Page 110 of The Fix-Up

My eyes widened.

“I don’t mind cleaning up after you, or closing a cabinet you left open, or putting your clothes in the dryer after you’ve washed them three times because you keep forgetting to put them in the dryer. What does that say about my brain?” Another step forward, “My brain likes the way you take care of Oliver, how you seem to know my moods and don’t mind them, how youput others before yourself every time. It really likes your pork chops, too.”

“They’re really good pork chops,” I whispered.

“Yes, they are and they aren’t even close to the best thing about you.”

The back of my thighs bumped against the edge of the sink. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Mostly…mostly my brain likes you. Even the things I don’t understand—I like those things, too. I like you. A lot. And it’s about to drive me crazy pretending I don’t.”

He slid a hand around to the back of my neck, leaving a trail of heat wherever he touched me. He pressed his forehead to mine. “My brain wants to kiss you.”

“You said it was a bad idea,” I whispered.

“It probably still is.” The tip of his nose skated down the side of my face in a featherlight touch. I shivered. “It definitely still is.”

“I want you to kiss me.” I licked my bottom lip. “But I’m worried about what happens after.”

He pulled back to look at me, his expression steady, patient, as though waiting for me to make the next move. This is going to hurt later, I thought, right before I fisted his t-shirt and kissed him.

To be honest, I’d been dreaming about kissing him for weeks now. My imagination was pretty good but nothing like the real thing.

And he wasn’t even wearing the toolbelt.

Gil took over the kiss almost immediately, hauling me against him, one hand sliding into my hair and the other settling low on my back. I was surrounded by him, and it felt so good. The tension I’d been holding onto for weeks melted as his kiss became more insistent, deeper. My heart thrummed against my ribs. Fire heated my blood, warming me from the inside out.

My hands tangled in his hair and tugged. He broke the kiss long enough for me to take a breath before he was kissing me again; I returned it with an edge of desperation, the knowing that this wasn’t a new beginning. It was a beginning to an end. All my bad decisions came down to this one moment, this one kiss, this one man.

Because the other thing about this kiss, it was the first time I’d been kissed by someone who wanted all the parts of me, good and bad.

He wanted me. Just me.Only me.

And I know it sounds clichéd and so romance-novel-y but looking back, it was the exact moment I made the best worst decision of my life: I fell in love with Gilbert Dalton.

FORTY-SIX

[Love is…] when you care deeply about someone.

—CARTER A., AGE 10

What do you do when you finally get the thing you wanted more than anything? You protect it, you keep it somewhere safe, and you don’t tell a soul. I guess that’s what was happening right now between Gil and me. For the last week, we’d been in a bubble that protected us from everyone else’s opinions.

We didn’t even tell Oliver. Then again, I wasn’t sure what we would tell him. But at night after he went to bed, Gil and I didn’t avoid each other anymore. In fact, we did the opposite of that. It was kind of fun sneaking around like teenagers.

School got out the first week in June and Oliver stayed home with Gil most days. They were working on some secret project together. Oliver was practically salivating to tell me what it was, even came close a time or two, but he’d sworn an oath of fealty, or something. Every day, I came home and there was Gil asking me how my day was or insisting I sit down while he did the dishes.

Who was this man and how could I keep him?

That was the million-dollar question. While we talked about all kinds of things, what we didn’t do was bring up the subject of selling the house. It was an unspoken dark cloud that neither of us was willing to deal with.

“Mommy,” Oliver yelled the second I walked in the door from work one Tuesday in early June. “Something happened.”

I dumped my stuff on the kitchen counter. “What?”

He patted my arm. Like he was consoling me. “I don’t want you to be mad at Mr. Gil.”

“Why?”

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