I walked her to the laundry room to the left. I put her on her feet and grabbed a towel off the shelf. It was a beach towel; a mix of hot pink, light blue, with silhouettes of palm trees. I wrapped it around her body and turned to the dryer. I opened the door and threw all the clothes into it. I stripped out of my jeans and boxers, throwing them inside. I left the monitor on the dryer, after switching it off.

I set the timer and the dryer whirred to life.

I pulled at the towel, stripping it away from Emily’s beautiful body and brought her close to me again.

She was shivering. Every muscle in her body wiggling uncontrollably.

I kissed her. I couldn’t stop kissing her.

She grabbed at my arms, her hands no match for my size.

Fuck, I loved that feeling. I loved feeling big. Protective. The kind of man she needed.

“Let’s go,” I finally whispered to her, our lips touching.

“Where?” she asked.

I sensed her worry. Rightfully so. I had kicked her out of the same house I carried her into.

“The shower,” I said.

I lifted her again and walked her through my house.

It was a risky move, considering Sadie was sleeping. But my mind couldn’t ease up for a second. I was seizing a moment and making it everything I wanted it to be. Emily had set the fire inside me and there was no stopping it now.

I took her upstairs to the bathroom, gently shut the door, and turned on the shower.

When the water was hot, steam rising and curling around the top of the shower curtain, I nodded.

“Go, Em. Get warmed up.”

She stepped by me, my eyes looking at her body. Her soft shoulders and long arms. The swell of her breasts, so perfectly full. The rosy color of her nipples, both still hard from being so cold. The curves of her body was amazing, like she had been made from stone, designed for my hands and everything I wanted and needed to hold.

She got into the shower but I didn’t close the curtain. I watched her shower. The water hitting her already wet body. The droplets licking spots my tongue hadn’t been able to explore yet.

That’s when I stepped into the shower behind her.

I touched her back, my fingertips tracing down. Stopping at her hips. Pulling her back so she could feel my cock and how full it was again.

I never was like this with another woman except one.

I put my lips to her ear and kissed. “Em, I’m sorry for what I did. What I said to you. I should have never…”

“Stop, Jake,” she said. “You have every right. I’m not here to impose.”

“Oh, but you are, princess,” I said. “You are imposing. On my heart. My fate. My soul. My body…” I gently thrust at her.

“Well, that part I can help with,” she said.

She playfully reached back and I put enough space between us so she could grab me. When she did, she stroked root to tip and held there. She looked back at me, that look in her eyes.

“Fuck,” I whispered.

“Now,” she said.

I bent my knees and grabbed myself. Once between her legs, I gently thrust, entering her. Her body jumped as she groaned, her hands going flat to the tiled wall. The shower water hit the middle of her back and ran down, hitting me as I started to fuck her.

My hands against those curves, right where they belonged.

I pulled her back and I thrust forward.

She groaned. “Jake…”

I loved when she purred my name.

I gritted my teeth as I sped up. Thrusting harder and faster, the shower becoming hotter by the second.

My hands eased to her lower back and down to her ass. I was exploring, inside and out. Trying to find a flaw in a woman that was flawless. The beauty of her perfection was enough to make me feel like I was going insane. There had to be something wrong with her. Other than saying she loved me…

I thrust forward and slid my hands around her body, making her stand up. I held there, my hands sliding over her breasts.

“Turn around, Em,” I ordered.

I backed away as she moaned.

She turned and I had her in the corner of the shower. She put one leg up to the etched out soap holder. With the flick of her toes, the soap flew off and wiggled down to block the drain.

I thrust at her, entering her again.

Her hands went around my neck.

I put my forehead to hers.

I fucked her.

In my heart I whispered I love you.

My lips…

“Say it,” Emily purred. “It’s so good, Jake.”

“I fucking love you, Em,” I confessed as I sank deeper into her.

My right hand grabbed her lower back to hold her steady.

I kissed her.

My heart ached, broke, and felt whole all at the same time.

* * *

She was curled up in the sheets in the bed. In my bed. In the bed of the guest room. The generic decorated guest room. The bed that was decently comfortable but nothing like the master bedroom.

Seeing Emily in the bed just brought to life even more of how I had handled the loss of Everly. And yet, the whole master bedroom thing wasn’t even the worst part of it all. There was something else waiting to rear its ugly head.

