I start laughing again, letting my head drop back. “Well, that’s one way to woo a woman—knock her unconscious and carry her up to her bedroom caveman style.”
He swoops me up in his arms again, holding me like a baby but tighter this time. Now we’re both laughing as he runs up the stairs diagonally to keep from checking my cranium against the banister again.
He stops at the top. “Which way?”
“Left.” I’ve stopped laughing, and started whispering. I can’t believe we’re doing this. My heart is totally into it, but my head is worried. Am I making a mistake? Am I going to ruin everything by doing this?
My bedroom doors fly open, and Dev plows through without hesitation. Three feet from the bed he launches me from his arms, and I go flying through the air. I scream and laugh the entire way. I’ve barely made contact with the mattress when he’s jumping onto the bed next to me.
For two seconds, he looks like a real superhero—Superman, arms out and flying toward me. Unfortunately, I don’t have the nicest bed frame in the world, having purchased it at a bargain basement sale before I was married to Miles. When his giant body flops down on the left side of it, the entire thing cracks and collapses under his weight. The mattress shifts, rolling me sideways right into him.
I scream in fright and surprise, and he yells right along with me. He’s falling too. We’re a tangle of arms and legs, and we’re headed right for the floor.
“Oof!” he grunts out as he lands on the carpet on his back.
I land on top of him, causing him to cough out a groan.
I heard a crack as we were headed south. Looking up from my position on his chest, I catch him rubbing his head.
“That’s gonna leave a mark.” Apparently, he hit his head pretty hard on my side table.
“Oh my god. I can’t believe you just broke my bed.”
He looks at me, and I look at him, and we both start laughing. Within seconds I’m hysterical. I have to roll off him and cross my legs to keep from peeing on my floor.
I lie on my back, staring up at my ceiling with my legs crossed and my hands holding my crotch. A few latent snorts and giggles keep popping out so I don’t trust myself to let go yet. I cannot remember the last time I got this silly. Maybe never.
Dev turns his head to look at me, and I do the same. We stare at each other for the longest time as our laughter dies down.
“This has got to be the sexiest date you’ve ever had. Am I right?” He wiggles his eyebrows at me.
I start laughing all over again. I can’t help it. He called it a date! And he’s wacky, just like me.
He props himself up on his side and looks at me for a little while. Then he opens his mouth to say something, but a buzzing sound cuts him off, and he loses the happy expression on his face.
“What’s that?” I ask, my remaining laughter suffering a quick death.
“It’s my phone.” Reaching down, he pulls his cell out of his pocket. Reading a text there, he immediately sits up.
Dread fills me. “Is there something wrong?”
He sighs heavily, his shoulders slumping down. “It’s my mom. I have to go.”
It flashes through my mind that we’re once again a teen couple, stealing moments that we really don’t deserve to have. “Is everything okay with Jacob?”
“I don’t think so. I think he’s cramping up. She wouldn’t ask me to come home otherwise.” He looks at me, his expression sad. “I’m really sorry.”
I stand up suddenly and put my hand out for his. “Please don’t apologize. I completely get it. If my sitter called and told me there was something wrong with my kids, I’d be out of here like The Flash.”
Dev takes my hands in his and stands. “This happens pretty often, though. It’s probably not an everyday thing for you.” He drops our contact and checks his phone again.
I shake my head at him. “It doesn’t matter. We’re parents. We do what we have to do, right?” I pat his arm and then take his hand, not worrying about what he’ll think of me taking liberties. “Come on. I’ll walk you out.”
He tugs on my hand, stopping me from leaving the room. I let him pull me up against him. We wrap our arms around each other, and he looks down at me. “I was seriously going to sex you up. So, you either just got really lucky, or really unlucky.”
I can’t help but smile. “Maybe we’ll find out one day.”
“Maybe.” He gives me a kiss that feels more like a goodbye kiss in its sterility, but I’m going to go ahead and hope it’s a we’ll-try-again-later kiss. We walk down the stairs together to the front door, and I open it for him. The only thing I can think right now is that tomorrow I have a date with a stranger that I really don’t want to go on.
Dev detaches himself from me and walks out the front door. When he gets to his car he opens it up and says his last words to me. “You need to call me on Sunday.”
“Okay. Why?” I want to hear him say that he can’t stand to be away from me, that he looks forward to hearing my voice, that he wants to be more than friends.