His lips twitched like he knew what I’d been thinking, but he was enough of a gentleman not to say it out loud.
“You know, this time a year ago, I’d have laughed in someone’s face if they’d mentioned the prospect of me being in a relationship with a woman. I just wanted to focus on DB and his family, my work, and my own life. But then a woman with dark hair moved in next door to me with her awesome son and knocked my life off-balance.”
I swallowed loudly as the meaning of what he was saying began to sink in.
“Every time I saw her, something random and weird happened—”
“I can’t help that. It just happens to me naturally.”
Moving his left hand so it was skimming over my back soothingly, he continued, “Weird isn’t something I’m overly used to experiencing, so I used it as kind of a shield to protect myself. Then I started enjoying it and allowed myself to drop the issues I was using as a shield.”
“Because they were dumb and unavoidable.”
My body jerked slightly as he huffed out a laugh.
“But, see, then her awesome son worked his way under my skin. It began with him asking me random questions about my car when I was working on it one day, then it moved on when he was having a bad day and being a little peckerhead, and I ended up having breakfast with him and his mom.”
“Which day was that? He’s hitting puberty, so he tends to embrace the peckerhead philosophy and way of life often.”
This time, he pinched my butt cheek, making me glower at him.
“The day it all changed for me, the day every miniscule fragment of that shield was obliterated, was the day he collapsed on me in the hallway at school because he was in agony.
“I knew it cost him to be that vulnerable around me—especially with what his dad put him through—but he trusted me enough to do it because he felt as safe with me as he did with you.”
I felt tears building and blinked rapidly. This time I didn’t have a blindfold to hide them or catch them, though, so one eventually began making its way down my cheek.
“What I’m saying, Evie, is that since that day, I see y’all as a package deal that I want in my life. If you want that deal, too, we need to take it slowly so Cody has time to get used to it, and we do as well. Neither of us are baggage free when it comes to relationships, so if we approached this at lightning speed, it might cause issues.”
“Slowly seizes the day,” I mumbled out the saying my grandad always used to say when we were little.
“Exactly. Is that something you want?”
Was it?
Did the Pope have a balcony? Yes, he did, and he used it for special occasions and waved at the crowd standing below it.
This was my special occasion, so I was going to stand on my own balcony. Well, the one in my head.
I was suddenly glad I hadn’t said that euphemism out loud.
“Yes.” At his relieved sigh, I added, “But if Cody isn’t happy with it and we can’t find a way to help him through it—”
Gently placing his thumb over my lips, he said, “There’s no need to explain that. His feelings come first, just like DB’s do.”
My eyes widened. “Oh shit, Dave. What if he hates me?”
Closing the distance between our faces, he murmured against my lips, “He’s all for it and has been telling me to pull my head out of my ass for ages.”
Before I could reply, his hand was gently fisting my hair, and the lip skimming as he spoke moved into a full-blown kiss.
It was just as I pressed my chest tighter to his that a thought hit me, making me jerk away from him again.
“What about you? After everything you’ve been through, are you sure you want to do this?”
His exhalation tickled my wet lips, causing me to lick them—something his heated eyes tracked closely.
“Damn it,” he sighed, tightening his arms around me. “Okay, long story short—eight years ago we received information about an organized crime group who were using the internet to trap people who’d just had their divorces granted or to break up marriages. It sounds like something small, but after they attached themselves to the person, they’d either take all of the money from the divorce, or they’d blackmail them.”
I winced. As a parent, the internet was a huge concern to me, and it was things like this that gave credence to that concern.
“Families were being ripped apart, men and women were living scared out of their minds, and then we had suicides with notes outlining what they’d gone through and apologizing to their families for fucking up.