Page 16 of Love Unexpected

“Why? It’s not like she’ll ever know. I was just wondering.”

“I loved them both in different ways. With Tessa, everything was one hundred miles an hour. We were still partying hard every weekend. Staying up all night. Smoking. Drinking. We did this well into our thirties. Then I got tired, but she kept at it. It was hard to keep going to class to teach on Monday morning after I’d just come off a two day bender,” he explains.

“Sounds like you grew up and she didn’t.”

“I guess,” he sighs. “And then I met your mom and she was obviously so settled because she had you. But she was just so sure about everything. She’d just started interning at the hospital when we met. She was so positive and understanding. She was like a ray of sunshine in my darkest days. I was still so devastated over Tessa and she was justthere.You were too young to notice but I swear she spent the first year of our relationship healing me.”

My mother in a nutshell: everyone came before her.

“Fuck, I can’t believe I’m telling you all of this.” He presses his hands to his face and scrubs his jaw. “I need to go to sleep.”

“Dominic, you can talk to me, you know. I am an adult.”

“That’s right,” he chuckles. “Eighteen. God, where does the time go?”

“No clue. It feels like just yesterday I was ten years old and I had the biggest crush on you.” My eyes, which were previously closed, fly open.Shit.“I mean before you met my mom.”

“Wait what?” He’s still on his back, but he moves to face me.

“Okay, don’t get all weird, but I had a crush on you when you moved here and started teaching at my elementary school, okay? Let’s not make it a thing. I was ten.”

He looks at me and then back at the ceiling. “I see.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to say that. I rarely think about that.Obviously.”Sell it better than that, Stassia.He still doesn’t say anything and I turn over on my back and let out an indignant huff. “Stop being so weird,” I grumble.

“I’m just…high as hell, Stass.” I see the glazed look in his eyes; he’s fading fast underneath the strong weed. “Not being weird.”

“That doesn’t explain why you’re acting like this over me having a crush on you when I wasfarfrom legal. It’s not like…” I swallow, my tongue suddenly very dry and feeling super heavy in my mouth as I prepare to speak these particular words. “Like I have a crush on younowor something.” I roll my eyes like it’s the most absurd thing in the world. I say it as if even at this very moment, I don’t feel something slowly shifting inside of me. Something I thought I’d lain to rest the second my mother said ‘I do.’

I’d told myself I couldn’t have a crush on my mother’s husband.

And he was still my mother’s husband.

Right?

The feeling of someone pressed right up against me is the first thing I feel as I make my way out of unconsciousness. I’m vaguely aware of the sound of birds chirping outside of the window and the smell of coconut and lime that is oddly familiar. Still somewhat out of it, I reach for the smell, expecting to be hit with a wave of nostalgia as I submerge my face in my late wife’s pillow. It’s the conditioner she used and there were many mornings I submerged my face in her hair and took deep breaths. However, instead of a soft satin pillow, I find a warm body instead.

My eyes fly open as my mind catches up with my body and I realize that Stassia is pressed up against me sleeping soundly. I’ve been lying on my back and her back is pressed directly against my side, so it isn’t super sexual but uncomfortable enough that she’s here given that she’d never shared a bed with me before.Ever.She’s still wearing her sweatpants and sweatshirt and I’m grateful she didn’t shed any clothes during the night.

I sit up slightly, trying my best not to wake her and slip out of bed unnoticed.Thank God, Stassi sleeps like the dead.After I relieve myself and brush my teeth, I head down the stairs to make us some breakfast, disallowing my brain to unpack the fact that my dick was semi-hard when I woke up. I know that it’s a completely normal thing for men and it probably has nothing to do with the fact that Stassi was in bed with me.

Probably.

The thought I’ve been ignoring makes me groan as I pull the bacon out of the fridge. I turn on the Keurig and start preparing the cup when my phone rings. It’s only eight a.m., so I can already guess who it is, probably coming in from his morning swim.

“Why do you insist on calling me at eight in the morning? You’re lucky I was already up.” I roll my eyes at my younger brother Seth. He’s eight years younger than me but acts more like he’s twenty years younger than me. He’s still single, no kids, and if I can recall, he’s never had a serious relationship. A slew of one night stands, yes, but I can’t remember the last time he entertained a woman for longer than a few weeks. Swimming has been his life from a young age and he even almost made it to the Olympics, but another guy from Maryland kind of had the lock on that the year he was close. He never let it sway his passion though, and I commend him for not being bitter about it. He still swims every day, sometimes more than once depending on his schedule.

Stanford University is the best division one swimming college in the country, and they essentially broke down our door his junior year to get to him. He went and received an Ivy League education for free. Once swimming on the professional level didn’t pan out, he’d gotten a job at a recruiting firm and has been there since, climbing his way up the ranks to senior vice president. He now lives in Florida because “fuck that Maryland weather.”

“Some people have to work on Saturdays, dickhead, and I wanted to check on my big brother. Shit.”

I can’t ignore the smile that finds my face at my well-meaning little brother. I have one brother and one sister and I’m close with both, but only my brother dropped everything when Angela died. My sister, Elle, was in med school at Princeton and under a rigorous schedule, so she couldn’t make it. She swore she’d come visit this summer, but she’s as flakey as she is busy, so I’m not counting on it.

“I’m good,” I tell him.

“You sure?” I can hear the concern in his voice. “You don’t sound good.”

“I’ve been up twenty minutes. Sorry I haven’t already swum eight miles and had breakfast,” I joke.

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