I shrug. “No, I haven’t,” I say, hurrying on when her lips part again. “But I know right from wrong, and I would do the right thing. When I have kids, I’m going to love them and help take care of them. No matter what. And I have some pretty strong feelings for you,” I say, my heart beating faster as that spark of something so-much-more than lust leaps between us again. “I would never hurt you, Faith, or leave you alone to deal with something we’re both equally responsible for.”
Her lips quirk. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I whisper. “I care about you. A lot.”
“I care about you, too.” She rests her hand on my chest, making me want to pull her into my lap and kiss her until she knows I’m not going anywhere. Even if things get complicated. “And I want to be with you so much it’s killing me,” she continues, “but there’s this voice in my head that keeps saying it isn’t smart to jump in too fast. That there can be real consequences, and I’m not ready for them.”
I cover her hand with mine. “Then we don’t jump in too fast. We wait until you’re totally ready.”
“Are you sure?” she asks. “I mean, even if I got swept up in the moment and said I wanted to, you wouldn’t?”
I wince. “Um, well…that might be hard, I won’t lie. But if that’s what we decide is best, I’ll stand by it. Though I might have to get up in the middle of whatever’s happening and leave to make good on that kind of promise.”
“No, forget it. I know it’s not a fair thing to ask,” she says with a shy laugh. “I just… You do things to my self-control. Things no other guy has ever done before. I trust you. And I trust myself when my clothes are on. But when they’re off…”
“I hear you,” I say, and I do. I’m not sure I one-hundred-percent trust myself when her clothes are off, either. If we’re naked and she asks me for more, I might buckle under temptation. “Maybe we should keep our clothes on for a while? In the interest of keeping promises.”
She cocks her head. “And in the meantime, I call my doctor and figure out the birth control thing? Just so we have a second line of defense?”
I nod. “Sounds good.”
“You’re not disappointed?” she asks, her forehead wrinkling again. “Or think I’m being neurotic and weird and overly cautious?”
“No, I’m not disappointed,” I say. “And no on all that other stuff, too. It’s hot that you take serious stuff seriously.”
She huffs. “You think everything’s hot.”
“No, I think everything about you is hot. There’s a big difference.”
“We’ll see about that.” She grins. “You’ve never seen me eat Big Ike’s pizza. I make a horrible mess. But Big Ike’s is the best and after experiencing the Animal Style meat and veggie combo, I can’t go back to lesser pizzas.”
“Fuck that sounds good.” My stomach growls in agreement and we both laugh.
And just like that, we’ve worked through another issue without drama or stress, proving Faith is Bridget’s complete opposite and the kind of person I should have been with all along.
We head into her apartment and kick off our shoes.
Faith coaxes Captain Snugglepants out from under a lounge chair and coos her apologies to him, while I order pizza and set out plates and napkins.
We spend the rest of the night eating too much, vegging out watching mindless T.V. with the cat purring between us, and holding each other in Faith’s too-small-for-two-grown-people, full-sized bed, talking about the past and the future and things we’ve never told anyone else.
As I drift off, Faith already heavy with sleep against me, with her head on my chest, I’m so happy. And happy to wait as long as she wants.
There’s no doubt in my mind she’s worth waiting for.
Chapter Sixteen
Five weeks later
Maddie
I don’t resent other people’s happiness.
I really don’t.
I’m not that person. I never have been.
In junior high, after Imogen Cain beat me out for student council vice-president, I baked cookies for her celebration party. In high school, when I learned my friend Meg was secretly dating my ex-boyfriend just three weeks after we broke up, I wished them a long and happy future. And while studying pastry-making in Paris, I wasn’t upset when Aria earned better scores on her desserts even though my soufflés always puffed more reliably than hers and my croquembouche never failed to crunch just so.
Heck, I’m so easy-going I’ve even started exchanging emails with Serge, my ex-husband, and wished him and his boyfriend, Craig, all the luck in the world.
Sure, having my husband of six years leave me for another man isn’t the highlight of my life thus far, but looking back I can see the signs that Serge wasn’t fulfilled in our marriage, no matter how much fun we had together or how much he loved me