“Still, I can’t help thinking about what might have been if she hadn’t gotten pregnant with me.” She shrugs. “Sometimes we feel things we know aren’t rational, but we still feel them.”

I treasure her honesty. Appreciate that she’s willing to be vulnerable with me. She deserves the same. “I don’t know my dad. At all . . . He and my mother had a fling.”

“Does he know about you?”

“My mother claims he does.”

She reaches over and squeezes my arm. “Then it’s his loss, Dean. I hope you know that. You’re an amazing guy, and anyone who can’t appreciate that isn’t worth your time.”

A part of me wants to believe her. But I can’t help wondering why my father never looked for me. Why I didn’t matter. Then again, if he’s anything like the men my mother dated when I was a kid, maybe I’m better off without him. “I wish you weren’t leaving so soon. I’m going to miss talking to you.”

“I’ll be one text or phone call away. Besides, you’ll be too busy doing whatever partners do.”

I can picture it now. Being a partner at Olney. Working my ass off seven days a week. Ditching my pro bono work because it doesn’t align with the firm’s priorities. Coming home to an empty place. Sounds . . . fan-fucking-tastic.

For a moment, I pretend I’m living a different life. One in which Solange and I make sense. One in which I come home to her every night. To this bed. “Can I hold you?” I manage to say, my voice uneven. “Just hold you.”

“You’re a spooner,” she says, a hint of amusement in her voice.

“Yeah, I’m a spooner.”

She turns over. “Hold me, then.”

I don’t hesitate to mold my body against hers and pull her in tight. The back of her head is resting against my chest, a few of her curls tickling my neck. Taking in a deep breath, I let her freshly bathed scent fill my nostrils. As of tonight, vanilla is my new aphrodisiac.

“Better?” she asks, snuggling into my embrace.

“This is perfect,” I whisper.

She stiffens in my arms, but then her muscles loosen quickly, as though she knows her response to my words revealed too much.

I don’t wait for her to say anything in return. Instead, I disentangle us just enough for me to turn off the lamp on my nightstand. Within seconds, I’m gathering her in my arms again. Her breathing’s steady, so I close my eyes and simply marvel at the fact that Solange is here.

Before I drift off to sleep, her voice fills the air. “Dean?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m glad I crashed your wedding.”