"You are so beautiful," I murmured, closing the distance between us to finally feel her soft lips against mine.
"Mommy, are we home?" a sleepy voice from the back seat croaked.
Clare and I instantly pulled apart, acting like two horny teenagers caught making out under the bleachers. Clare jumped from the car to open the back door and retrieve Maddie, and I followed.
"Shhh, baby girl. We're home. Let's get you to bed," Clare assured.
"But I want to see more ballerinas,” Maddie mumbled.
"Later princess. Promise."
I offered to carry her in so Clare wouldn’t have to tackle the stairs in a cocktail dress. I settled her in bed, and Clare pulled out her pajamas. I watched in absolute awe as she performed this simple task that she’d probably done a million times now. It seemed completely foreign and fascinating to me. Maddie was all but unconscious, but Clare managed to get her changed without much effort.
She tucked her in giving her a quick kiss on the cheek. Unable to stop myself, I leaned down, kiss her on the cheek and said, "Goodnight, princess."
Clare and I silently left Maddie’s room and I followed her downstairs toward the entrance of the house. Once we reached the front door, she turned.
“Logan, thank you so much for tonight. You don’t know how--”
"Go out with me," I blurted out, interrupting her.
"What?" she said, clearly amused.
"Go out with me. On a date. Just you and me."
Please, I silently begged.
"Yes," she agreed.
"Saturday. I'll call you." I grinned like a goddamn fool.
"Okay." She turned to unlock the door, looking back at me with a shy smile.
God, I wanted to kiss her. But I really, really needed to be gentlemen for once in my life.
I took a step out the door, preparing my goodbye speech and froze.
The memory of her in the car, when her breath caught, and her eyes fluttered shut flashed through me, and I couldn’t move another step.
Ah, f**k it.
I quickly pivoted around, seeing Clare’s brief look of surprise right before I grab her around the waist, pulling our bodies tight together, and slammed my mouth down on hers. She let out a gasp of surprise, before giving a slight moan, returning the kiss with enthusiasm. That moan was the sexiest sound I’d ever heard.
I reluctantly pulled back, both of us gasping for air.
“See you Saturday, Clare.”
Being a gentleman is highly overrated.
Chapter Seven
~Clare~
I never thought Saturday would arrive.
I felt like Maddie waiting for Santa. I think that fact alone made me truly pathetic.
The week leading up to the date hadn’t started out with excitement. In fact, it started with absolute dread.
After Logan kissed me, that epic earth shattering kiss, and my heart rate returned to normal, I began to panic. What was I thinking? Could I do this?
Afterward, I locked up the house and walked into my bedroom in a daze. I started to contemplate every different way I could get out of that date. I wasn’t ready to date. It was too soon, right? Maybe in another five years. That sounded reasonable, I told myself as I paced the room. I eventually walked over to the floor length mirror I stared into a week earlier and took a long look at myself again.
My cheeks were flushed and my lips were swollen and for the first time in over three years. I actually looked alive. That part of me, the feminine side all women have that makes us feel sexy and wanted, was back.
I survived Ethan’s death. I had come back from the ashes and lived. But until that night there was still a part of me that was missing. I could feel a sliver of it returning as I glanced in that mirror.
I hadn’t lost myself to grief and I could come back whole again.
Feeling my confidence returning, I grinned in the mirror, placed a hand over my swollen lips and finally began looking forward to my date.
The next morning I awoke in another panic when I realized I had nothing to wear. The only things I owned were what Leah dubbed “Mom clothes.” Jeans, sweaters, tank tops and other random washable items. If it couldn’t handle a jelly stain, I didn’t own it.
I called Leah for an emergency shopping trip.
Complete silence, followed by an ear piercing scream filled the airwaves when I told her the reason. I thanked God I wasn’t anywhere public because I’m pretty sure anyone standing within ten feet of me would have thought the person on the other end was being murdered while I was standing there, calmly doing nothing.
“Oh my God!” she shrieked.
“Leah, seriously calm down.”
“You have a date! We must go shopping.”
I was pretty sure I had already mentioned that. “I know. I’m dropping off Maddie at my parents’ tomorrow afternoon.”
“Good. Plan on leaving her there for dinner, cause we have some serious work to do,” she instructed.
She wasn’t kidding. We shopped for hours and she made me promise to go to the salon to get a mani/pedi on Friday so my nails would be freshly polished. As we were leaving the mall, she said I may want to throw in a wax. When I gave her a hard stare, she looked at me innocently saying “What? You never know! Gotta be prepared, Clare!”
I think Leah was always prepared, for everything.
And now, Saturday was finally here. Leah had just arrived. She had offered to babysit for the evening, which I thought was sweet, but I think she was doing it to be nosy.
No, scratch that. I knew she was being nosy because she was sitting on my bed with Maddie watching me get ready.
“Mommy’s going on a date. Do you know what that is?” she quizzed Maddie, absently playing with her hair. Maddie, who was seated on her lap was busy playing with her doll. She shook her head.
“Is it like a play date?” she asked Leah.
“Um, yes. But with kissing,” Leah explained. I turned around from my vanity to give her a glare. She looked at me like she couldn’t possibly understand what she did wrong. Leah’s filter has a lot of holes. After all this time, I actually was starting to believe she didn’t have one at all and just said whatever came to mind.
“Ewwww. That’s gross, Aunt Leah.”
“Hey, I’m not the one kissing anyone. Talk to your Mom.” I hadn’t talked to Maddie about this, and I had hoped to avoid it for at least another date or five.
“Who are you kissing, Mommy?” she inquired, suddenly getting very serious.
With my focus back on the mirror and the mascara I was trying to apply, I glanced at her quickly, and tried to brush off the question with a quick answer.