Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

ELIZABETH

Presley was dead-on when she said that I never know what might happen.

Because I’m not sure what the hell I expected when I sent that first message…

But it wasn’t this.

Shaking my head, I laugh to myself.

No. Never in a million years could I have imagined this.

Butterflies.

This man is giving me actual butterflies.

I’ve rolled my eyes at this sensation being described in hundreds of romance novels, but now I know it’s because I had no idea.

Absolutely none.

I should have known. All those authors and their flowery words couldn’t have been describing some completely imaginary feeling.

And I finally get it.

Every notification causes an electric tingle that ignites all of my senses. The seconds it takes to open his messages are a delicate dance of anticipation. His words feel like a fluttering of excitement that stirs inside me, reminding me of the gentle brush of soft wings.

Every flutter feels like a whisper of possibilities.

I’ve never felt anything quite like this before.

Hope blooms, and twines around the sudden desire to pick up right where we left off all those years ago.

“You’re smiling again.”

And what do you know? I am smiling again.

“I can’t help it,” I admit to Dani, my oldest child. Not that I should call her a child anymore since she recently turned eighteen. I still struggle with knowing I’m old enough to have raised a child to adulthood.

“It looks good on you,” she says.

“What does?” I ask, absentmindedly as I read another message from Russell.

“Happiness.” At that, I look up from my phone and into my daughter’s eyes. “I haven’t seen you smile this much in way too long.”

“It’s only been a few days…” I start to protest, but it’s useless because my lips are already tilting up at the corners just thinking about him.

“And you’ve been smiling for every single one of them.”

I can’t argue with that.

I won’t even bother trying because it’d be a huge waste of time.

Instead, I give her a helpless little shrug. “I don’t know what it is and it’s hard to explain, but there’s something there between the two of us. It’s like an old sense of comfort and the excitement of something new blended together in a way that feels…”

I sigh, unable to find the right word.

Dani laughs. “Well, whatever he’s doing… I hope he keeps doing it.”

Me too, I think to myself.

“Even if he is your ex,” she teases, making me roll my eyes.

“Never gonna let that go, are you?”

“No way,” she says, laughing as she mocks me. “‘ Exes are exes for a reason.’ ”

Yeah, I said that.

But that was before Russell and I reconnected.

We’ve been talking pretty much all day, every day since that first conversation. Texts, phone calls, video calls, the works. We may have dated seventeen years ago, but it feels like no time has passed at all. I don’t even remember the reason we stopped dating back then. Neither does he.

There’s one thing I do know for sure.

Neither of us is the same person we were then.

We’ve both changed, grown, matured.

But the feelings are still there.

For me, and for him.

Our conversations have made that crystal clear. Kinda like the one we’re having now.

Me: Maybe 17 years ago wasn’t our time, but now it could be.

Russell: That’s what I was thinking because why else would we have gotten in contact after so long and live fairly close to each other?

Me: Kinda close, but still kinda far.

Russell: It’s only about 3 hours and I’d drive it just to see you.

Me: Yeah, but I’m sure you’d get tired of making that trip.

Russell: Not at all. You’re worth it.

I can’t believe he’s willing to make a six-hour round trip whenever he wants to see me, or when I want to see him. I’d have no problem going to him, but it’s a lot more complicated since I don’t drive. It seems that’s something he hasn’t forgotten, and it’s definitely something that hasn’t changed over the years.

Because so many things have changed.

We may be the same people, but our lives are not the same.

A lot can happen in seventeen years.

A lot has happened.

My life is completely different now than it was then.

Dani was a year old when Russell and I dated in Florida. I may be a single mom again, but I come along with two more kids than I had before. I’m the proud parental unit of two teen girls and a preteen boy. The four of us are a package deal, which doesn’t bother Russell in the least. It could be the fact that he has a teenage daughter of his own, but something tells me even if he wasn’t already a father, he’d still choose us every single time.

“What’s for dinner?” my eleven-year-old son, Cole, asks as he walks into the room.

“I don’t know why you bother asking,” Dani says. “You and Selene never eat what Mama cooks.”

He shrugs it off and looks at me, waiting for an answer.

“Nothing you’re going to eat,” I say with a laugh as I wash my hands at the kitchen sink. “I’m making chicken enchiladas for me and Dani.”

“I’ll eat those,” Selene says, joining us in the kitchen.

My phone chimes with a notification, and I smile but resist the urge to reach for it.

“Must be Russell,” Dani teases, humor evident in her tone.

“How do you know?” Cole asks.

