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I loved that she didn’t ask where I was going with this story.
“I read one last month where the hero and heroine get snowed into a cabin together. He’s this tattooed bad boy, you know? Absolutely not her type. But they’re stuck in this place, and she has no choice but to see him for who he really is.” I swallowed. “And of course they have great sex with simultaneous orgasms—which I still highly doubt happens in real life. But they never would have if they hadn’t been trapped there. The forced proximity makes it impossible for her to write him off anymore. Even if the real world is waiting to mess everything up once they walk out the door.”
Understanding filled my mom’s face.
Cynicism was new for me, the product of a messy divorce and a fizzled relationship that hadn’t been able to survive those equally messy real-world things.
I didn’t want to be cynical. I wanted to feel hope and excitement and butterflies. I wanted all the things that came with them.
But I couldn’t. Not yet.
Or I couldn’t fully trust it when the flutterings of hope appeared.
Absently, I rubbed at my breastbone. “But how do you know it’s real? Outside this house, Liam and I could hardly stand each other. I’ve known him for over a decade, and not once have I felt a spark like this.”
“Not one?” she asked gently.
A burst of sound came from the pool—Lizette’s angelic laughter—and I pinched my eyes shut. “Okay, some little ones. But I was practically married when I met him. And afterward ... I was so focused on how much he aggravated me that I never let myself stop and think what was behind it.”
Mom had a soft smile on her face while she listened. “First,” she started, “simultaneous release is not a myth—”
“Stop,” I interrupted. “I swear, if you say anything about your sex life with Dad, I’ll chop my ears off.”
She laughed. “And second, there’s nothing wrong with being cautious about Liam. A guarded person usually has a reason for being that way, and they can hurt people whether they mean to or not, simply because they’re so used to protecting their own heart.”
“I sense abutcoming,” I told her.
“But just because you two are in this situation with Mira doesn’t mean that real, beautiful feelings can’t blossom from such an unexpected place. Don’t let the unlikely nature of it keep you from the possibility of the kind of love and family you’ve always wanted.”
There was an ache I’d had for so long that it was almost impossible to find the words to name it. Like I was missing a vital piece of myself, but I wasn’t sure where to find it.
Even with everything I’d experienced, it was elusive. Frustratingly out of reach.
My whole life, I’d wanted love and family, to be surrounded by that unconditionally safe feeling. My parents had it, and even before I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up, I knew I wanted that.
Thankfully, my parents had raised me to believe that I was enough on my own, and I’d never doubted that. Charles hadn’t chipped away at my self-esteem; he’d simply made me mourn the time I’d wasted with someone who wasn’t right for me.
“Unlikelyis right,” I said. I stood and wandered over to the slider. “Impossibleseems more accurate.”
When I saw Mira push off the step, her eyes covered in bright-pink goggles, her head straining to stay above water as she kicked toward Liam, I couldn’t help but laugh.
She was smiling so big that she kept swallowing water.
Liam, with his big arms outstretched, snatched her up and tossed her into the air. She shrieked with delight.
“Something changed last night,” I said.
“What do you think that is?” my mom asked.
I watched them for a few more moments. “I don’t know, exactly. But he’s different with her.”
And maybe with me too, if I was willing to admit that out loud. I didn’t, though. Because when Liam pressed a quick, impulsive kiss to the top of Mira’s head, I couldn’t help the soaring, elated feeling from taking wing under my ribs.
The sheer weightlessness of it was savage and relentless.
Terrifying in its intensity.
And I wasn’t sure there was anything I could do to stop it.
