30
ISABELLA
Lennon Harris was something else. She was beautiful, a voluptuous brunette with the most interesting lavender-blue eyes and hair the color of chestnuts in the light of a cozy fire. Dressed in a bohemian skirt that hung to her knees and a loose navy tank, she had strings of beads around her neck and feathered earrings hanging from her lobes.
Her hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail and she wore only basic makeup on her face, her eyes lined with kohl and her lashes carrying what seemed like just a dab of mascara. The kids took to her immediately, and I couldn’t blame them. Her mega-watt smile and warm personality drew me in, too.
“I can’t believe Nash has been volunteering here for months and this is my first time,” she raved, standing next to me in the community center where the program took place. “When he told me he’d started mentoring foster children, I wanted to come along immediately, but work made it difficult.”
She pouted, her eyes gleaming with suppressed laughter as she turned her head to waggle her brows at me. “You know how it goes. One day, it’s January and you’ve got all these plans for the year. Then the year happens, and before you know it, it’s September and you still haven’t had time to put any of those plans into motion.”
Nash chuckled from her other side, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her into him, dropping a kiss on her temple before he rolled his eyes at her. “I love you, but you have trouble sticking to whatever is in your day-planner just for the day. Having plans for a whole year seems like a stretch.”
Instead of being offended by the comment like I might’ve been, she shrugged and bumped her hip into his, releasing a long-suffering sigh. “Hey, I have broader goals I’d like to achieve in a year, just like most other people. I just don’t see the point of trying to force things into happening before they’re ready to happen. Taking it day by day is a perfectly legitimate strategy.”
“Of course, it is,” he said, and although I didn’t know him that well, I could tell he wasn’t just indulging her. He truly believed it. “Besides, you get more out of living in the moment than I get out of a whole month that I try to plan ahead.”
Those lavender eyes twinkled as she gazed up at her husband. “That’s why you love me. I make you slow down and take it all in.”
He laughed, giving her chest a pointed look before stepping back and winking. “Well, that’s one of the reasons why I love you. Those are the other two.”
Arching her back, she stuck her breasts out just the tiniest bit and shimmied. “Don’t lie. There are other things you love about me as well. The girls just happen to be a nice bonus.”
“A very nice bonus,” he agreed with a slight eyebrow lift, the humor fading from his features as he turned to look around the room. “I’d better get going. None of my mentees are here yet, but I’m also leading a focus group today. I just wish there was more I could do for these kids.”
Lennon reached out to squeeze his forearm, her hand lingering on it as she fixed her gaze on his and spoke softer than she had before. “You’re already doing plenty. Plus, there’s the internship program at the agency starting next month. It’s better to focus on what youaredoing rather than on everything else that needs to be done.”
The look he gave her in return was one of pure marvel, a slow smile breaking out on his lips before he nodded and took a deep breath. “You’re right. Doing something is better than doing nothing, even if that something will never feel like enough.”
I knew what he meant, but he was turning and striding toward the program coordinator before I could agree with him. Lennon let out a quiet sigh as she watched him go, then smiled again as she looked back at me.
“It’s so good to finally meet you,” she said, sincerity ringing as clear as a bell in her tone. “Nash has told me so much about you.”
“Same here,” I replied. “That man can’t shut up about you. I feel like I’ve known you for as long as I’ve known him. Now that I’ve seen you guys together, I get it, though. You’re absolute magic as a couple.”
Her cheeks flushed and her smile widened until she was practically glowing. “Thanks. It’s still hard to believe sometimes how things worked out. There was a time that I didn’t have much hope for us. I still feel like the luckiest girl in the world that, out of everyone out there, he picked me. It’s crazy.”
“It’s not crazy,” I said honestly. “You guys are just so easy together. It’s like you can read the other’s minds.”
“It feels like that sometimes, and it’s weird because we’re such different people. Things have always just come naturally with him, though. He was the first guy who felt like he could be my best friend from the word go. Considering who he is, I never thought we’d even get along, but I was so wrong.”
Her words echoed in my head, and I felt them hitting home in the deepest parts of my soul. Despite my current uncertainty about my situation with Parker, it was almost like she was describing the way I always felt when I was with him.
“If you’re such different people, how did you know he was the one?” As I’d watched them, I’d found myself jealous of their connection.
I’d known Nash for a while now, and I wouldn’t have put him with a free-spirited, living-for-the-moment type like her. She was incredible, sure, with a magnetism about her that I’d instantly loved, but they just seemed so, so different.
In a way, he was much more like me. He worked crazy hours, had a schedule that he stuck to rigidly, and seemed regimented in almost every facet of his life. Even the times I’d seen him at the gym with Parker, he’d worked out hard and had thrown himself into what he’d been doing wholeheartedly.
Unlike me, he also used to have a reputation for playing hard, and he definitely had a more carefree, fun streak running through his veins than I’d ever had. As it was, he already seemed to lead a far more balanced life than I did, but there were definite similarities in our personalities.
Lennon, however, was the complete opposite. Kind of like me and Parker.So how did they make it work so well as a couple when we can hardly stand to be in the same room at the moment?
She tipped her head to one side as she considered my question. “When I found out he worked with foster kids, it made me love him even more, but that’s the thing about Nash. There’s so much more to him than I originally thought. We hit it off instantly, but I never really thought it would lead to anything deeper even though it always felt like it could.”
I frowned. “You’ve lost me.”
“Well, I didn’t think it would lead to anything deeper because he’stheNash Harris, you know? Neither of us had any interest in being tied down, but the more we got to know each other, the more I felt like he completed me. Somehow. Does that make sense?”