CHAPTER 36

“What are you doing here?” Drew asked.

“I’m sorry. I know it’s late. But I had to get Gia from school, make sure Grandma was okay to take her for the night, arrange for Kirsten, and–” She stopped. “Can I come in?”

“You have luggage,” Drew noted, looking down.

“I was kind of hoping you’d let me stay here for a few days.”

“You’re staying?” Drew asked.

“If you let me,” Selma replied.

“Come in,” Drew told her and helped Selma with her roller bag.

Selma dropped her backpack on the floor, turned to Drew, and wrapped her arms around her neck.

“I got your text, but I was already on my way here, so I thought I–”

Drew cut her off with a kiss and said, “It’s okay. I was worried, but it’s okay.”

“Worried?”

“We always text each other… But that’s okay; you’re here.” She wrapped her arms around Selma and pulled her in for a long hug. “God, you’re here.”

Selma pulled out of the hug after a minute and cupped Drew’s cheeks, staring into her green eyes.

“And I love you.”

Drew looked frozen in place, so Selma worried she should’ve checked to make sure it was okay to show up on her girlfriend’s doorstep.

“I love you, too,” Drew replied finally.

Selma pressed their foreheads together and said, “I’m sorry.”

“What for?”

“For everything. I want you in my life; the whole thing. And I want you around all the time. I just got scared. I’m ready now, though.”

“You are?”

Drew pulled back to look at her.

“When you have a little girl, and you feel all alone, it’s sometimes hard to believe anyone would want you. People see a kid, and they see baggage. They see the need to find babysitters, no alone time, and that I’ll always put my daughter first. Then, I met you, and you didn’t do any of that. I was so surprised by you, Drew. I couldn’t believe that you were for real; that you loved my kid and wanted us to all be together.”

“I do want that, though.”

“I know. And I want that for all of us. When you can, I want you to come back and stay in my room with me. I want to tell Gia. I mean, she already kind of knows because she’s so damn observant, but I want to tell her that we’re together and that I love you with you there beside me.”

“Wait. Gia knows about us?”

“She overheard me talking to my grandma.”

“And she’s…”

“She’s good with it. She adores you, Drew.” Selma pressed a kiss to Drew’s lips. “Almost as much as I do.”

“You’re really okay with me staying there with you? Both of you?”

“Yes. I’m not going to ruin this. You’re… Well, it’s silly to say because I’m not a teenager, but you’re my first real love.”

“I’m older than you, so it is silly for me to say that, too?”

“Yes, because you’ve been in love before.”

“No, I haven’t. Not like this,” Drew replied, cupping Selma’s cheek. “Never like this. Never like I could see my life with you and Gia in it, and I knew I wanted that so much that I had to tell you and risk losing you if you didn’t want that, too.”

“I do. I want that. I don’t know how we do it with you here and us there, but I want it.”

“We’ll figure it out, okay? It’s Canada. I can get there easily enough. And you and Gia can come here.”

“You want my hyperactive, genius child to visit?”

Drew looked around the room and said, “Well, not here. I want to get a bigger place and sign a year lease on a two-bedroom so that she can have her own space. I was going to talk to you about it when I visited but didn’t get a chance. I was looking into it before her party. I thought I could get her a bed and stuff, and then she could decorate it herself so that it would be hers, you know?”

“I love you,” Selma said. “You’re…”

“Yours.” Drew shrugged a shoulder. “That’s how it feels to me, anyway.”

“For me, too,” she said before she leaned in and kissed Drew slowly, wanting to savor this because she’d gone too long without it.

“How long can you–”

“Three days,” Selma interrupted. “I have to get back after that.” She moved her lips to Drew’s neck. “And Gia’s asleep, so no need to call her to tell her goodnight. We can go–”

“Yes,” Drew interrupted right back and turned Selma around until she had her walking backward and toward the bedroom. “Wait.”

Selma stopped kissing her neck and said, “What?”

“What made you change your mind?”

“Babe! Right now?”

“Yeah, right now. I need to know,” Drew stated.

