“Right?” She grabs a grape, but before popping it into her mouth, she asks, “When did you and your wife get married?”
“As soon as we graduated from college. I actually met her in high school. We started dating senior year and decided to go to the same college so we wouldn’t have to be apart. Then she got pregnant with Landon during junior year. Panicked a little because he was definitely not planned, but I told her we would figure it out. I ended up proposing, not a terribly romantic proposal, but more to assure her I was committed and I wouldn’t leave her high and dry to chase my own dreams. After we graduated college, but before I started law school, we got married under a waterfall in Costa Rica. The proposal may not have been romantic, but the wedding was. Landon was there, but it was very intimate, just the three of us.”
My throat tightens as I think about that day. I find myself staring off into space, lost for a moment in a memory of Sally splashing Landon with water, his dimpled grin as he caught a few droplets in his chubby hand and hurled them back at her. He adored his mother as much as I did. She was the sun in both our lives, and then one day, she was just gone, leaving us both drenched in darkness.
I feel Gemma’s hand on mine, and I look over to see her worried eyes peering back at me. “Are you okay?” she asks softly.
I nod, pulling my hand away.
It’s a stupid instinct, one I regret immediately, but talking about the family I once had isn’t something I ever do with women. I wouldn’t even know how.
“Anyway, enough about me.” I take a sip of champagne to get myself back on track. “We were talking about you.”
“What else do you want to know?” she asks.
“Your last serious relationship. Why didn’t it work out?”
She picks up a strawberry, focusing her attention on it instead of me. “Good question. It wasn’t for lack of trying. I made a Herculean effort to hold things together, long past the point when I should have given up.” She meets my gaze. “My last serious relationship was Parker’s father. I’ve had boyfriends since, but none of them were deep, committed long-term relationships.” She wraps her lips around the strawberry and takes a bite.
My cock stirs with interest, but I try to ignore it. “You haven’t had another serious relationship since that one? Really?”
She shakes her head, chewing her strawberry and absently plucking a piece of cheese off her plate. “I haven’t met anyone I wanted to commit to. Once I commit, it takes a lot to sever that connection, so I’m pretty choosy. I’m not one of these people who happily bounces from relationship to relationship. When I pick my person, that’s my person, and I don’t want it to ever change.”
I can relate to that. I don’t date anymore, but when I did commit, it was forever.
“He cheated on me, and Istilltried to make it work, but we couldn’t get the trust back. I tried to hold things together without it, but that was impossible. I stuck it out for a while anyway just because he was Parker’s father and I wanted to keep my family together. I didn’t want to alternate holidays and spend every other weekend without her. That sounded awful to me, and he was really irresponsible, so I wasn’t sure how he would be with her. Turned out, I didn’t have to worry about it. As soon as I dumped him for good, he moved in with some girl. He took Parker for a few hours one day a week for exactly three weeks, then he lost all interest. He visited her from time to time and took us out to dinner once in a while, but since we broke up, she’s never even spent the night with him.”
I frown. “You don’t share custody?”
She shakes her head, leaning back and stretching out her legs. “Nope. It’s been years since we’ve seen him. I don’t even know where he lives anymore. Don’t care, either.”
“Does he at least pay child support?”
She laughs. “No.”
I shake my head, unimpressed. “That’s his responsibility. You should make him pay.”
“I know, but it wasn’t worth the fight to me. Honestly, I was just happy not to have to share Parker. I can be a better father to her than he can, anyway. Maybe I’d feel differently if she did, but…” She shrugs. “Parker’s a smart kid, and she knows her worth. If he’s too big of an idiot to want a relationship with her, she doesn’t want one with him, either.”
My eyebrows rise, and I nod, impressed. “Takes a lot of maturity to be able to feel that way at such a young age.”
She nods proudly. “Like I said, she’s super smart. Mature for her age, too. Part of it is probably that I was so young when I had her, and her dad wasn’t much support to begin with. It’s always been just the two of us, so I guess in some ways she has had to be a little more grown-up than most kids her age. Especially the kids in this town.”
The way she says it, she doesn’t seem to think much of the spoiled, entitled brats who live in Baymont. Can’t say I blame her, though. “Yeah, I didn’t have money growing up, either. Life is a lot different for my son than it was for me.”
The mention of my son dims her happiness. I don’t want to remind her of the reason she doesn’t think we should be spending time together, so I change the subject to something lighter.
We talk TV and books, then dip into politics. We circle around to movies, then she tells me about the one vacation she and Parkerdidtake to Disney World a few years ago. Parker had always wanted to go—to Epcot rather than the Magic Kingdom even as a kid, which emphasizes what Gemma has already told me about her and makes me think I’d like her. I tell her about the time Sally and I took Landon when he was five, and somewhere along the way, I start thinking about what it would be like to go with her.
Visualizing a fucking family vacation? Really?
I can picture other vacations with her too, just the two of us. Those thoughts aren’t as crazy, though. I’ve had beach days with knockouts that inspired the idea to flicker across my mind of maybe taking a trip with them, shucking the stress of work for a few days, seeing that tight little body in a dozen different bikinis, waking up and having my cock sucked in a tropical paradise. Never pulled the trigger, but I thought about it.
I’ve definitely never had a flicker of interest in bundling our families and going somewhere together, though. That’s… not the kind of thing you do with someone unless you’re pretty serious about them.
I try to shake it off, not least of all because if our kids really hate each other as much as she thinks they do, that’s not something we could ever do.
I can see her point that them not getting along would be an obstacle, but I don’t agree it’s the absolute end of our chances together. Both of our kids are seniors in high school. They’ll be off at college next year starting their own lives, and any contact between them after that would be minimal. Holidays, family events, but they wouldn’t have to be around each other on a regular basis.