Page 7 of Dream with Me

I walk to the table and give Chase a kiss on his head, then do the same with each of my other children.

“Coffee?” Troy asks.

I look up at him, and his tousled hair is so sexy, even though I know he probably rolled out of bed and hasn’t touched it. Without meaning to, I reach up and run my hand through my own hair, feeling that it’s sticking up everywhere.

“No, I’m fine. I’m gonna go brush my teeth.”

I leave and go up to the bedroom. After I’m done, I head back downstairs and into the kitchen. My family continues to enjoy their breakfast together, Troy now sitting with them, and the kids all watch him intently, hanging on his every word.

I used to look at him like that. He’s a man of measured words, and when I started tutoring him in high school, that’s one of the first things that made me aware he was more than your average cocky jock. At first, it drove me nuts since I’m the one who usually says whatever comes into my head. But it grew on me. The first time he told me I looked pretty, Iknewhe meant it and wasn’t trying to flirt with me, so I’d given him the answers to the math work we were focused on. Something several other guys I tutored had attempted.

I walk to the coffee pot and pour myself a cup, and when I turn back around, Troy is looking at me. His mouth is slightly downturned at the corners.

“I could’ve gotten that for you, babe.”

“It’s fine. I can take care of myself.” There’s a bite to my tone, and Troy openly frowns. Olivia looks up, obviously picking up on my sharpness.

The thing is, I’m not even sure why it’s there. He’s here now and doing everything he can to make the morning go smoothly and to engage with our kids. Yet this ball of irritation—almost anger—swirls around in my belly. My gut tells me it’s more than residual from our argument yesterday. Well, if you could call it an argument. Because to argue, you have to stay and let it out. And the one thing I know about Troy is he’ll go to almost any length to avoid fighting with me.

“Do you need me for anything, or do you have this?” I gesture to the kids. “I’d like to go look at my work from last night and double-check it.”

Regret flashes in Troy’s eyes, and he nods. “I got this.”

His gaze is fixed on me, and his eyes search mine like he’s looking for answers there. I don’t think he’ll find any. I suspect from the outside that I look how I feel inside, empty.

“Okay. I’ll be in the dining room.”

When I get to the dining room, I plop down in the chair and flip open my laptop I left there last night. I spend the next twenty minutes going over my work, and when I’m satisfied it’s accurate, I shut the laptop down and push it away from me. I’ll reach out to Emily and Lizzy later to see if they want to set up a time to review it.

Basking in the quiet, I look around the room as I drink the last of my now cool coffee. My eye catches on the matching four glossy, navy-blue books—my high school yearbooks. I stare at them for several seconds and then stand and retrieve them. I don’t bother to walk back to the table. Instead, I plant myself on the floor next to the built-in bookcase and lean my back against the wall.

Opening the yearbook from my senior year, I scroll through the pages. When I come to the superlative section, there’s a photo of me with Troy, posing as we sit around the table we always used for our tutoring sessions. The photo is labeled“Cutest couple: Troy Willson & Shannon Donley.”

I run my finger over the glossy photo. We’re looking at each other, and the love in our eyes is totally sappy. God, it’s been fourteen years since this photo was taken. Troy looks younger, obviously, but he’s aged well. He’s just an older, more masculine version of this boy I fell in love with. But the girl with him in the photos? I don’t recognize her anymore.

I flip a few more pages and come to the section titled: “In ten years...” and thumb through the pages until I come to Troy’s.

“In ten years, I hope to be a firefighter here in Elladine, have a nice home where I live with my wife, Shannon, and have a couple of rugrats.”

Troy landed exactly where he hoped he would. I will find mine next.

“In ten years, I will have my master’s in accounting and will be a partner in an accounting firm. I’ll be a CPA. Maybe I’ll even have my own accounting firm. Who knows? I’ll have a nice home, be married, and have two kids.”

Well, our home is comfy, so I accomplished that. I crushed the kid goal since I doubled it. As far as professionally, though, I’m nowhere near where I thought I’d be. Sure, I graduated summa cum laude with my accounting degree, and I worked full-time for a small firm on the edge of Elladine and Aron Falls for a few years after I graduated. I was fortunate because I didn’t need to put Olivia in daycare. Between Troy’s days off and my parents, someone was always able to watch my firstborn.

When Oliver came along, it was only a few months before we decided I should cut my hours to be home with the kids more. I planned to go back to full-time eventually, but the kids kept coming, and my work hours outside the house kept dwindling.

When I left the job entirely, I told myself it would only be temporary, and I’d be back on the path to qualify for my CPA exam and to reach my dreams. That was more than a few years ago.

Those last few hundred experience hours still taunt me.

CHAPTER5

SHANNON

I’m already in bed reading when Troy gets to the bedroom after putting Chase down. I should know better than to read these kinds of books when it’s been a while since Troy and I have had sex. There’s no denying it, I’m horny. Considering it’s been hard to get in the mood for the last few months, I’m surprised.

Reading this alpha male billionaire romance has gotten me riled up. The sex scenes were hot, but what got me was when the hero canceled his important board meeting because his wife seemed stressed. Hah. If only real men were like that.

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