Page 62 of Redemption

“So how much time do you think you need?” I ask.

“For what?” His eyes have fallen closed. He looks warm, sated, perfectly content.

I giggle. “Forus.”

“Oh.” He opens his eyes again. “I don’t know.”

“Do you still need time?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know.”

I’m still smiling as I reach out with my other hand to stroke his face. His skin is deliciously rough beneath my palm. “I think that’s a yes. Just tell me how much time you need. I’ll wait for you.”

“Louisa.”

“I mean it. I’ll wait. I don’t want to do this until you know it’s the right thing. For both of us. So if you need time, you take the time.”

“I just need to… be sure that this is what you really want.”

“I understand. How much time?”

He hesitates, glancing away briefly. “A few weeks?”

I manage to hide the surge of relief. I was afraid he would need months, and I was dreading being patient for so long. A few weeks isn’t bad at all. “That’ll be fine. We could say a month?”

He nods. “That would give you time to get over the crisis and get back into your old life. So you can really know whether you want… this. Us. One month.”

“One month.” I pause before I add, “But just so it’s clear, I’m doing this for you. I don’t need a month to know what I want. But I want you to be as sure about it as I am. If it means I can have you forever, I’m happy to wait a month.”

He looks so relaxed he might fall asleep at any moment, but his features tighten briefly as he says, “It’s not that I don’t want you, Louisa. It feels like I’ve spent my entire life wanting you.”

“I know. I understand. We’ll wait a month so you’ll have time to accept that I’ve spent my whole life wanting you too.”

* * *

It’s three weeks later when I come back from an afternoon art experience to find Caleb working on dinner.

He’s chopping vegetables for a stir-fry, arranging them in neat little piles on my big chopping board.

My cousins gave him a month of medical leave, and he took another month of personal leave after that. He’s never used any of his vacation days, so he has a huge number collected. We decided that two months together without pressure or danger should be plenty to figure out if our relationship has a chance of working. After that, we can make more long-term decisions before Caleb needs to go back on the job.

So he’s been living with me for the past few weeks, and they’ve been the best weeks of my life.

Every morning he works out at my health club as I swim. Then we shower and dress and go on little outings—hiking or visiting nearby towns or finding out-of-the-way restaurants. I still do my work with the community center at least a couple of afternoons a week, but otherwise we either explore or hang out at home together, relaxing and having a lot of sex.

It’s like a dream, and I never want to wake up from it.

Obviously, regular life will eventually intrude, but if I can keep living every day with Caleb, even regular life will be better than I ever hoped it could be.

Caleb seems to be happy too.

His face and body are relaxed as he chops up a red bell pepper. He didn’t shave this morning, so he’s got a lot of stubble going on. He’s wearing jeans and a long-sleeved crewneck. He’s got on socks but no shoes.

“Hey,” he says, his eyes cutting over to the doorway where I’m standing. “You coming in or what?”

“Yes. I’m coming in. Just wanted to look at you a minute.”

That earns me an eye roll. He keeps chopping as I come over and wrap one arm around his waist.

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