family name and not a tribute to the famed guitarist. The evening is reminiscent of the first series from our first night together—engaging dialogue, passionate opinions. Nothing too personal. Nothing too hard. And all underscored by that happy glow of feeling at home with someone. If I’d wondered at all that our ability to connect had been a one-time thing, I now know definitively that it was not. Hendrix Reid fits me tonight as well as he did last autumn. Like tailor-made trousers. Like a memory card in my Nikon D6. Like the key in the lock of his hotel room in Paris.
While it’s both of us directing the turns of conversation equally, I avoid the questions that I have told myself are my reason for being here. Not because I suddenly don’t want the answers but because I suspect those will be harder subjects to negotiate. For me, anyway. Perhaps for him too.
It’s not until we’re on our third drink and I’m pushing away the scraps of my meal that the shift occurs. It’s my fault because I bring up Freddie. Nothing major, just an anecdote that relates to our discussion on conceptual inspiration, but speaking his name at all opens a door to more personal topics, and exactly as contradictory as I was earlier, I’m not sure if I want to cross that threshold or not.
Hendrix makes his own decision and steps in before me. “Are you interested in more children?”
“No,” I say quickly. Too quickly so it reads as untrue, and it is, which feels very unscrupulous. I might not be forthright when it comes to this man, but I haven’t been outright dishonest. I don’t like the taste of the dishonesty now.
I take a sip of my drink, and I amend. “Well. I did.”
“What made you change your mind?”
I almost laugh. Isn’t it obvious? “I’m too old now.”
“No. You’re not.”
I circle my neck, stretching the tendons that have tightened there. “I might be,” I say, and that’s honest. For some reason it’s easier to just assume that I am. The possibility that the season hasn’t passed is way too fragile of a thing to hold in my head. “Biologically, I might be done. Once a woman hits thirty-five...it’s harder.”
He nods in acceptance, as though my answer has anything to do with him. “Then you adopt,” he offers.
I’ve actually considered it. Especially when Fred was younger, and I dreamed of having another for him to play with. And also I’ve considered it recently. Now that he’s six and the age difference between him and a new sibling would be the same as the age difference between me and Edward.
There’s only one thing that stops me. “I don’t want to do it alone again. I can afford it, I know. I could hire the help. I believe, I think, that a parent doesn’t need to be omnipresent to do a good job. But it’s lonely. To not have someone invested as much as you are. To have to wonder and worry and dream all on your own. I hadn’t planned to parent alone the first time. I don’t think I can do it willingly.”
“Then don’t do it alone.”
Now I do laugh. “Just poof a partner into being? It takes time to do the whole dating thing. Then the engagement. The marriage. There’s an order to it. Even if I found the right man today, it would take probably more time than I have, especially since I won’t be giving my heart out easily this time.”
He does that arms on the table lean, bringing him centimeters closer to me. “Fuck the traditional order. Do it however you want. Find the guy, decide to be parents together, take your time to see if it turns into more.”
Even fucking the order, there are still flaws in his idea. Finding a guy who wants to partner in parenting, finding a guy at all.
Unless he’s offering to be the guy.
And I’m suddenly hopeful and terrified that he is. The bubble is on the verge of popping and I’m not ready.
Oh, God. What am I doing?
“Why did you come here?” I blurt it out, out of nowhere. Because it’s time. Because I need to know. “Why did you enroll in my class, out of all the classes you could take in the world? And don’t give me some bullshit about wanting to broaden your skills because that doesn’t answer why me. And after seven months with no word between us, why now?”
“You were the