Page 29 of Wicked Destiny

We dry off with her two thin towels and pad out to the kitchen. She pours us coffee in mismatched mugs, uninhibited, wet-haired and singing under her breath. I can’t believe how close I came to never having any of this.

We carry our coffee to the couch. Elodie folds herself sideways into my lap and I pull the blanket over both of us. For a while neither of us says anything. We’re content. With her ear over my heart and my hand traveling up and down her bare back.

Into my chest, Elodie whispers, “This isn’t just sex.”

“No.” I keep my hand moving on her back. “It isn’t.”

She tips her head back to look at me, dead serious. Older than her years. “It’s amazing sex. Never even fathomed how good it could be. I think it’s because I’m falling for you, Beau. I think you’re falling for me too. It’s complicated as hell, but I need to know what we’re doing, because I don’t want to live in a bubble if it’s already popped.”

I’ve known this was coming. I’ve rehearsed this conversation in my head between rounds. There’s no version where I get to keep her in my life and keep everyone else too.

“Of course I’m falling too.” She deserves the truth, even when it’s inconvenient. “I fell weeks ago. I’ve been lying to myself about it. Trying to avoid…” I make myself breathe. “I don’t have the first idea how to do this with you. I’m having lunch with my daughter in three hours. She’s twenty-six. What am I supposed to tell her? I’m seeing someone, she’s four years younger than you, we met at the class you signed me up for? It’ll be like a grenade in the room.”

Elodie shuts her eyes. Sighs.

“I need time to navigate this. Privately. I won’t make you a secret, but I want to keep seeing you if we can keep this between us for a while. Off the internet. Out of my kids’ lives. Just until we know whether this thing is even possible for the long term. I don’t think it’s wise to detonate both our worlds until we’re sure.”

She’s quiet a long time, her thumb traces a slow loop on my chest. I brace for hurt or for a fight. Maybe for her to tell me to go to hell and have a nice life.

Instead, I make myself continue. “You need time to figure out if I’m the guy for you too. I’ve done the family. I raised two kids, buried their mother, and I’m out the other side of all of it. I’m slowing down. You’re about to start the whole part of life I’m finishing. Law school, a career, maybe children. Ten years from now you’ll be thirty-two and hitting your stride. Am I who you picture yourself with? I’m not saying this to talk you out of anything. You deserve to choose with your eyes open.”

Elodie sits up, pulls the blanket around her shoulders and looks at me the way she did across a fireplace one afternoon when she refused to let me lie. “Okay. Private, not secret. Time to figure it out. I can do that.” Her chin sets. “One condition. You must try. For real. No keeping one foot out the door. If I give you time, you give me a real chance. A true one. Deal?”

“Deal.”

I mean it

How much scares the hell out of me.

thirteen

One Month Later

I’ve got my own side of the bed now.

Not the bed, obviously.

We don’t go into the master suite. Ever.

Beau’s house is the size of a boutique hotel. You could fit three of my mom’s house plus ten of my apartment inside and this place would still be bigger. We sleep in a guest room down the hall, which is nicer than most bedrooms. It has a view of the lake, a balcony, an en suite bathroom with a walk-in shower and a beautiful built-in closet.

The first night I stayed, Beau set us up in here. Some lines you don’t need to discuss.

Now it’s our room and I haven’t left here all month.

He brings me coffee in bed. Calls me from the grocery store to ask which yogurt I want. FaceTimes from rehearsal to say he’s thinking about me. We’ve become inseparable. I didn’t know I wanted to be one of those couples until now.

Beau and I fit. There’s no other way to explain it, considering the decades stacked between us. I’ve got him watching Love Island, which he claims to hate yet holds ferocious opinions about. He’s turned me on to The Wire. We argue about music. Cook together. Read on opposite ends of a couch with my feet in his lap.

Don’t get me started on the sex. I can’t even.

In nearly every way worth counting, we’re in a committed relationship.

Two things are wrong with it.

First, we’re still a secret, which means we’re never out in the world. His kids and bandmates have no clue. I’ve told Priya, of course, and Eden knows I’m seeing someone since I gave up my school apartment and haven’t spent one night at my mom’s house.

At the same time, Beau and I have never eaten out. Gone for a walk. Stood in one line for coffee. In this neighborhood, he’s too famous for any of it. People stop him in the driveway, for God’s sake.