A Second Chance at Love

  “For what?”

  “For not telling you everything. And for sometimes being more concerned about being right than being your friend.”

  “Oh, you noticed that?” I chuckled.

  “Yeah, well…”

  “It's okay; one of us needs to be right and it might as well be you.”

  We both laughed and I knew all was forgiven.

  “Are you going to be all right? Do I need to show up with my pajamas and a pizza?”

  “No, I’m okay. I just need to clear my head,” she said, sounding more upbeat than when I called.

  “Okay, great, because Daniel is here and I love you but that man’s body is an amazing piece of fine Polynesian engineering.”

  “Still?”

  “We’ll have to compare notes later,” I hung up and went back to find Daniel washing dishes.

  “There’s something really sexy about a domesticated man,” I said, wrapping my arms around his waist and pressing my face against his back.

  “I even clean toilets,” he said.

  “Be still my beating heart.”

  He chuckled a little and the rumble in his chest was like a siren song to me. I was still pinching myself every time I realized that he was the same boy I’d fallen so hard for so many years ago. He was the same man I’d given my heart and my virginity to over a decade ago. He was the handsome man who turned me off of handsome men. He was the one who broke my heart, and the only one who had any hope of putting it back together again.

  We stayed like that, even after the dishes were done.

  “Babe, my leg,” he said softly.

  I let him go and he took my hand and led me into the living room. He sat down on the sofa and pulled me down beside him. He stroked my hair and looked me in the eyes, without saying a word. He didn’t seem like he was in a rush or tense about anything. He was just doing the one thing I’d always hoped he would do. Love me.

  “You’re looking at me like you’ve never seen me before,” I teased.

  “Sometimes I feel like I haven’t seen you before,” he ran the tip of his finger along the arch of my eyebrows and down the bridge of my nose. “It’s the same blond hair and blue eyes, the same nose and lips. Even your smell is the same, but I can hardly believe it’s real. I feel like I’ve been dreaming about you for so many years that I stopped believing that you ever really existed.”

  “You dreamed about me?”

  He nodded his head and lifted the corner of his mouth. I slipped my hand into his pants and shifted so that I was cradled between his thighs.

  “Tell me more about these dreams.”