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“Fine.” I pull her to me. Her head rests on my chest, and we finish out the last few minutes of the movie, cuddling each other. Until this moment, I haven’t realized how much I’ve missed being close to a woman, feeling the weight of a body against mine.
I was empty, but now I’m filled again.
She’s not Kristen—but she’s not better or worse than Kristen, either. Just different, new, and exactly what I’ve been longing for. Meg and I bounce off each other differently. I’m not the same guy I was before Kristen died. I’ve changed. In a good way—in a way that I hope Kristen would be proud of. I’ve lost my favorite person in the entire world, dealt with the heartache that comes with that, and built myself back up again. And Meg fits together with this new version of me.
“That was cute,” she says as the movie ends. “It makes me want to watch more baseball.”
“I’m never going to say no to that.” I pick up the remote and turn the TV to ESPN, looking for a baseball game, but there’s only football highlights from the last week. There’s a clip of the winning team throwing a Gatorade cooler over their coach.
“Why do they do that?” she asks. “Doesn’t the coach hate getting wet?”
“Probably, but he’s also really happy he won.”
They show another clip of the coach raising his hand in the air, celebrating his victory with his team, and then the screen flashes to his family celebrating up in the stands.
“His wife looks happy they won, too.”
“There are two kinds of coaches,” I say. “The ones that celebrate immediately after their wins, and the ones that find their wives in the stands first.”
“That’s really cute.”
I hug her closer, loving the feel of her in between my arms. “Meg?”
“Hmm?” She tilts her head up so I can see her blue eyes.
“Can we pretend that I don’t have any jumper cables? Or pretend that I can’t leave Krew all alone to drive you to your car? Can you just stay here tonight with me? On the couch like this? I swear we won’t do anything but sleep.”
I feel so vulnerable, but I don’t want her to leave. I want to stretch this moment out for the rest of my life.
Her head nods against my chest. “Yeah, we can do that.”
I move our bodies so that we’re laying down. Her head rests on my chest. My arms wrap around her body as our feet tangle together at the bottom of the couch. We drift off to sleep, cuddled up in the soft light of the TV as a couple who dates…in secret.
CHAPTER26
TYLER
I’ve never hated my job as much as I do this morning when I get a text that a rock wall on one of my other job sites collapsed. Leaving the arms of a beautiful woman like Meg to go do damage control on a Saturday morning is frustrating. Normally I would wake Krew up and take him with me to work, but today I leave him in bed sleeping, because Meg is there—a definite reminder that parenting is much easier when there are two people sharing the responsibilities.
I pull my truck into the garage at 8:45am. That has to be some kind of record. I’m hesitant about what I’ll find inside. I left a note letting Meg know where I was, but I’m worried she’ll be upset. Actually, I’m really worried she regrets everything that passed between us last night.
I don’t regret it.
It’s been coming for a long time, on my side.
But Meg’s different. She’s the one putting her job on the line to be with me. I’m risk free in this situation. Except for my heart.
I hear the music from the kitchen even before I open the door.
Baby Shark.
That’s a song Krew would be annoyed about if I turned it on, but with Meg, he’s apparently more lenient.
They’re bothdoo-dooing at the top of their lungs when I open the door. I set my keys down and kick off my shoes, tiptoeing to the edge of the laundry room.
I’m not prepared for what I find in the kitchen. Krew sits on the counter next to Meg as she flips pancakes. They’re both dancing and singing.
It’s the sweetest thing I’ve seen in a long time.
