Embarrassed that she’d remembered so many details about him, she admitted, “You told us, on your first day with the team, that you were from Michigan.”
“Are you saying that you don’t want me around him?” he asked next. She wasn’t sure whether she was relieved or not, that they were getting back to the point. “You said on Tuesday that you were open to friendship.”
“I know.” She understood his confusion. “I do want that. I just don’t want him getting the wrong idea.”
“People are going to come and go from your lives.”
He was right, of course.
“And maybe when I’m ready to go back to work, I’ll look for something here.”
Her heart rate escalated abruptly. Grabbing her attention.
“I...told you, I’m not interested in a long-term...anything. At least until he’s older,” she got out, wondering how much of her breathlessness he picked up on.
Figuring all of it.
Hoping none.
“Friendship,” he said. “Just friends.”
But she wanted so much more than that from him. The night before, after he’d left, she’d ended up taking a long soak in the tub, thinking about him.
About how he’d dealt with Ethan’s jealousy over Danny. About the way he engaged in her son’s video game as if it mattered as much to him as it did to Ethan. His views on the state of the world, which they’d discussed over coffee after the past six team meetings. His awareness and compassion. His willingness to risk his life to help others.
His patience.
And his body. Oh, that body. What it did to hers. How could she
have lived twenty-eight years inside her own skin and never known that she could feel like this?
“I know you’ve been through a lot, Miranda. Losing Ethan’s dad. Having to raise him on your own with no family to help you...”
She’d told him she’d grown up in foster care—back during their first personal conversation. He’d apparently remembered things, too.
“All I’m suggesting here is that I hang out with you and Ethan for a bit.”
He was new to town. Not there for long—if you discounted his what-if, and she was going to—and knew very few people. He was unselfishly and willingly volunteering a lot of time to help Danny and Marie.
“But if you’d rather I didn’t, I understand...”
“No!” She couldn’t just let him go. “I’d rather you did,” she said quickly, trying to gather her thoughts.
Maybe she should stop now. End the friendship before any of them got hurt.
Go back to being who she was seven weeks ago, before she met him...
Even as she had that thought, she knew she was asking the impossible. Tad was changing her, had changed her. He’d awakened something—an awareness of herself, her needs—that she hadn’t had before.
He’d brought Ethan’s needs more acutely to her attention, as well.
She had so many silent battles to fight. Had been an army of one for so long. She wasn’t sure she had it in her to fight her own yearnings for some good feelings in her life. Even if they only lasted for a while.
“Surely in the six years you’ve had Ethan, another man has shown interest in you. Asked you out, or hinted at a desire to,” Tad said, causing another surge of desire.
What was wrong with her?
“Yeah, there’ve been a few.” Most recently, one of the volunteer coaches at the city-based basketball camp she’d enrolled Ethan in. “And I wasn’t the least bit tempted.”