Page 57 of Books and Hookups

Sweat trickled between my boobs. I was a hot mess. And byhot,I didn’t mean attractive. And he’d called me on my bullshit. “Fuck you.” I pulled my phone from my dress pocket and pulled up a rideshare app.

He covered the screen with his big hand. “How can we be partners when you don’t talk to me? When every time you don’t like something, you storm off and give me the silent treatment?”

My hackles rose. “Okay. Fine. You want to talk? Let’s talk. When I was in my twenties, I had an abortion. I wasn’t ready to be a mother. Just like you aren’t ready to be a father.”

His eyes widened, and he shot a quick glance at the church. “Let’s go sit in my car. I’ll turn on the air conditioning.”

“I don’t want to sit in your car,” I said. Steam was probably rising from my head. “I want to go home.Alone. While you stay here. Or go out. A guy your age should be partying with your friends on a Saturday. Or sitting at a baseball game, drinking a beer.” God, a beer sounded fantastic. But I’d have to settle for a big, cathartic cry by myself in my apartment.

“God—fucking—damn it, Lucie!” He ran a hand through his hair. “Why can’t you see that I’m exactly where I want to be? I want to be here, at the goddamn church, with my nosy, troublemaking family, andyou.”

The sun had fried my brain. That was it. It made me hallucinate. I sank to the hot concrete curb.

Danny was next to me in a moment. “Lucie, are you okay? Do you need to go to the hospital? I can get Giuliana. She’s trained in first aid.”

“No,” I mumbled. “I…I thought I heard you say you wanted to be here with me.”

“That’s what I said.” He rubbed a circle on my back, and it felt nice. “Lucie, I don’t give a shit about our age difference. I like you. A lot. And I’m ready to be your partner in this.”

“How?” I looked up from the pavement. “How can we do this?”

He made a slower circle. “Any way we want. I don’t care what anyone else thinks or how anyone else would do it. I want us to figure it out. Together.”

I let my temple fall to his shoulder. I was still warm, but I wasn’t ready to claw out of my dress, out of my skin, anymore. “I don’t think Giuliana likes me.”

His chin settled on my forehead. “She thinks she’s protecting me. She’s a lot like you. She can’t imagine I’d want a baby. A family. Because she doesn’t.”

“Why do you want a family?” I asked, hypnotized by those circles he made on my back.

He paused. “I’ve always been surrounded by family. Even though I didn’t have what most people think of as a traditional family. You know we all have different fathers? Except for the twins, of course.”

I lifted my head from his shoulder to look at him. He didn’t seem upset or embarrassed about it. “Tell me more.”

Gently, he encouraged me to snuggle back into him with my head on his shoulder. “My mom and dad were married. He was older than her by about ten years.”

“There seems to be a theme here,” I said.

“Maybe.” He shrugged. “He died of a heart attack when I was one.”

“Wow. So young.”

“You can have a heart attack, even in your thirties.”

That could be a reason he didn’t want to wait to have kids. “So, your mom remarried?”

“Nah. I think she didn’t want to go through that heartbreak again. But she still liked sex, so…”

I hid my face in his shirt. I knew exactly what thatsomeant. Carrie and I had something in common.

“What about you?” he asked. “Why did you decide you were ready for a family now?”

“I figured it was my last chance. I’d been thinking about IVF, so when fate offered a free pregnancy, I…I kept it.” My story felt a lot more selfish than Danny’s.

“And what about your family?” he asked softly.

I considered telling him how pregnancy had shattered my mother’s dreams. How my father had selfishly stayed in the program that ejected her. How my brilliant mother had set everything aside to be less than she could’ve been.

I shrugged. “Just your typical family. Nothing special.”

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