It Had to Be You by Georgia Clark (iphone ebook reader .TXT) 📕

But I can’t belong to you.” She touched Clay’s face, feeling the dark stubble shading his chin. “Baby, I don’t want to be a secret anymore. Being a secret makes me feel trapped. Like you’re not serious about me. But I’m serious about you. And if you don’t want that, that’s okay. Really. We’ve had a great time together, an amazing time. But if this isn’t serious for you, I gotta go.”

Clay nodded. His voice was quiet, his words measured. “When we met, I wasn’t ready to trust someone. I remember thinking that if I didn’t have someone, no one could betray me. But that’s no way to live. Relationships are a risk. Life is a risk. And there’s no one I’d rather do it with than you.” He shifted closer. “We’ve always been honest with each other. And what I’m honestly thinking right now is this: If I let you walk away, I’ll regret it every minute of every hour of every day for the rest of my life.” He sounded sincere and resolute, his gold eyes burning. “I feel what you feel. I’m in this. I’m with you.”

Zia’s heart was doubling, tripling in size. “That makes me so happy.”

“You make me happy, Zia. When I’m with you, I feel like myself, and it isn’t a bad thing.”

She smiled, and he pressed his forehead to hers.

“Goddamn,” he murmured. “How’d I end up with such a gorgeous girlfriend?”

Girlfriend. There it was, the first time. And even though it wasn’t a moniker Zia’d been especially fixated on, now that she had, she never wanted to give it back. She lifted her eyes to his, wanting to make sure he knew what he was saying.

His grin back was a little goofy. “Sorry it took so long.”

“No apology necessary.”

“Ah, my girlfriend is the coolest.”

“I think you’ll find that honor goes to my boyfriend,” she told him, feeling a bit goofy herself.

“Boyfriend,” he repeated. “I like the sound of that.”

So did she. So, so much.

Which meant it was time to tell her sister about Clay.

51

Sam stacked a dozen boxes of leftovers and a fat slice of wedding cake for Ben in Liv’s fridge while she paid the babysitter. Usually, Eliot would’ve left a local wedding like Vanessa and Lenny’s hours ago, to put their son to bed and save a hundred bucks on childcare. Tonight, Liv handled it on her own.

Sam closed the fridge door quietly.

“Thanks so much,” Liv whispered. “Sure you’ve got enough yourself?”

“Car’s full,” Sam whispered back. “Love it when clients don’t want leftovers. Dottie’ll be thrilled.”

The day they’d met, when she’d mistaken Sam for a Fresh Direct sex pest, the air had just started to warm up. Now, as they lingered on the front steps of the brownstone, it was humid and heavy with night-blooming flowers.

Sam put his hands in his jeans pockets. “So, I had fun last week.”

“At the movie you fell asleep to?”

“Hey, I just don’t buy a cop whose only job is shooting bad guys and saying things like, ‘Not on my watch.’ ” Sam raised his hands. “Where’s the paperwork? There was zero paperwork!”

Liv laughed. “It was pretty bad.”

“But good company.”

“Yes. Very good.”

Liv and Sam had been on four dates since their first dinner together. Four very nice, PG-rated dates. Strange that it took almost fifty years and one dead husband to be taken on an actual date. One with twilight strolls and dinner reservations and planned fun. She and Eliot didn’t “date.” They got drunk and screwed, or “hooked up,” as it was now called. She and Sam had not yet “hooked up.” They hadn’t even kissed. That was all she could handle. As Liv put it to him on their second date (salted caramel cones from Ample Hills, and a walk around Fort Greene Park), no reckless romance. No expectations, no grand declarations. This was dating as a widow. As a mom. And while the purpose of this was to create boundaries as wide as a six-lane highway, it was only partially successful. Because Liv liked Sam Woods. She liked that he thought cop movies had logic flaws. She liked that he knew when fruit was ripe. She liked his old T-shirts and his big hands. She liked that he was both careful and easy with her son. She liked his kind, crinkly brown eyes. She liked that spending time with him felt unhurried and simple and that they could talk about anything and didn’t have to pretend to be perfect people, people without a past, because they’d both been hurt and that was okay.

And liking Sam Woods scared the bejesus out of Liv.

On one of their dates, strolling the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, they passed a bride and groom being photographed. Sweetheart neckline doesn’t suit her, Liv thought. And he’s got about a gallon too much hair gel.

Apparently, this was not what Sam was thinking. “Think you’d ever do it again?”

“What—get married?” Liv looked at him like he was mad. “I’d rather be flayed alive.”

Sam tipped his head back and laughed. “You don’t mince words, Olive Goldenhorn.”

They found a bench overlooking the East River. “Don’t tell me you would. I’m not saying this to be mean, but your marriage was pretty much a disaster.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Sam said mildly. “Not entirely.”

“Three years. She was cheating on you for—”

“I know, I know. But the way I see it, Claudia and I had ten good years, and three bad ones. Ten when she was honest, three when she wasn’t. Ten’s more than three. And you said things with Eliot were bad for only a few years, toward the end. But you were married for over two decades. Just because a marriage ends doesn’t make it a failure, or bad. I don’t think of marriage that way—good or bad.”

It was a healthy reframe; Liv understood that. “I see your point. But you’re more hopeful than I am. I’m done with it. When I was younger, I thought it was about the quality of the love.