I stood at the edge of the bed and watched her. On her left side. Looking as beautiful as anything I’d ever seen in my life. I wanted to keep her naked but there was another variable in this situation. That variable was four years old and was sleeping in her own room.

“I’ll be right back, princess,” I whispered.

I went down to the dryer and got all of our clothes out. They were dry. I carried everything up to my bedroom and tossed the clothes to the floor. I opened one of my drawers and took out a t-shirt.

I thumbed at the cloth.

A black t-shirt with the garage name, logo, and phone number on it. A junk shirt. A time when Mickey thought marketing for the garage was smart. That was when he tried to get really sober and spent way too many restless nights watching infomercials and business shows. That meant ordering a thousand pens, key chains, and t-shirts with the garage’s information on it. Did nothing for business. Then he tried to buy a house to flip because TV made it look so easy.

But that wasn’t why I stood there staring at the shirt.

A beautiful woman in a long t-shirt. My t-shirt. There was only one other woman that wore my t-shirt the following morning.

“Jake?” Emily’s voice called out.

I turned and threw the shirt to the floor. “You should have enough to get you by.”

“Get me by?”

I still had a towel around my waist and nothing else. I walked to the bed and sat down. I touched Emily’s face.

“Em, I don’t want you to leave tonight. Stay the night.”

“Are you sure?”

I nodded. “I don’t want to face anything alone anymore. I can’t.”

“Jake,” she said, touching my hand and pulling it away from her face. She sat up, the sheets moving down too far, showing too much skin. She was so beautifully distracting. “Jake, you can deal with this alone. You can deal with every day for the rest of your life. You’re strong enough. You’re man enough.”

“Em, I have a unicorn drawing above my bed.”

Emily looked back and laughed.

It was the painting - glitter and all - that Sadie had made.

“That makes you sexy as hell, Jake,” Emily said.

“Bullshit,” I whispered. “Bull. Shit.”

“Jake, you know you can do all of this alone. You don’t want to. There’s a difference and it’s a big difference. And it’s okay.” Emily touched the scruff on my face. She closed her thumb and pointer finger together and tugged. “It’s okay, you stubborn fool.”

I leaned down and kissed Emily’s forehead. “I hate to say this, Em, but you should get dressed. There’s a good chance we’re going to get busted.”

She laughed. “Of course. What happens with Sadie…?”

“I have no plan. I never have a plan, Em. Right now all I want to do is fucking hold you.”

“Then hold me,” she said.

I stood and dropped the towel with a sense of comfort that bothered me. Why was I so comfortable around Emily? Because I loved her? Because I wanted her to be in someone else’s shoes?

I got dressed as Emily did.

Then we were under the covers. Her head on my chest. My arms around her, pulling her tight against me. I had never had a woman in this bed before. Surrounded by stuff that we didn’t really need in the house but kept to fill the guest room. In some ways, I could still see Everly walking around the room. She was determined to make the room something nice, which I never understood.

Emily kissed my chest. “Jake, I want you to know how much it means to me what you said. Everything.”

I squeezed her. “Same to you, Em. I’m sorry for what you went through. But you’re a good person for it. A lot of people would have put their loved one in a home. You gave your grandmother something that nobody will ever recognize except you and her. I don’t have many beliefs when it comes to religion and the afterlife, Em, but if any of that shit holds true, then you are going to be taken care of later in life.”

“Or maybe I’m being taken care of now,” Emily said. “With you. My grandmother passing when she did. The house being for sale. The way things are working.”

“Now you sound like a hippie poet,” I teased.

Emily put her chin to my chest and looked into my eyes. “That’s what I am, Jake.”

“I know, Em,” I said.

I moved her hair out of her face. I felt like someone had lit firecrackers and made me swallow them. I couldn’t believe I was a grown man, a single father, a grieving fiancé, and here I was with another woman, feeling like a high school kid with butterflies in my stomach. All because of a woman looking at me.

“In fact, after meeting you… well, things have been going great with my writing. My editor loves what I’m doing. It’s been a while since I’ve broken through my own mind and gotten something done.”

“Does that mean I get a cut of the royalties?”

