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She pushes against me, lips dancing on every part of who I am – physically, emotionally. “I want to fall in love with you, Katie, and I want you to fall in love with me.”

“But it’s so much more fun to fight you.”

“Only in games.”

I wrap my arms around her again, my T-shirt the only clothing still on either of our bodies. Maybe I should fix that.

“What happens now?”

Her kiss is unexpected at this moment, but I don’t push her away. How can I, when this is the most natural feeling in the world?

“Let’s play it by ear.”

“What about our families?”

“Fuck our families. It’s none of their business.”

I can’t help but agree. It’s none of their business. Not until we decide to take a more serious step beyond exclusivity. I don’t know when that will happen. Right now I only care about feeling her warmth around me, within me, and consuming every part of my consciousness.

“I love you,” I whisper, testing how she feels now that we’re no longer having sex.

To my surprise, she knocks me over onto the other side of my bed and looms over me. Am I scared? Enamored? I don’t know what this feeling is, only that I’m becoming addicted to it.

“Don’t say those words if you don’t mean them.”

“You said them first.”

“I didn’t say them without meaning them.”

“Neither am I.” I wrap my legs around her waist and feel her strong body pressed upon mine. Soon we’re back in that familiar embrace. “I love you. I just don’t know what to do.”

“For today, for this week, we’re not going to concern ourselves with it. We won’t address the future until we have to.”

As nice as that sentiment sounds, I can’t help but wonder if that future will come sooner rather than later. I also wonder if I will really care. Will I keep pushing back my identity in favor of a new one? Will I be happy?

Where will we be a year from now? Ten years from now?

Let me tell you. It doesn’t even matter. I’m taking things one day at a time.

Chapter 51

Ira

“Kid, I had no idea that you were somehow involved with that woman.”

That’s the first thing my father says to me when I sit next to him in his favorite Good Ol’ Boys club. The same one we last talked about women in. Cigar smoke is thick, in part due to my father puffing away on one of his vices. That and women and booze, like the brandy he’s hucking back like he’ll never have the chance again.

My father knows how to hold his liquor, so I’m not worried about him getting drunk. I am, however, worried about him running his mouth and pissing me off.

“I doubt she brought it up.” Ever since that fateful lunch, I’ve wondered how Stephanie May ended up in my father’s bed. A lovely thought that haunts me. “We didn’t split amicably.”

“Whoa, I figured there was a bit of a witch in her.” My father attempts a hearty chuckle, but it comes out in a wisp of a breath. “She’s a wild one, eh?”

I keep my face straight as I look into my father’s eyes. The host of the club comes by with the scotch I ordered and asks if I need anything else. What I need is a lobotomy.

“How in the world did you meet her?”

Donovan Mathison isn’t the kind of man to give up his secrets easily, even to his kid. Nevertheless, he winks and says, “Your old man has his bag of tricks!”