Going over to Sarah’s wouldn’t mean that I could have something with her, but it would definitely be a decision to move on from my wife. The problem was that I felt something for Sarah. I wasn’t sure what exactly, but I knew that if I gave myself time it could turn into something more. I didn’t know if she felt the same though. She may not be ready to move on with me. So, if I went over there and she didn’t feel the same, would I be leaving Iris behind for no reason?
I needed to talk to someone about my issues. It was time to let someone in and not keep everything bottled up so much. I couldn’t just leave Sarah though. I wouldn’t push her away just because I was becoming a head case. I picked up my phone and dialed her number.
“Hello?”
“Sarah, I need to reschedule putting the room together. I have something to take care of.”
“Oh. Is everything okay?”
“I…” I blew out a breath. I didn’t want to lie to her, but I wasn’t sure what to say either. “I just need to figure some things out. How about I call you later?”
“Sure. That’s fine. I have some other things to do anyway.”
That was total bullshit. She wanted the room put together this weekend so that she didn’t have to worry about being unprepared.
“Give me a few hours and I’ll be over there to work on the room.” Silence greeted me on the other end. “I…Give me some time.”
“Okay, Drew. Anything you need.”
I ended the call and then tried to decide who would be best to call. Going through my list of friends, I didn’t recall anyone that would really understand my predicament, but two names came to mind that I should call. I sent a text to Harper and then when I got a response, I headed out to her house.
✯✯✯✯✯
“Hey. You said you needed to talk?”
Harper stood at the front door, holding Ethan on her hip. She was smiling at me when Jack came up behind her, pulling his son off her hip.
“Hey, little man. You are supposed to be taking your nap. Come on. Let’s head to your bedroom.”
He walked away with his son in his arms as Harper gestured for me to come in. We walked toward the kitchen where she brought out coffee mugs and the fresh coffee she’d made for my visit.
“So, what’s this all about?”
“Um, I need to talk to you and Jack about something.”
“Okay, well he should be out in a minute. Ethan never takes very long to fall asleep.”
I sat uncomfortable for a minute as I tried to figure out what exactly I was going to say to them. Luckily, Jack didn’t take too long and I didn’t have to stew about it for too long. They both sat and stared at me for a minute, waiting for me to say what I came to say. Deciding that just saying it would be best, I did.
“I’m attracted to Sarah.”
Harper had a big grin on her face and Jack quirked an eyebrow at me.
“That’s fantastic, Drew. I’m so happy for you!” Harper jumped up from her chair and hugged me.
“Whoa. Relax. It’s not like we’re getting married.”
“So, what’s the problem? Is it because she’s pregnant?” Jack asked.
“She’s not the problem. I am.”
Harper was looking at me expectantly. All this time, she had never asked what had happened in my past. She had always respected my privacy and waited for me to confide in her.
“I was married about eight years ago. Her name was Iris. She was…everything to me. After we were married about a year, she found out she was pregnant and we were so excited, but then we found out not long after that she had cancer.”
Understanding lit Jack’s face. When Harper had been so sick when she was pregnant, he had mistakenly assumed that her nausea medicine was because she had cancer. He had read something on my face and knew that it had upset me for reasons other than Harper being my friend.
“She died before our two year anniversary and I lost my mind. Like, really lost my mind. I couldn’t stand to live there without her, so I left a few weeks after she died. I left her parents behind and ran with a duffel of clothes and the money I had from selling everything we owned. I wandered around the country for five years before finding you. Up until I met you, Harper, I didn’t think I would ever be happy again.”
“Drew, I’m so sorry,” Harper said. She was squeezing Jack’s hand as he looked down at their linked hands.
“I didn’t like Sarah when she first moved here because she reminded me in some ways of Iris. Maybe a version of Iris. I only thought of her as a friend until recently. Then last night after the party, after we unloaded all the gifts, she asked me if I would stay with her. She was a little wrung out from the party, so I stayed with her. When I woke up this morning, I was….attracted to her.”
“Dude, that didn’t happen when you slept with Harper, did it?”
Harper slapped Jack across the chest and gave him a scathing look.
“What? It’s a valid question.”
“No. It didn’t. This is the first time since Iris that I’ve been attracted to any woman. She saw my…attraction.”
“Dude, we’re not in high school. She saw your erection. Just say it. She saw you had a boner.” Jack muttered.
“Fine. She saw I had an erection and I left to go take care of it.” Fuck, this was hard to talk about. “The problem is that the whole time I was taking care of it, I was thinking about Sarah.”
“Well, yeah. Who else would you be thinking about? You better not ever think of Harper.”
“God, you’re such a neanderthal. He’s upset because he was thinking about Sarah and not Iris.”
We sat in silence for a moment as I waited for their reactions. I thought Harper would be the one to have the words of wisdom, but surprisingly, it was Jack that spoke up.
“Look, Drew, I don’t know what kind of woman Iris was, but I’m assuming she wouldn’t want you to be alone, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So, it’s been what, six years? I think she would want you to move on and be happy.”
