Page 88 of Broken Vows

“They sound so happy,” I say, wrapping my arms around him. “I just…it’s strange. She’s my baby. She feels too young, and he’s—” I stop myself. I shouldn’t tell him any more than that.

Levi’s arm comes around my back, his hand moving in slow, soothing strokes.

“Your daughter and Drew are having a baby,” he says, almost like he is testing the words.

I tilt my head to look at him. “You’ve heard me mention him before?”

I thought I had been careful using Drew’s name, but I suppose I must have slipped.

“Must have done.”

“Anyway,” I say. “It’s just strange. One minute she’s my little girl, and the next she’s married and pregnant.” I let out a soft laugh. “Life moves fast.”

Levi stays quiet for a long moment. His arm wraps around me a fraction tighter, but his thumb keeps moving over my back in an absent, distracted rhythm, as if his mind has gone somewhere else entirely.

I’m probably frightening him with baby talk. But it does make me wonder.

“Do you want children one day?” I ask.

“Fuck no. Got the snip years ago.”

I lift my head, surprised. “Really? I thought they usually made men wait until they already had children.”

“They let me when I was twenty…” He pauses, thinking. “Eight.”

Ten years ago. I file the detail away before I can think too hard about it.

Levi goes quiet for a beat, then looks at me with something almost apprehensive in his expression. “You want more kids?”

The question catches me off guard because surely he knows that part of my life has most likely passed. But then it is Levi, and I suppose he wouldn’t know. I haven’t had a period in six months.

“No,” I say honestly. The chances of it happening now are probably close to zero, and even if they weren’t, I don’t want to start again at my age. I loved raising my children. I love being their mother. But that part of my life is finished now.

“You’re not worried you’ll change your mind?” I ask.

“Never wanted a kid,” he says. “Besides, they just grow up and—” He cuts himself off. “Leave you,” he says finally, rougher than before. “Like your daughter just did. Fuck that.”

A surprised laugh bubbles out of me.

He doesn’t put it eloquently, but I understand what he means.

He would grumble about basketballs in the driveway, shoes left in the doorway, lights left on, crumbs on the counter. He would mutter and scowl and pretend every bit of it annoyed him.

But he would love them with his whole heart and when they were gone, he would miss the chaos terribly.

I cup his jaw, brushing my thumb along the rough stubble. “You’re surprisingly sweet sometimes, you know that?”

For a second, something soft flickers across his hard features. The corner of his mouth twitches, not quite a smile, but close enough to make my stomach flutter.

A sharp yip cuts through the bathroom.

Fifi.

I turn the water off and grab us both a towel.

“She probably wants her lunch early,” I say.

Levi wraps his towel low around his hips. Then he takes mine and starts drying me. Rubbing the soft fabric over my shoulders, down my arms, then across my breasts and belly. He crouches slightly so he can reach lower, sliding the towel down my thighs and between my legs with just enough lingering pressure to pull a soft inhale from me.