“Will you be disappointed in me if we don’t do anything more than sleep?”
She shook her head and let her blonde waves bounce around her chin. “Never,” she promised. “I just want you to be happy again… however that happens.”
I nodded, acknowledging that I had the best sister in the entire world. “You’ll call if there are problems?”
“Obviously.”
“If I text you code red, you’ll call and make up a problem?”
“Lizzy, I will set your house on fire if you need me to. Now go!”
“Okay, I’m going.” I paused in the doorway and turned back to her, “Em, no matter what I text, do not set the house on fire.”
She rolled her eyes and waved me off.
The three of us wrestled the kids back inside so I could give them each a kiss and a hug and then Ben set us off on our date… our date that was supposed to last us all night long.
“Where do you want to get dinner?”
I looked up at him, startled by his question. “Oh.”
His mischievous grin brought all kinds of fluttering feelings to life inside of me. “You did want to get dinner, didn’t you?”
“I-I, um, yes.”
He took my hand and swung me around to face him, pausing on the sidewalk between our two houses. “Or did you want to go straight to my place?” He dipped his head to place a slow kiss along my jaw, sending shivers racing down my back.
“Dinner is good,” I squeaked.
His dark chuckle did nothing to help prepare me for the night ahead. “We’re taking tonight at your pace, Liz. We can do whatever you want tonight. I promise not to ravish you before you’re ready.”
As if those words were going to calm me down. “I know.”
“You’re shaking,” he pointed out.
“I’m nervous.”
He pulled back so that I could stare into those fathomless dark eyes. He held my gaze, long enough for me to know that he was serious. “Do you trust me?”
I took a breath. “I do.”
“Then trust that I want you anyway you’ll let me have you. There’s nothing else to worry about tonight.”
Those words were all I needed. We climbed into his little car that was free of fast food wrappers on the floor and stickers stuck to the windows. He took me to one of my new favorite restaurants, one that he had introduced me to.
We had a fantastic meal and then took a long walk through downtown, admiring the summer night and holding hands.
Everything with Ben was new and thrilling. Sometimes my mind compared him to Grady without my permission, but for the most part, this man next to me was so very different than my first husband that I could keep thoughts of them separate.
When Grady held my hand, it was the feeling that had been with me for a decade. It was a love that had grown from a seedling into a mature, unbreakable bond.
With Ben, we had started at the beginning with something fragile and small, but what we had was never like what Grady and I had. Our feelings for each other didn’t start as a seed, they started as an ocean. I felt as though we were separated by miles of rocky, turbulent water that could drown both of us or either of us with the wrong step. And as we’d spent time together, as we’d opened up and shared in each other’s lives, that ocean had shrunk. The waters between us had grown smaller and less frightening. The distance between us had all but disappeared.
We had grown into something different… something profound, but I couldn’t put a name on it just yet. I couldn’t think of the right words to claim it.
At the edge of downtown, Ben leaned against a building and pulled me into the curve of his body. “Can I take you home now?”
I stared at his chest and breathed, “Yes.”
“Do you still trust me?” he asked, tilting my chin with one long finger to meet his depthless gaze.
I nodded, unable to speak through my fears.
We drove home in silence. Ben asked me if I trusted him and I did, without a doubt. But it wasn’t him that I had to worry about. It was me. Did I trust myself?
I didn’t trust myself to keep my hands off of him. And I didn’t trust myself to finish something if I were to start it. I was a mess of anxiety and lust, unable to separate the two from each other.
Ben pulled his car into the garage and opened my door for me. His garage was so empty compared to mine. He had one bike parked along the wall and a set of tools. There was a kayak hanging from the ceiling and some storage boxes piled on shelves. But he lacked the overflow that kids managed to accumulate with multiple bicycles and tricycles and balls and outdoor whatever. Normally I would have expected this from someone single like Ben, but it felt wrong on him. He had become such a huge part of our lives that I expected his garage to be filled with kid things too.
My footsteps seemed to echo through the empty expanse as I followed him into the house. His house, that had seemed so perfect for him a few months ago, now felt wrong and ill-fitting.
I set my purse down next to my bag that he had brought in and joined him in the kitchen for a glass of wine. The delicious red helped calm some of my frantic nerves and I tried to focus on him… on just being here with him in the quiet of his home.
“This is good,” I said to fill our silence.
“Is it weird that I brought you back to my house?” Ben asked, appearing pulled from deep thoughts. “I thought a hotel room might seem… presumptuous.”