When August walked in, I was shocked but also so pleased to see him. So pleased I haven’t been able to get him out of my mind. Those charged moments when the blanket fell from my breast and I gaped at him like a hussy instead of immediately covering myself. I was frozen with shock, and if I’m honest … God, I hate admitting this even to myself. The way he looked at me, so hungry and reverent, I just wanted more of it.
When I saw August, I was still carrying fifteen pounds of baby weight. My hair hadn’t had a good condition and trim in weeks. The bare minimum makeup I’d forced myself to apply was long gone, but he’d looked at me like I was a goddess. Like he’d eat me whole if he got close enough.
And I’d wanted him close enough. So much closer. My nipples stiffen under my T-shirt, recalling the heat simmering between us for those electric seconds.
This is not good.
I have to get these thoughts under control.
I’ve deliberately avoided the sports sites I usually stalk and have tuned out the basketball world as much as I c
an. I don’t want to know about August—don’t want to hear about who he’s dating or how well he’s playing or how his life is just perfect.
Because mine isn’t.
Besides my daughter, whom I don’t think I could love any more than I do now, my life is in shambles. I’m living in a city with no friends or family, completely dependent on my baby’s daddy, whom I’m not sure I love.
There. I said it. At least in my head I’ve said it.
I don’t think I love Caleb.
How could I feel what I did with August in that room—how could I think about him so often—and love Caleb? I mean really be in love with Caleb? I refused to believe my heart is that fickle.
I’m not sure Caleb loves me either. I’m pretty sure he’s cheating on me, but I can’t make myself care, much less ask. Even though my new OBGYN found a birth control that works with my body, I didn’t tell Caleb. If he’s out there cheating on me, he’ll wear condoms. Further evidence that I cannot be in love with him.
A snippet of gossip penetrated my social media boycott the other day. Apparently, August has been seen with tennis star Pippa Kim on more than one occasion, and everyone’s speculating that they’re dating. It’s unreasonable, but I resent that. It makes me … angry is the wrong word. I don’t have a right to anger, but I don’t like it. Whatever this feeling is, it burns in the bottom of my belly all day like a smoldering coal.
I should be jealous of the numbers I find scrawled on slips of paper in the pockets of Caleb’s pants, but I’m not.
My phone rings, interrupting the plans that have cycled through my head constantly lately.
I glance at the screen. Lo is the only person I really talk to anymore, besides my mother from time to time.
“Hey, Lo,” I say, propping Sarai on my hip and crossing the heated floors barefoot. I certainly won’t have heated floors and a mansion with a parking garage full of cars if I leave Caleb, but I’d have my life back and some semblance of control over my existence.
“Hey, Bo. What the hell is up?” Lo’s voice is half-amused, half-irritated. “You forget your girl or what?”
“Course not.” I place Sarai in her high chair and pull ingredients out to prepare her lunch in the food processor. “Just busy being a mom, I guess.”
“I get that, and you know how much I love my princess, but I’m feeling a little neglected.”
“I’m pretty sure of the two of us, you have the more demanding life. Every time I call, you’re in some fashion show or at a shoot.”
“True that,” Lo says with an unabashedly satisfied chuckle. “This life is fly.”
I roll my eyes, a smile tweaking my lips.
“You need to figure your shit out, too,” Lo says sharply. “You can’t stay in this rut forever.”
I was excited about bouncing my plans off her like we always have, but her comment stifles my enthusiasm.
“Rut?” I ask. “You call having a baby and devoting myself to her a rut?”
“Don’t go getting all sensitive,” she says teasingly, though I’m not in the mood to be teased. “You never leave that big ol’ house. You haven’t made any friends there. You aren’t getting your career back on track.”
“I will,” I say with more confidence than I feel.
“Don’t let Caleb run all over you,” Lo plows on. “There is only one thing I take lying down, and that’s the good dick. Even then I’ll probably end up on top.”