I don’t say what we said, but she knows we aren’t dating other people. I trust her. It hadn’t even occurred to me until that reporter planted his poison.
“Yeah, we said . . .” She huffs a quick laugh. “You didn’t think . . . I wouldn’t. Kenan, I haven’t.”
I release a relieved exhale and nod, even though she can’t see me. Why can’t she see me? I should have FaceTimed. God, I want to see her.
“You haven’t . . .” She starts, stops. “Well, we said . . .”
“Yeah, we said—no,” I rush to assure her. “I’m living like a monk.”
She laughs, and I hear relief in her voice, too. “My monk.”
“Your monk. Completely.”
Her breath catches, and she sighs. I want to taste that sigh. If I could kiss her, I’d know what she was thinking. I’d know what was in her heart just from the press of our lips.
“I miss you, Kenan,” she says, her voice breaking. “So bad.”
I clench the steering wheel and clamp my teeth together until my jaw aches. “I don’t want to do this anymore, Lotus. I think we can . . . Simone’s so much better. We have her diagnosis. She’s on the right meds. My mom is holding it down for me during the season.” A rough chuckle rumbles from my chest. “Mama’s even got Simone’s hair looking good.”
“That’s awesome,” Lotus says, a smile in her voice.
“I told my mom about you.”
A short pause. “You did? What’d you tell her?”
“That I’m in love with you.”
Her breath hitches again, so I must be doing something right.
“I told her I want to marry you one day.”
She didn’t let me say it the last time I saw her—that I wanted her to be my wife—but I say it now before she sees it coming, before she can stop me.
“You told her that?” Her voice wavers and squeaks sweetly at the end.
“Yeah, and you know what she asked me?”
“What?”
“When she could expect more grandkids. With only one, she claims to need a back-up.”
Lotus’s laugh cracks open and a sob spills out. “I love you, Kenan Ross, and I will gladly marry you and have all the grandkids your mama can babysit when the time is right.”
When the time is right.
Right.
“What I’m saying is that the time is soon, Lotus.”
“Talk to Dr. Packer, and we’ll go from there. We don’t want to undo all the things we sacrificed already.”
“She thinks you’re amazing, by the way,” I tell her, an unstoppable grin on my face.
“Why?”
“Because she thinks you did the right thing,” I say, sobering. “In our case, she thinks it was best for Simone. All of it. Not everyone is that committed to putting their kids’ needs before their own.”
“But you were.”