Page 66 of From Our First

“For the love of God, if ants find me and dig their way into my hair, I will never forgive you.”

“Now that’s an image that I’m never going to be able to get out of my mind,” Paris said dryly. She looked over at us and shook her head. “First of all, you two are too cute. Second, Nate, clean up your woman. Don’t throw sugar all over her.”

“Should I make a joke about how she’s already sweet enough?” he asked, and I groaned, closing my eyes.

“That was ridiculous.”

I saw the questioning glances, and I knew that nobody would ask outright.

Are they serious? What exactly is going on? Does she love him? Does he love her?

Those were all very good questions, ones that I was not going to address because I didn’t want to know the answers.

We needed to go slower than we had before. And that was the problem. There was alwaysthe beforewhen it came to Nate and me.

I didn’t know if I could love him again. Or let myself acknowledge that I maybe already did.

Or remember that I always had.

And that was the problem. I had never truly fallenoutof love with Nate.

I hadn’t let myself say the words, but they had always been there in the back of my mind. Waiting. Lurking. Whenever I went on a date with someone else or caught my reflection in the mirror, thinking of something happy about my future, Nate was there.

And now, he washere, wrapped around me, his family surrounding us as we listened to music and enjoyed ourselves.

There was no going back from this. If I broke again, I would have to walk away. And I didn’t know if I was strong enough to do that.

It might be smarter for us to walk away now, to go back to only being friends or at least trying to be—with nothing else in between.

Or perhaps it’d be better if I just walked away entirely. Cut ties. No one would be hurt.

I didn’t know the right answers. All I knew was that if Nate left again, or pushed me away, I wasn’t sure I’d be strong enough to pick up the pieces.

And the worst part was, I didn’t know if I had picked them up from before when he shattered me the first time.

Chapter 16

Nate

I was fallingin love with my ex-wife. And why did that sound like I was living in a country song?

Maybe because Iwasliving a country song.

I couldn’t fall for Myra. Not this fast. Not this hard. Not again.

But here we were, weeks into being together. Weeks into staying with each other nearly every night and day. Weeks into me bringing Daisy over to her house so I could work in her living room while she was in her studio, so we could be close. Weeks into her coming to sketch while Daisy crawled all over her, and I worked on my latest project.

All those weeks, and we had fallen right back into one another. It should’ve been a problem. Itwasa problem. But I didn’t want it to be one. I didn’t want to fall as hard as I was. But here I was, and there was no going back—a phrase I told myself often. Because I was falling for my ex-wife. For Myra. And I didn’t think she would ever be able to fall for me again.

Despite the fact that she spent so much time with me. Or that we were becoming friends again and being better about who we were, I didn’t think she could truly forgive me for what I did. I might not have made the photos. I might not have forced her hand. But Ihadbroken her trust and her heart and hadn’t believed her.

And I didn’t know how to change that.

“Hey there,” Myra said as she walked into the house, and dropped to her knees.

In a perfect world, she’d be falling to her knees for something a little more fun. Instead, she grinned and hugged Daisy to her. The puppy wiggled her little butt and lapped at Myra’s chin, while the woman I loved laughed back and pushed our dog down ever so slightly.

And I had just called Daisy,ourdog. I hadn’t meant to, even in my head, and I would do my best not to say that out loud. Myra would end up running faster than ever before if I said something along those lines aloud.

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