Page 48 of A Lot Like Forever

“Maybe,” he said with a shrug, not about to tell her that she’d just given him the best, and only, therapy session of his life and that she was bang on the money with her diagnosis. “Except for the fact that the pain I’m feeling over losing my granddad is pretty close to what I felt as a boy losing my mom. The pain is just as real, only I should know how to process it better.”

She laughed, but it was a quiet, pained laugh. “You know, we’re not so different, you and I. My mother leaving the way she did taught me to never let anyone tell me what I want, to never let anyone walk all over me or make me feel like second best. I might not have stayed entirely true to that, given my most recent bad choice in men, but it’s only made my resolve stronger.”

Nate reached out to touch her arm, trailing his fingers across her skin absentmindedly. “But you will, one day, meet someone you let yourself fall in love with. You’ll have children, be happy, all those things.”

Faith smiled. “Maybe. Maybe not.” She smiled at him before showing interest in the takeout again. “It’s not what I’m going to let define me, Nate. I want to be my own person, not compromise on what I need and want. But yeah, I like the idea of finding a man who’ll let me be me, being a mom if that’s what I want someday, but not because it’s expected of me.”

“And you’ll find that man, darlin’; you will.”

Her smile was infectious. “But right now, you’ll do,” she said with a laugh, climbing into his lap. “Fun, fun, and more . . .fun.”

Nate kissed her lips, his mouth pressed to hers in a lip-lock that she hoped wouldn’t end for hours. He wanted her, so badly that he almost wanted to promise her more. But that would be a promise he couldn’t keep. And Nate King never made a promise he couldn’t keep.

“I’ve got to admit that you’ve kind of surprised me,” Faith mused, pulling back a little so she could look into his eyes, her hand cupping his cheek. “It makes me wonder whether you let anyone else see this side of you.”

Nate looked back at her, into beautiful brown eyes that seemed to see straight into his soul. “The truth? No. I don’t.” He stroked her hair. “There’s something about you, Faith, and I don’t know what the hell it is, but I like it.”

She let him draw her closer again. “You’re nowhere near as tough and scary as you look on the outside sometimes.”

“Ha,” he grunted, “you just haven’t been on my bad side yet.”

And he doubted she ever would be.