Page 58 of 5+Us Makes Seven

I closed my eyes as my mind wafted back to that night. The night before she left where I had gone to her apartment and pleaded with everything I had. Her body had felt so warm and comforting. We moved like two dolphins weaving in and out against the sea. I had taken her over and over. Held her in my arms and made her cum until she begged for mercy.

But even after I reminded her of our chemistry and even after I had taken her out for one last dinner that night, she still said no.

&n

bsp; She still left the next morning to go to Africa.

“Nathaniel, you remember that dream you told me about?” I asked.

“What dream?” he asked.

“The dream about you making your first soccer goal?”

“Yeah. I remember.”

“What if someone was asking you to give up soccer before you made that first goal?” I asked. “How would you feel?”

“I’d tell them to let me make my goal first, then I’d do what they wanted me to do.”

“But you wouldn’t give up your dream, right? You wouldn’t quit before you made that goal?”

“No,” he said with a sigh.

“Then why are you asking the same of Miss Nattie?” I asked.

“I don’t like it when you’re right,” Joshua said.

A grin crossed my cheeks as I chuckled.

“In this particular circumstance, I don’t like it either,” I said. “But Natasha has a plan for her life and we can’t expect her to give that plan up because we want her.”

“Need her,” Clara said.

I turned around and looked at my daughter as her eyes connected with mine.

“We need her,” Clara said.

“I know we do,” I said. “And sometimes, loving someone and needing someone means you give up what you want so they can have what they want.”

“Do you love her?” Joshua said.

I stopped stirring the macaroni and cheese so I could dump all of the contents into it.

“Because I love her,” Joshua said.

“Me too,” Nathaniel said.

“Me four,” Clara said.

“You mean three,” Joshua said.

“No… Daddy’s ‘me three’,” Clara said.

Tears lined the rims of my eyes as I stirred the milk, butter, and cheese powder into the pot.

“She’s right,” I said. “I am ‘me three’.”

“Did you tell her that?” Nathaniel asked.

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