“She’s smiling,” Dani says, like it explains everything. “It’s like a Pavlovian response. That notification sound automatically makes her smile.”

I can’t help but laugh because she’s right. I really hadn’t noticed until she pointed it out, but I definitely smile whenever I get any kind of message from him.

“I like that he makes her smile,” Cole says, like I’m not standing in the room with them.

I say nothing and let them carry on, listening to them talk about me and how good my mood has been for the last few days while I shred the chicken that’s been cooking slowly since this morning. I guess I never realized how much my kids really pay attention to me. Now, I know. It’s much more than I would have thought.

Setting the chicken aside, I pick up my phone and reply to the text Russell sent, knowing he won’t see it until later since he’s working right now. He always texts me when he takes quick breaks, but otherwise, we don’t talk much while he’s on the clock because working in a professional kitchen requires his full attention. I don’t mind a bit because, aside from the occasional text, it means my attention is on my kids, exactly where it should be when I’m home with them.

They deserve that much from me.

I will always put my kids first, which makes me wonder…

“You guys are okay with me dating, right?”

Their conversation stops. A look passes between the three of them and all eyes turn to me.

“We just want you happy, Mama,” Dani says, speaking for all of them.

The earnestness in her tone catches me off guard a little.

It shouldn’t.

As the oldest, Dani knows a lot more of the truth about my relationship with my ex-husband than her siblings. She picked up on the times when something was wrong and the times I was seriously unhappy, even if I tried not to show it. She might not know the gritty details, but she knows enough to have formed an opinion.

After the separation, I tried to keep the drama to a minimum, especially when it came to the kids. I didn’t want the end of our marriage to affect them any more than necessary, so even in the midst of the worst of my anger, I never spoke ill of him with the kids around. I’ve always felt like adult problems should stay between the adults.

And even though the potential of me and Russell dating is very much an “adult thing,” I still care about how my kids feel about it. I won’t date him, or anyone else, if it makes them uncomfortable.

“I can’t wait to meet him,” Cole says, not masking his excitement.

Selene, a little more reserved, says, “Tell us more about him.”

And so I do.

Because that’s the green light I was hoping for.

“Hey there, gorgeous.”

Seeing his face on the screen never fails to put a smile on my face. Not surprising, I know. It’s becoming a permanent fixture because of him and I kinda love it. I can’t remember the last time I felt this happy.

Was it really only a few days ago when I thought I wasn’t ready to date?

For him… I’m ready.

So damn ready.

“Hey,” I say, getting comfortable on my bed.

This has become our nightly routine since we started talking and I don’t see it changing any time soon. As someone who typically hates being on camera in any way, I actually look forward to our video calls. It’s nice to be able to see him even though it’s not in person, and it helps make the physical distance between us feel a little less daunting.

“You were the hot topic during dinner tonight,” I tell him with a laugh.

“Oh yeah?”

“Mhmm. The kids were asking about you and teasing me about how I’m smiling all the time now. Dani told me happiness looks good on me.”

“It looks really fuckin’ good on you.”

I’ll be honest… it feels good.

And it’s all because of him.

I fill him in on the conversation with the kids, making sure to give him all the good bits, like how Selene got excited that his daughter, Teagan, is only a year older than her and how Cole said he’s excited to meet him.

“They seem like sweet kids,” he tells me.

“They are,” I admit. “They may tease me, but they love that I’m happy and they see it’s because of you.”

“That’s all I want to do is make you happy. The kids, too, because I’ll treat them like my own.”

And the butterflies are back.

It seems entirely too soon to feel as strongly as I do.

The old feelings I had for him are still there, even after all these years.

And the new feelings? They’re overwhelming, but in the absolute best way.

He makes it impossible not to fall for him.

And I fall a little more each day.

“You are so damn beautiful,” he says, pulling me from my thoughts.

Warmth blossoms in my cheeks and of course, I smile.

I look at him, wishing there wasn’t a screen between us, and what I see makes my heart skip a beat.

The way he’s looking at me right now… it’s everything .

His expression, his eyes–they hide absolutely nothing.

He’s looking at me like I’m the most precious thing in the world.

To him, I think I am.

“I still can’t believe we found each other again.”

“Neither can I, but I’m happy we did.”

It’s him that smiles now. “I’m gonna be honest with you, babe. Every time I hear your voice or see you… hell, all the time we talk… my feelings keep getting stronger.”

It’s like he pulled my thoughts straight out of my head.

“I know exactly how you feel,” I admit.

“I think we both know where this is going,” he says.

All I can do is smile.