“I know she would. That’s not the problem. I can still feel Iris with me. It feels like the more I move on with my life, the less I can feel her. I don’t know if I’m ready to lose her yet. The first time was hard enough, but I still have part of her with me. Last night though, I stayed with Sarah and completely forgot about Iris, and then this morning…So if I make the decision to try to make something with Sarah, I have to give that up. Otherwise, it would be like I was always choosing Iris over Sarah. I would have to give up Iris. I would have to let her go.” Repeating it just punctuated how sharp the pain was at the thought of losing that. Before I could stop it, tears started to leak down my face and I buried my face in my hands. I quickly got myself under control and wiped the moisture from my face. “So, if I decide to move on, I have to let go the little bit that I still have of my wife.”
I looked up at both of them hoping that they had the answers, but neither of them said anything.
“What if I let her go and nothing happens between Sarah and I? I don’t know if I could handle that.”
Harper, who had been quiet the whole time, finally spoke up. “Drew, I know that you don’t want to let Iris go, but what if you miss out on something great with Sarah because you can’t let go of your wife? She’s gone. I’m not trying to be cruel, but she’s gone. She’s not coming back and the longer you live in the past, the more you’re giving up on your own future. Whether it’s Sarah or not, if you don’t let go of Iris, you’ll always be alone and Iris would not want you to be alone.”
“Does Sarah know about Iris?” Jack asked.
“Yeah. I told her a little about Iris.”
Harper looked shocked and slightly hurt, probably because I had talked to Sarah about Iris before her, but I couldn’t help that she was the first person I opened up to.
“How did she react when you told her about Iris?”
I looked from Harper back to Jack. “She was pretty understanding. She’s dealing w
ith something herself, so I think she understands.”
“Does Sarah feel the same toward you?”
“I have no idea. I think she’s still wrapped up in the babies’ father.”
“She’s talked to you about him?”
“All I know is that he’s dead. She hasn’t said anything other than that. I don’t know if they were married or if he was a boyfriend.”
“All you can do is talk to her. Maybe feel her out and see where she stands, but you have to give yourself the opportunity to move on. Would you really be happy with just your wife’s memory for the rest of your life?”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Sarah
I HADN’T HEARD from Drew since he left in a hurry this morning. I had been so stupid, not even realizing that by asking him to stay with me last night could bring up…issues. I had slept better than I had in a long time and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t attracted to Drew, but that wasn’t what last night was about for me. I just hadn’t wanted to feel alone anymore. That might have been selfish, especially since I hadn’t taken his feelings into consideration. He was still trying to get over the loss of his wife and I had invited him into my bed in a purely platonic way.
Still, when I saw his tented pants this morning, I was reminded that he was still a man and had needs. Hell, I was a woman and this pregnancy had left me feeling more unfulfilled than I had in a long time. When he was making breakfast this morning, I couldn’t help my eyes wandering over his body. He was a big man and all his muscles bulged through the sleeves of his t-shirt. I had felt those muscles wrapped around me last night and felt the weight of his arm around my belly. When I pictured arms wrapped around my swollen belly, it had always been Todd’s arms I thought of, but I couldn’t say that Drew’s arms felt wrong. Maybe that itself was wrong.
After he stumbled out my door this morning, I tried my best to calm down before he came back over. When he called and said he wasn’t coming back, part of me was relieved that I could forget about this morning for a little longer, but the other half was disappointed that I wouldn’t see him again. He said he would come back later, but I wasn’t so sure about that. He seemed pretty shaken up about what happened in the kitchen. I wondered if he was serious about not sleeping with any other women. He was quite the treat to look at, so I couldn’t imagine women not crawling all over him.
I spent the rest of the morning sorting through clothes that people had gotten me. I hadn’t gone over my list, but I was pretty sure that most of the items on my list were taken care of. I had never known such generous people. Honestly, even my friends back home wouldn’t have given me such a wonderful baby shower. Most of them weren’t even interested in having kids yet, so I probably would have been completely alone with my pregnancy.
After the clothes were rid of their tags and I had a laundry basket full to wash, I glanced around the babies’ room, not sure where to go from there. I couldn’t put stuff away until the furniture was set up. I looked at some of the lighter items and decided to start there. The first box I pulled out was some sort of baby garbage can called a Diaper Genie. I didn’t know what the big deal was. Didn’t you just throw away diapers in the garbage? Why would they need their own special garbage can?
I tore open the box and was just about to get it all set up when there was a knock at the door. Butterflies appeared in my tummy and my hands shook slightly. All this because of a little morning wood. Ridiculous. I straightened up as best I could and made my way to the front door. Drew had knocked several more times by the time I got there.
“Thank God you answered. I was about to break down the door. I thought something had happened to you.”
“No. I was just putting together something and it took me awhile to get up.”
He stepped through the door and headed back to the babies’ room. “I told you I would be back to help you with it. You didn’t have to start without me.”
“Well, I just opened the garbage can thing.”
“The Diaper Genie?”
“Yeah. I’m not really sure why it’s so important to have one in the room, but Harper insisted.”
“Well, I’d trust her on this one if only because she’s been through it.”