“I saw it, too.” Selma ran her hand into Drew’s hair. “The images of us in a place somewhere that’s ours. You took that book you got Gia off her bed and put it away, and I was waiting for you in the doorway. You kissed me, then we went to our bedroom, and we talked about our day, just holding each other. It all felt exactly like what I wanted, and I realized I could lose that because I was too scared to let anyone into this little world I’d built around me and my daughter. But she’s getting older, so she can handle it now, and she loves you. I love you. I know I came here, and you might be thinking that this is just a visit and not what you’re looking for because you want to be there with both of us, but this isn’t just a visit, babe – this is a first step. When you come there, you won’t just be visiting. You can leave your stuff in the closet, the bathroom, the living room, have whatever you want in the fridge, and help me put Gia to bed.” Selma chuckled. “I want you everywhere.” She kissed Drew again. “Everywhere.”

“And by everywhere, do you also mean…”

“Yes,” Selma replied.

“I’m going apartment-hunting, then.” Drew smiled into their next kiss, and they began moving toward the bedroom again.

“I’ll go with you while I’m here, if you want,” Selma offered as Drew took off her shirt.

“I want. Not right now, though. Right now, I want you on this bed.”

Selma removed her own bra and then unbuttoned and unzipped her pants, which Drew pulled down for her. When she got on the bed, Drew pulled off her shoes and socks, removed Selma’s pants all the way, and reached for her underwear. Selma gasped, though, because Drew didn’t just pull them off but moved her mouth to her center and licked her hard first.

“All night long, Selma. I’m not training tomorrow, and neither are you.”

“Yes, please.”

◆◆◆

“Hey, baby,” she said.

“Hi, Mom,” Gia replied without looking at the screen.

“What are you doing?”

“Physics and calculus.”

“You’re–” Selma shook her head because, of course, her ten-year-old was doing both physics and calculus. “Can you take a break for a minute?”

“I guess. But I have to do my homework.”

Selma smiled at her adorable kid and said, “Well, if you don’t have time to talk to Drew… Then, I guess–”

“Drew?” Gia looked up.

Selma turned her phone toward Drew, who was sitting next to her on the sofa.

“Hey, Gia.”

“Drew! What are you doing there? Mom, I thought you were working.”

“Nope. I came here to surprise Drew.”

“How are you, Gia?” Drew asked as she wrapped her arm around Selma’s shoulders.

“I’m good. Drew, the book you got me is so cool. Can I show you?”

Drew looked over at Selma.

“Go for it,” she said and handed Drew her phone. “I’m going to make dinner. Pasta okay?”

“Yeah, babe.” Drew’s eyes went wide.

“You said, ‘Babe,’” Gia pointed out, laughing.

“Yeah, I did. Your mom’s a babe.” Drew winked at Selma. “Gia, can we talk before you show me the book?”

“Okay.”

Selma wasn’t sure where Drew was going with this, so she remained sitting.

“I love your mom a lot. You know that, right?”

“Yeah, it’s pretty obvious.”

Selma laughed silently, and Drew smirked at her.

“But I also love you, too. And I was thinking about coming up there to stay for a few days.”

“That would be so cool. Can we go snowboarding?”

Drew looked at Selma, who nodded.

“Yeah, we can. But I wanted to ask you something. Would it be okay if, when I got there, I stayed with you and your mom?”

“Totally. You can sleep in my room.”

Selma’s little laugh escaped before she could cover her mouth. Drew managed to keep it together, though.

“I was thinking I would sleep in your mom’s room. But you and I will have a ton of time to hang out, too. How does that sound?”

“Yeah, okay. And we can really go snowboarding? You’ll coach me?”

“I’ll only be there for a few days this time, but I’ll show you what I can.”

“Oh, right. You’ll go back home.” The girl sounded disappointed.

“This time, yes. But I was hoping you and your mom could visit me here someday. She and I still have to talk about when, exactly, but how would you like to have your own room when you stay with me here?”

“What? Really? I’d have two bedrooms? That is so cool! Can I put a snowboard on one of the walls?”

“Maybe we could paint one together or something. It’s safer that way,” Drew suggested instead.

“Okay. Yeah, that would be cool. I can draw it.”

“Sure,” Drew replied. “Now, do you want to show me your book?”

Selma kissed Drew on the lips then.

“Gross, Mom,” Gia said.

“Not gross. I love her. I get to kiss her, Gia.”

“Are you two going to be kissing all the time now?” Gia asked.

“Yes,” Selma told her.

Drew chuckled. Then, Gia giggled. Selma smiled and got up to go into Drew’s kitchen.

