Page 62 of Happy After All

“Well. Maybe we can . . .”

“I promise I’m not going to act like I don’t know you,” he says. “But tonight I’m going to go back to my room.”

“Oh,” I say, feeling a little bit blindsided.

“I think it’s best for tonight,” he says.

“Okay.”

“We don’t need to decide what it is,” he says.

I nod. Iagree, because if we try right now, maybe he’ll say it can only be once. If we try right now, maybe I’ll beg for more.

I don’t really want either of those things to happen.

I watch him get dressed, and I try to cling to all the good, empowering feelings I had just a few minutes ago.

“Good night,” he says before he slips out the door. I flop back onto the bed, my heart thundering.

I slept with Nathan Hart. I gave myself that gift. Though as I lie here, I am acutely aware that I don’t know any more about him now, other than how he looks naked, than I did before.

But I feel beautiful. I choose to focus on that.

At least when Chris comes to town I’ll be able to walk around with this feeling inside me.

It might not have changed everything, but it definitely changedsomethings.

I have to figure out how to be happy with that.

Chapter Fifteen

Let’s Get It Out of Our System—when the protagonists in a romance novel agree to keep having sex until their desire burns itself out.

When I wake up the next morning, I realize everything that happened the night before.

I am stunned. Completely motionless, lying naked in my bed.

I had sex with Nathan Hart.

I’ve spent years carving out a life for myself, a life that’s just about me. Now suddenly there’s this man.

Like he hasn’t been a factor for years.

Right. Well. A fantasy object, yes, but nothing real.

I get up and wrap myself in one of the pink cotton robes that hang from a peg on the wall, and then I make my way over to the coffee maker and choose the brightest, pinkest mug I have to start my day. These things are normal, and I find I’m in desperate need of normal at the moment.

I pick up a coffee pod and pop it into the machine, and I’m stopped midmotion by a knock on the door.

I freeze.

Nobodyknocks on my door. I don’t advertise my room number to guests. They can call me at the number I provide, and I can be paged from the front desk.

My long-term inhabitants, of course, know where my room is, but I know who this is.

I know it immediately.

I go to the door, flexing my hands, trying to act like a normal human, trying to collect myself, trying to decide whether I think there is any hidden meaning to the fact he’s here.

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