And it scared the living shit out of him.
Zach exhaled, dried his face, and returned to the living room. Tessa was curled on her side, using her arm as a pillow. Her eyes were open, but barely. He sat on the edge of a cushion beside her and brushed her hair back from her face. A sleepy smile turned her lips.
“You look so good naked on my couch.”
She laughed, a sweet, bubbly sound that made him smile. “You look better sitting naked next to me.”
He leaned down and kissed her. Her lips were soft and sweet, and when she kissed him back, that whole world-shifting-on-its-axis thing happened again.
Zach rolled her to her back and lay directly on top of her, making her laugh. Then he slid down the sofa until his chest was wedged between her thighs and his cheek lay against her belly. The scent of their sex mixed with her perfume and lightened his head. Tessa combed her hands into his hair and scraped her fingernails gently along his scalp.
Zach groaned. “That feels amazing.”
“Your daughter loves it too. Never fails to calm her down when she’s upset.”
“Hmm.” That was the perfect segue. He just wasn’t exactly sure for what. And he wasn’t overly eager to create tension between them again.
She pulled in a deep breath that stuttered a little, then sighed. “I’m sorry about my meltdown,” she said, her voice soft and embarrassed. “I don’t know where that came from.”
“Tessa.” He turned his head and rested his chin on her belly, meeting her gaze. “Your best friend died a few months ago, you have no family, you’re raising a baby on your own, all while trying to not only maintain a demanding career, but excel in it.” He reached up and stroked her cheek. “If you didn’t melt down once in a while, I’d think you were made of stone. And if you were made of stone, I wouldn’t want you raising our daughter.”
Our daughter.
The words had just come out. He hadn’t thought them before they’d spilled off his tongue, he’d just spoken from the heart—where, he realized, both Tessa and Sophia resided. By the look on her face—a little stunned, a little melancholy—they’d hit her as odd but sweet too. A part of him told him it wasn’t real. That he was simply reacting to the shock of learning about Sophia and latching on to the only buoy close eno
ugh to keep him afloat. That it had all happened too fast.
He tried to tell himself he’d meant the words in a different way—that Sophia was their daughter separately. But the resounding rightness of the alternative meaning—that Sophia was their daughter together, as a family—continued to vibrate inside him.
He stroked his hand down her chest, over her breast, around her ribs and back to her hip. “Do you have any friends back in DC? People to talk to?”
She hesitated. “I work with some great people, and Abby—”
“Abby’s not a friend.” He softened his voice to take the edge off his words. “Abby’s a good person, but honey, she’s not a friend. I know she loves Sophia, and I know she’s worried, but she’s also young, immature, and judgmental. Friends don’t judge you. Friends support you. And the people you work with can only be friends if you see them outside of work.”
Her gaze lifted to her hands, where they continued to move through his hair.
“I’m talking about the kind of people who stand by you when the tough stuff hits,” he said. “The kind of people you can tell anything and you know they won’t think less of you.”
“Then…no. I mean, I used to. I used to, you know, have friends and date. I…” She exhaled, her expression sinking with an edge of despair that hurt Zach to see. “Corinne was my only real friend,” she said softly. “We were opposites in so many ways, but we loved each other in spite of our differences. We loved each other’s unique personalities, you know? There is something really special about that kind of relationship, where you’re so completely different, but are still the best of friends. It’s so…I don’t know, so real. You’re not friends because you shared a hobby or profession or something equally coincidental or superficial. She always understood me even if she didn’t agree with me. And she was always there when I needed someone.”
She shook her head and laughed a little. “I was the quiet rule follower. The mediator. I play everything safe, do what’s expected, do what I’m told, never make trouble. I’m the person people go to when they’re in trouble or need something, not when they want to have fun. Corinne was the free spirit. She loved everyone; everyone loved her. She partied hard and would work any job to make ends meet. She swore, ran with a rough crowd, broke the law.”
Which was probably exactly why Zach had slept with her. He’d been a no-strings kind of guy his whole life.
“But Sophia changed everything,” Tessa said. “I can still remember the day she told me she was pregnant. Man, talk about a one-eighty,” she said with a smile and a shake of her head. “She stopped drinking, wouldn’t touch drugs or cigarettes. I swear she settled down overnight. Before I knew what happened, she was my popcorn-and-hot-chocolate, classic-movies buddy on weekends. She got organized, took on a second job, working when she used to party, started saving money.” Tessa’s eyes closed, and her forehead creased in pain. “She was so excited about having a baby. It was like an anchor for her. Like she’d been adrift, flitting all over the place because she didn’t have anything to ground her.”
Zach turned his head and put his cheek against her belly again. “Maybe I’m more like Corinne than I realized, because that’s exactly how I feel. Like Sophia’s my new paradigm.”
Her hands stilled in his hair. “Paradigm?” she half laughed the word with sarcasm. “That’s got to be the strangest thing I’ve heard come out of your mouth.”
He grinned and looked at her as he squeezed her waist, tickling her.
She laughed and squirmed, grabbing his hands. “No, no, Zach, stop.”
“I know what a paradigm is, Miss Smarty-pants. I did get into Pepperdine.”
She sighed. “You’d have made a great doctor.” Her gaze went distant as she shook her head. “But I don’t think being a doctor would have been great for you.”