how good it feels.

“Just so you know,” he adds after I catch my breath.

“You crack me up.”

“I like when you laugh.”

“I do, too. It’s been a minute since anything made me laugh like that.”

“Glad to be of service.”

“Keep it coming. Laughter is good for the soul.”

---