They’d spent all night making love and continued in the morning until Drew insisted they get up, get dressed, and get out of the apartment to go in search of a two-bedroom place. They hadn’t made appointments for them to view any, but they’d been able to walk right into a few different places. Drew had liked one of them, Selma had liked another, and neither of them had liked the third. On their way home, though, thinking Drew would pick the one she’d liked, and Selma would just get used to it because it was more important for Drew to like the place she lived in every day when Selma would only be visiting, they saw this little ranch house that had a ‘For Rent’ sign in the front yard.

Drew had pulled the car over, and Selma looked it up on her phone. It was within Drew’s price range and was a three-bedroom with a yard, a garage for her car, and even a basement that wasn’t finished but still offered more space, at least. Drew had called the number on the listing, and it turned out, the son of the owner of the house lived next door. The place was his parents’, who had decided to move to a warmer locale and rent the house for at least a year until the market got better for sellers and they could offload it. He had let them in and told them to take their time.

“It’s great, Drew,” Selma had said.

“Yeah. It’s actually cheaper than the last place we saw, and it’s in a good neighborhood. Just five extra minutes to where I train, too.” She’d wrapped her arms around Selma’s waist. “And it’s only a year lease, so…”

“So… What, exactly?”

“Well, if you and I are ready by then, we could consider moving in together or maybe something else.”

“Something else?” Selma had smiled at her. “And you realize we live in different countries right now, right?”

“I do. I also realize that I love you, so if we get engaged one day, one of us could get a fiancée visa, and then, we’d get married, and–”

“Okay. We should probably worry about where you’re going to live now before we think about all that.”

“Nah,” Drew had replied. “Now that I’ve finally found you, I want to start thinking about all that. I’m not getting any younger, Driscoll. One day soon, I’m going to expect you to make an honest woman out of me.”

Selma had laughed and wrapped her arms around Drew’s neck.

“I think the time for you or me being made honest women has passed.”

“Probably true. But you want all of that, right? You know that’s what I want.”

“You know what I love about you?”

“My body.”

“That too,” Selma had said through her laughter. “But I love that you always just tell me how you feel, what you want, and you make me… You make me want to do the same. No more hiding or worrying, you know?”

“Good.” Drew had kissed her forehead. “What do you think? Should I ask him for an application?”

“You’d be the one living here. Do you like it?”

“The kitchen is a decent size. I can see us sitting at a table in there, having dinner with Gia. It’s not massive or anything, so I wouldn’t want to buy it at the end of my lease. And we would still need to determine who’s moving where, but my guess is that I’d be moving up there.”

“Drew, we’d have to talk about that.”

“Babe, your grandma isn’t going to be around forever. And you’re taking over the lodge for her, aren’t you?”

“She and I still need to talk about that, too.”

“My guess is that, even though you have a great staff there, you’ll retire from boarding one day and do that full-time. Am I right?”

“I’ve been thinking about it, yes. I could sell it. Gia will probably be done with school next year at this rate. She’ll have to figure out where she’s going to go to college, and I’ll have to go with her, so I was going to wait until then to make any big decision about the lodge. I like the mountains, and I don’t want to get too far away from them, but most of my family has already moved away, and I don’t mind living somewhere else as long as there’s snow and the possibility of getting to a mountain quickly, if it’s for Gia’s school or another important reason.”

“Okay. We’ll wait to see what Gia needs, and I’ll get an application for this place now so we can get moving on it and maybe buy her a bed soon so you two can come back together next time.”

It should’ve scared Selma, and, in the past, it certainly would have, but when Drew spoke so confidently, like this was it for her – Selma and Gia were her future – Selma wasn’t scared at all.

Later that night, she made them dinner while Drew talked to Gia on her phone, and when it was time to say goodnight, they said it together.

“Love you,” Gia replied to Drew. “You too, Mom.”

Selma took in Drew’s face and watched as the woman looked almost surprised and happy at the same time. Once they hung up, Selma snuggled into Drew’s side.

“Dinner will be done soon,” she told her.

“What do you think about getting her a full bed?”

Selma kissed Drew’s neck and replied, “A twin bed is fine.”

“But she’s going to grow.”

“Not in that house,” Selma noted. “We’re going to get a place together before then, right? Wherever that may be. So, why buy a bigger bed we’ll just have to ship or sell, when you can get a smaller one?”

Drew didn’t say anything, so Selma looked up at her.

“Babe?”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Drew said, smiling warmly at her. “We’ll save the bigger bed for our place.”

“Our place,” Selma repeated, thinking about finally moving out of the lodge and into a house that she shared with the woman she loved and her daughter. “Sounds perfect.”