Page 84 of Better Late Than Never

I did know that considering our arrangement, it should’ve been weird that I was so chill about the times we weren’t having sex. With other guys, I’d have had my guard up—worried they were subtly trying to steer us toward something that wasn’t just physical.

With Connor…

God, I could only hope.

I held him a little tighter and kissed the back of his shoulder.

Is it too much to ask to have this for real?

CHAPTER27

CONNOR

The Mezquita Catedral de Córdoba was incredible. Huge, too; an enormous wall surrounded the structure, and once we were past the gates, there was a sprawling courtyard full of orange trees and small streams. I hadn’t recognized the belltower in Sevilla as being a repurposed minaret from the previous mosque, but this time I knew what I was looking for. There it was—the distinctive rectangular shape of a minaret with the addition of a church’s belltower on top.

The security guards only let a few people into the Mezquita at a time, which I appreciated; I hated when places like this were teeming with tourists. The courtyard was crowded enough. When we got inside, it was far quieter, with only a handful of other people wandering the giant structure. It was also a lot cooler thanks to the stone floors and high ceilings, and much darker, too. Such a relief after the oppressive heat and blinding sun outside.

“They really liked archways, didn’t they?” I mused as I took a photo on my phone of the seemingly endless series of red-and-white striped archways over our heads.

“No kidding,” Alex said. “A guy I used to work with is a photographer, and he said he spent like two hours in here just taking pictures of arches.”

“I can believe that.”

We weren’t going to spend two hours photographing arches, but we did take our sweet time wandering beneath them and between pillars. The place was beautiful, and it was amazingly peaceful. I probably could’ve spent a couple of hours in here just enjoying the calm inside the immense building.

At the very center of what had once been the mosque, the style and architecture changed dramatically. Instead of the sparse, open space beneath the arches, we were now in the intricately decorated cathedral, complete with two huge pipe organs. It was brighter in here, too, thanks to the soaring white dome overhead and the windows high above either side of the altar.

I looked back at the mosque, then into the cathedral, marveling that two such wildly different worlds had existed beneath the same roof. Not that it had continued as a mosque after the Catholics had taken it over, but the difference between the old design and the new was striking to say the least.

But all the way through both the mosque and the cathedral, my gaze kept drifting away from the archways and pipe organs and paintings to the man walking beside me.

I can’t believe you’re here.

Do you have any idea how much I miss you when you’re not?

That seemed kind of stupid. We saw each other pretty frequently, all things considered. And if this thing continued past when one of us transferred or—more likely—when Alex retired, we’d have an ocean between us.

I’d weathered that kind of separation from Aimee back when our marriage had still been good, and it was hard. Being away from her. Being away from my kids. It was still tough being away from the boys.

What would a long-distance relationship with Alex be like? Because just the thought of being separated by an ocean for weeks or months—God, that made my chest hurt. Only seeing each other once in a while. Navigating time differences and communicating by text and FaceTime more than anything. Savoring every precious minute we could spend in the same place.

Just thinking about that had me missing him already, and he was right here. The need to touch him now had my fingers tingling and curling at my sides. Not here. We were too out in the open, even two hundred and fifty kilometers from anyone who’d care, and also this wasn’t really the time or place. I wasn’t a religious man myself, but I did try to be respectful when I was in someone else’s place of worship.

Still, as we stepped out of the cathedral and back into the mosque, and I chanced sliding my hand over the small of his back.

He glanced at me, surprise raising his eyebrows. Then he smiled, which told me the contact wasn’t unwelcome.

I returned the smile. As we kept walking, I took my hand away; disappointing, yes, but we still had to be both cautious and respectful.

When we get back to the room, though…

I shivered, and I had to suppress a grin. We’d be sleeping in the same bed tonight, wouldn’t we? Sleeping, andsomuch more. Because even if the future meant living thousands of miles apart, I had him now.

Was it time to go back to the room yet?

No, it wasn’t. We were going to be good little tourists and enjoy everything Córdoba had to offer.Thenwe’d go back to the room and see how much one or both of those almost-queen size beds could handle.

Eventually, we reached the mosque’s exit and stepped outside. It was like walking into a wall of heat, and we both squinted against the brutal sunlight even after we’d pulled on sunglasses.

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