Drew started ripping apart boxes as I tried to figure out how the liner for the Diaper Genie went in. Apparently, you had to push the liner back through the center hole. When I finally got it in the diaper genie and closed the lid, I looked up to see Drew had unpacked both pack n’ plays and had them assembled already.
“Geez. You’re really fast. It took me forever to do that.” I pointed to the diaper pail that was sitting all alone in the corner of the room.
“Well, I have helped Harper do it once or twice, so I cheated a little.”
Drew moved the pack n’ plays where I directed and then moved the rocker in place.
“Are you gonna breastfeed the babies?”
“I plan to. Why?”
“How do you do it? Do you feed them both at the same time or one at a time? And what do you do if they’re both hungry at the same time, but you only feed one at a time?”
“I have no idea. From what I’ve read, I should feed them at the same time to get more sleep, but I don’t know how all that works. I guess I’ll find out in the hospital.”
“Doesn’t it freak you out? You seem so calm about all of this.”
My mood fell slightly. “The idea of doing this alone is daunting, but what choice do I have. I have to remain positive. It’s the only way to keep from breaking down. I know it’s going to be hard and I haven’t quite figured out yet how I’m going to handle it all. I figure I just need to take it a day at a time.”
“Harper said something about getting a nanny so that when you go back to work, they would still have the same routine. Have you thought about that?”
“Yeah, but I don’t have the space in the house for another person.”
“What if we built on an addition?”
That made me laugh. “An addition? I doubt that I could afford that and I don’t think there’s enough time before the babies are born.”
“Well, that’s not necessarily true. What if I could get Ryan and Logan to do it at cost for you?”
“Seriously? Drew, I’m not some charity case. They have a company to run. I can’t even imagine asking you to do that for me. Besides, they would have to do it quickly and that requires more workers. There’s no way they could do it at cost.”
“Okay, so what if I paid for it?”
I stared at him for a minute. “Drew, you can’t possibly be serious. It’s one thing for you to come over here and help me out with stuff around the house. It’s another thing to have you pay for the addition to my house. I’ll just take them to daycare like other normal parents do.”
“That’s not going to be any cheaper. Daycare is expensive enough for one child, but you have two and aren’t infants more expensive? You’d be working just to put them in daycare.”
“I don’t know what I’ll do, but I’m not having you pay for an addition for me.”
Drew started pacing around the room as I fumed at the idea of him taking care of things for me. I didn’t understand where this sudden need to take care of my life came from, but it had to stop. Drew suddenly stopped pacing and turned toward me.
“Let’s go to the living room. We need to talk.”
Confused by his sudden change in mood, I followed him into the living room and sat down on the couch while he paced for a few more minutes around the living room. Finally, he stopped and turned to me with an expression I couldn’t read.
“I’ve told you about my wife. You know how hard these last six years have been for me, right?” I nodded. “Lately, I haven’t been quite so…lonely.”
Seriously? He was bringing me into the living room to tell me he was getting laid? I stood up and raised my hand to stop him. I didn’t need to hear this and frankly, it kind of hurt me to hear about it. I mean, I knew I wasn’t the most desirable prospect, being pregn
ant and all, but still, I didn’t need him to point it out to me.
“You don’t need to tell me this. What you do when you aren’t here is your own business and I really don’t need to hear about it.”
“I need to explain-”
“No, you don’t, Drew. It’s really not necessary. You’re a man. I get it.”
“You don’t get it. This morning when I was here-”
“Drew, I don’t need to hear about you having sex with other women!”
My voice had grown shrill in my attempt to block out what he was about to tell me. No doubt after he left this morning, he called some woman to hook up with him so he could take care of his problem.
He stood stunned for a moment before grinning widely at me. “I’m not having sex with other women.”
“Drew, I don’t need to…wait. What?”
“Sarah, I’m not having sex with other women. I’m not lonely because of you.”
“Because of me?”
“Being around you has helped take my mind off Iris. I don’t think about her as often and I don’t feel this giant pressure on my chest anymore. I mean, it’s not gone, but most of the time it’s not there.”
I was glad that I could help him feel more at ease. In fact, over the past few months, he had been doing the same for me.
“Well, that’s really good, Drew. I’m happy that you aren’t so lonely.”
“The thing is, I’m attracted to you and I want to see where it goes.”
I pulled back in confusion. I had never in a million years expected him to say that. I was so sure that he was going to tell me that he’d found someone else and he wouldn’t be spending as much time with me anymore. That he didn’t want me to rely on him when the babies were born. I stood there for a few minutes and stared at the ground. I didn’t know what to say to him. Was I ready to move on? I mean, I knew that I couldn’t stay alone forever and Drew was a good man, but I had to be sure.
If I was honest with myself, I found Drew extremely attractive and more than once he had entered my dreams at night. More and more I felt a pull to him that was leaving me more and more confused. I had never imagined that Drew could feel the same way, so I was a little thrown and unsure how to feel. Also, I had to consider that I was about to have babies and I wasn’t so sure that now was the time to start something with Drew. Was he really ready to have a ready made family in a few months? What if I started treating him like a husband and getting upset when he didn’t help enough with the twins? No doubt that would happen because this whole situation was going to be stressful enough without adding in a new boyfriend on top of it.
Drew Page 13
