The Memory of You (Sanctuary Sound #1)(74)
Steffi pinched her own arm and took another deep breath before shaking out her hands and searching for wine.
They were out of red, but she found a rosé in the refrigerator. A girl’s drink. Good God, she had not planned this part well. Who knew they’d get this far on the first date? A trickle of sweat rolled between her breasts.
She nestled the bottle under her armpit and carried the glasses to the living room, where she found Ryan looking at some of the candid photos Claire had framed and scattered across the mantel.
He looked up when she came into the room. If he didn’t like rosé, he hid it. “Let me. Do you have a corkscrew?”
“Screw top,” she confessed. Fortunately, he’d never been a wine snob—or any kind of snob—before. He was just good old Ryan. A guy she could trust.
He poured them each a glass and took a sip. “Shall we sit?”
“Yes.”
He waited until she plopped onto the sofa, then sat beside her. Close but not touching. He rubbed his hands on his thighs more than once. His palms had to be clammy, too.
His gaze meandered around the small room—one that seemed to be closing in on her—taking in the turquoise abstract watercolor on the wall behind them. It complemented the cream-and-gray throw rug and the glass-top table with the tree-trunk base. “Did Claire decorate?”
He took up so much space on the sofa. The temperature seemed impossibly warm.
“You know I couldn’t pull all this together. Remember my old room?” Steffi chuckled when Ryan involuntarily grimaced.
The decor of her high school bedroom could only be described as “sporty spirit.” She’d strung soccer tournament medals, old cleats, and uniform jerseys to showcase her achievements. Photographs of Claire, Peyton, and Ryan were pinned to her bulletin board. A royal-blue comforter, the identical color of her soccer uniform, covered her bed. She’d installed a double set of metal school lockers for storage.
The only feminine touch in the entire room had been a crystal framed photograph of her mother and her, taken shortly before her mom’s diagnosis, when she still looked healthy and happy and full of hope for the future. That photograph was Steffi’s sole material treasure and currently sat on her nightstand upstairs alongside another photograph of her entire family.
“We snuck up there enough times for it to be etched in my memory.” Ryan seemed even closer and larger as he sipped more wine. He deadpanned, “Fortunately, I usually had other things on my mind, so I was able to ignore the way it looked.”
Her breath felt uneven. “I liked the no-frills appeal.”
“Clearly, your brothers have had way too much influence on your taste.” Then he fell silent, his brows furrowed as if he realized too late that maybe he’d tread upon a sad memory or truth or both.
“Well, we all did the best we could.” She suspected part of her had shunned feminine things once she lost her mom, perhaps to prove to herself that she’d be okay on her own. Doing so taught her she’d survive just fine as long as she always kept moving forward. You couldn’t gain momentum if you kept looking back or wallowing in “woe is me” thinking.
“At least you had three brothers to help you when you missed your mom. Emmy’s got no one.” He frowned while staring into his glass. Steffi sensed more to his sorrow than the momentary empathy he felt for his daughter. “That’s a big regret. I should’ve pushed for another kid sooner . . . after . . .” His gaze never strayed from that glass, and then he tossed back the rest of it in one long swallow.
“After what?” Steffi prodded.
Ryan glanced at her, his shoulders drooping. “We lost our son . . . a late-term miscarriage. It was hard on us, especially Val. She wasn’t ready to try again, so I gave her space. Then our relationship steadily faltered. Maybe it’s a blessing that we didn’t have more kids, seeing that we’re divorcing. But for Emmy’s sake, I wish we did.”
She’d had no idea he’d lost a child. Having never been pregnant, she couldn’t begin to imagine that kind of grief. In the face of it, she didn’t know what to say, which was why she said something lame. “You’re young. You still have time for more kids . . . or you could adopt someone closer in age to Emmy.”
“I need to sort out my life before I add more kids to the mix.” He set his empty glass down and edged closer. “What about you? Is your biological clock ticking, or did you toss it out the window with that ugly old comforter?”
“It wasn’t ugly.” She shoved his knee, grinning while trying to ignore two undeniable truths. A, that comforter was butt ugly, and B, motherhood wasn’t something she’d given much thought to in her life. “Spending time with Emmy has been a fun peek into motherhood. But I wonder if I’d be any good at it.”
“From what I can tell, you’ll be a natural.” He clasped her hand. The warmth and invitation of his touch simultaneously grounded her and launched her heart into the air like a glitter bomb.
“Thanks.” She glanced at their hands, resisting the urge to squeeze or stroke or make any kind of movement that could cause him to let go, even as her skin grew damp. “Maybe I should consider adoption.”
He tipped his head sideways, and his mouth curved into a seductive smile.
“Or maybe you could become a mom the old-fashioned way.” He stared into her eyes as if he were searching her soul for all her secrets and fears and dreams and regrets. She felt her breathing hitch before she heard it. Then he said, “Under all the circumstances, we ought to take things slow. But I have to be honest, all I can think about right now is how much I want to kiss you again.”