“Sure.” I stood and went to the set of cabinets behind her to get the plates. “Do you think…” I began slowly. It felt easier to ask this with her back turned. “Do you think if we’d met that way — sitting at the bar at Leon’s — do you think we would have had a chance?” I set the plates down next to the stove and stood behind her.

Darcy didn’t respond, but she leaned against me, pressing her body against mine. I pressed a soft kiss to the top of her head and breathed her in. I guess she figured that would be answer enough. It wasn’t.

16

Darcy

Waking up next to Tommy this morning, I was instantly swept up in a feeling that I was afraid to give a name. Flat on his belly, his legs tangled in the sheets, snoring a little, his back and cute little ass bared to the bright sunlight streaming in through the row of French doors along the piazza, he looked like a dream made real. I’d pressed featherlight kisses down his spine because he was there, and I could. I allowed myself to say and think a word that I had no right to…

Mine.

I wanted Tommy to be mine, and that felt strange to me.

I’d belonged to someone once, but no one had ever been really, truly mine. I’ve never wanted that with anyone until now, and I couldn’t fucking figure out why I wanted him now. I knew I shouldn’t waste time on thoughts like that. But that was what I wanted to say when he asked, “Do you think we would have had a chance?” I wanted to say, “Of course, we would have a chance, because I would make you mine, Tommy.”

But I didn’t say that.

I didn’t say anything. I just let him hold me for a while and fed him pancakes instead.

We took our breakfast out on the piazza and ate at the little bistro table. It was the perfect kind of Sunday morning, the kind that made me love my house. Every window and every door was open to catch the breeze off the river. The humidity was down, and the sun played peekaboo behind fluffy white clouds. Tommy had run up to the garçonnière to change into pajama bottoms but remained shirtless per my request. With his hair all sex-mussed and smiling as he ate his pancakes, he looked younger than his thirty-two years, and I felt younger than my fifty-five, and I wondered if I would always feel this way if we were together.

But that was silly. Just sex endorphins. Just chemicals in my brain that already wanted another dose of him. Nothing else. Nothing more than that.

“So, what’s waiting for you at home? Marlowe Thompson tied to your bed?” I asked, smiling around the rim of my coffee cup.