“Oh, I think I paid you handsomely tonight,” Emily said with a little grin. “Not to mention… the rain? I’ll be lucky if I don’t wake up with pneumonia.”

“You didn’t seem to mind,” I said. “Last I remembered you were either crying out my name or unable to talk because your mouth was too busy.”

Emily bit her lip. She climbed up my body so she could kiss me.

That little kiss… well, I knew that kind of kiss.

I grabbed her legs and pulled her on top of me. My hands went up the long t-shirt, feeling the smoothness of her skin, the lines of her panties, and then up and up until I felt her bare breasts in the palms of my hands.

She kept kissing me, breaking away, sighing, kissing me again.

“However real it is, Jake,” she whispered, “just don’t be afraid to tell me anything.”

“Em…”

“Jake…”

I grinned. “Shut up and fuck me.”

“Yes, sir,” Emily whispered.

She kissed me again.

The clock next to us glowed way past midnight. Any chance of a good night’s sleep had waved bye bye a long time ago.

I slid my pants down after I stripped her of her panties once again. As she lowered down against me, I felt the swell of her heat between her legs. She took all of me, whimpering with each inch, kissing me, biting my lip…

… stealing what was left of my tattered heart…

* * *

I poured Emily a coffee and stood there, staring at the two coffee mugs. The little shit like that was something I took for granted for a long time. Until it became one mug. For a while though I would take out two mugs, pour coffee into one, and leave the other there until later in the afternoon when I’d rinse it out and put it back.

Fuck.

I carried the coffee to the table and kissed the top of Emily’s head.

“You know, I realized I never locked my house last night,” she said. “I don’t know what lights were left on…”

“This town has no crime,” I said. “And I’ll pay the electric bill.”

Emily smiled. “You know, the one good thing here, Jake, is that the commute is easy.”

“The one good thing,” I said. “Really? One good thing?”

“What? It’s like a ten second walk.”

“For either a booty call or a walk of shame?” I asked.

“New rule. Never use those phrases again.”

We both laughed.

“Daddy?”

I turned my head and there was a half asleep, rubbing her eyes, holding Bo in one arm Sadie shuffling toward the kitchen.

“Good morning, sweetheart,” I said.

“I’m tired,” she said.

“Then get some sleep,” I said.

“I’m awake though,” she said.

She climbed up into my arms and I hugged her tight. I looked at Emily. She was smiling. She was a beautiful woman and I hoped more than anything she could understand that my love would never be completely just for her. It would forever be shared. But the love I would offer to Emily, even shared, would be more than any man could ever give her.

“Pssst,” Emily said. “Good morning, Sadie.”

Sadie’s head popped up. “Emily?”

“Emily wanted coffee,” I said.

My brain started scrambling.

My heart pounding.

Terrified that the Emily thing would confuse Sadie.

“You came over for coffee?” Sadie asked.

“Well…” Emily started to say.

It’s okay to lie… little white lies protect innocence…

“You’re wearing Mickey’s shirt,” Sadie said.

“What?” Emily asked.

“Your shirt. Daddy has the same one.”

“Uh…,” I said and laughed. “How about cereal?”

“Did you have a sleepover?” Sadie asked. “A boy and girl sleepover?”

I stood up and carried Sadie with me. “Change of subject.”

“Wait,” Sadie said. “Why did Emily leave? Did she come back?”

I put Sadie down and crouched to face her. “Fine. The truth. I was a jerk to Emily last night.”

“Being a boy?” Sadie asked.

Emily burst out laughing. “Boys are jerks?”

“That’s what Daddy said,” Sadie said.

“Daddy is right,” Emily said.

“Anyway,” I said. “So I asked her to come back so I could apologize. Because if we do something wrong, it’s important to apologize. Okay? Then it started to rain. Really hard. So she decided to stay. To avoid the rain.”

Sadie looked at Emily. “Next time, bring an umbrella.”

Emily started to laugh. “Good thinking, Sadie.”

Sadie shook her head. Rolled her eyes. Sighed. Then she said, “Adults…”

I stood and started to laugh too.

I looked at Emily.

The two of us, laughing, because of Sadie.

It felt real. Good. It felt like a family again.

Somewhere in my heart I knew it was only a matter of time before I fucked everything up…