“Yeah?” he asks in a voice coarsened with desire, rubbing the knuckle of his index finger over my bruised mouth.
“Yeah.” I laugh.
He gives an impatient nod to the horse, and when he grabs my waist to lift me, he stops and inhales a deep breath. He smiles against my temple, and I smile to myself. I haven’t seen his dimple in a while, and this time I can actually feel it against my skin.
Sometimes we use the people close to us as crutches, to keep from facing reality, or to keep from doing the hard work. We think they can do it for us or shield us from the truth. Sometimes we use our pain as a crutch too, to keep from putting ourselves out there again. I can no longer deny that between me and Trent, there always stood a six-foot-plus blond Tyrannosaurus rex, and I hadn’t realized until now that nothing could have kept me from falling in love with him.
*
We ride across a dirt path up to the crest of a hill, where we can see the rest of the Hill Country before us. As we ride, he talks about growing up here, about the first time he fell off a horse, and I keep telling him it’s so peaceful compared to Chicago. “You can almost hear your own thoughts here,” I say.
“Yeah?” He raises an eyebrow, as if he intends to find out exactly what those thoughts are.
He smirks devilishly, but I smirk back just as devilishly, my eyes silently promising him he’ll never know.
We head up a trail between oaks and cedars, and Trent texts me as we park the horses in a field of wildflowers and sit down to take in the view.
I need to see you.
I’m not in the city
When do you get back?
I tell him to meet me at my place Friday evening, a week from today. That I want to talk. And then I tuck my phone away, dreading the conversation already.
“Davis?” Tahoe asks as we fall back on the grass, boosted up on our elbows. He’s staring out at the horizon, his jaw working.
“Yes.”
That’s all I say, and apparently that’s all he needs to hear.
BABY
That afternoon, while at his parents’ house, I get a call from Wynn saying Rachel went into labor. I leave Livvy with the flowers we were pruning and run into the house. Tahoe’s charging out of his father’s office and he stops when we almost collide at the foyer.
“You ready?” he asks.
I nod breathlessly, smiling ear to ear.
“Let’s go.”
Eight hours later, Rachel gives birth to an eight-pound, healthy baby boy.
Kyle Malcolm Saint.
He’s got eyes that we all predict will stay blue, and a fuzz of light hair we assume comes from his mother.
After talking about loss and death, Tahoe and I witness this miracle of life and we are the only ones aside from the parents with red eyes.
Tahoe takes my hand in his, and then moves me closer in an instinctual gesture of comfort. His thigh barely touches mine, but I feel closer to him than when I’m physically closer to another guy. He looks down at me, and his infectious grin sets my own smile free.
“Rachel is going to be such a great mom,” I vow on my best friend’s behalf.
His voice is rough with pride. “Are you kidding me? Saint is going to kill it as a dad.”
And I wonder if I will ever have a baby of my own to love and a husband I adore the way my best friend loves hers.
And I know. I know what I’ve always known. That this aching, thrilling thing I have for Tahoe won’t ever go away. That I have never in my life wanted a man the way I want Tahoe “T-Rex” Roth.
That I want the kind of love that Rachel and Saint have, and if I ever have a baby, I want to be so wildly in love with the dad that my only wish is for my child to resemble him as much as he possibly can.
I’ve always told myself that Trent and I are good. That he’s sweet and I’m happy with him. But in the middle of the hospital, watching my best friend getting kissed by her husband as they hold their firstborn child, I say—fuck good.
I want fabulous.
I want every moment to feel like it does when I’m with the man I’m sitting next to right now. Even the sad moments, the hopeless moments, the silent moments or the funny ones, or the deep ones, or the surprising ones—simply every moment, I want that spark that is always there, the sizzle, the light, the joy, that comes with being near HIM.
Maybe he will never want me in return. Maybe I’m a fool. But I also know that somehow, I’ve also been in a crystal box of my own creation for a while. And nothing has ever lured me out of my box but HIM.
I’m in love with Tahoe, and Trent will never be him.
I get to my feet and go text Trent, pushing up our meeting and asking him to come over to my place tonight.
“I have to get home,” I tell Rachel.
I kiss her on the cheek, tell her to kiss the baby for me when they bring him back from the nursery, then I say goodbye to Saint, Emmett, Wynn, Rachel’s mom, and Tahoe.
I say, softly so that only he hears, “I have to go, thank you for Texas.” And when he smiles, I kiss his dimple and leave.
WHEN GOOD IS NOT ENOUGH