Time Will Tell

I was lying on the floor translating a sentence for my Spanish project, Grace climbing over my back when the front door opened. I glance up as Noah walks in, tossing his jacket and wallet on the table and then turning to find me on his living room floor.

He laughs.

“Hi,” he says, walking over and picking Grace up off my back. He sits next to me and rubs my shoulder. “Thanks for watching her,” he adds.

“No problem,” I answer absent-mindedly. “Did you take Spanish or French?” I ask now.

“Spanish. Why?”

I showed him the sentence I was stuck on and he helped me figure it out and then laid down on his back beside me, Grace now crawling on his chest. She pats his face and I smile.

“Daddy,” she mumbles – at least I think it sounded like ‘daddy,’ though I can’t be sure. She says a lot of stuff no one can understand and then gets mad. I find it adorable.

He chuckles. “Hey, baby,” he says back, taking her hand, which she wraps around his index finger and then pulls. He turns his head and looks at me, surrendering his hand to her. “So how was your day?”

I close my notebook and cuddle into his side. “Tiring,” I admit.

“Another busy day?” he asks me, taking his free hand and pushing a stray strand of hair off my forehead.

We’ve only been dating for a week… I’m not exactly sure what we are, but I’m hoping when he thinks of me he thinks girlfriend.

I groan in response to his question. “Super busy. Reese and I,” I start, but he cuts me off.

“Reese?” he asks. “He’s a real person?”

“What do you mean?” I ask, confused.

“At Fiorelli’s the other night when you were joking about all of these guys you were dating,” he informs me. “You said one of them was Reese.”

I smile at the memory – he is the most amazing kisser in the world.

“That wasn’t a joke,” I tease him. “Didn’t I tell you? Reese and I are getting married someday.”

He raises an eyebrow at me.

“I used to say that when I was seven; that I was going to marry him. He’s just a friend, though.”

He continues to raise his eyebrow at me.

I sigh in defeat. “Reese is my ex,” I tell him. “But we are friends now – we’re better that way. He’s not how I expected him to be when we started dating.”

“Am I how you expected me to be?” he asks instead of pressing me for more about Reese, which I’m glad about, because I don’t want to talk about Reese.

Reese was my first everything – he was my very first best friend when I was five, he was my first crush, my first boyfriend, he was the first guy I ever loved, and he was the first and only guy I’ve ever had sex with… and the last time I had sex with him was the night before I first babysat for Noah… so ‘just friends’ might not be a valid description.

He said he wanted me back, and I let him in, and then afterwards I shut down and decided I wasn’t ready to be his anything again, and then I started having feelings for Noah.

Noah is who I want – end of story.

“I don’t know,” I answer. “Are we dating?”

He blinks, surprised, though I think he should realize by now that I’m going to be blunt with him on almost all accounts.

He runs one hand through his hair, his other hand now being gnawed on by Grace. “I don’t know,” he answers. “I’ve thought about it…” he turns to me a little bit. “Would you want to be with me? I mean, would you want to be with me officially?”

“You mean, like your girlfriend?” I ask, wanting to clarify.

“Yes,” he sighs. “Is that something you would want now that you’ve seen my life? I’m all about Grace right now, and I would love to be with you but I can’t give you as much attention and time as any other guy could.”

I smile and lean over him to kiss him softly on his lips. “I would like to be with you, if you wanted to be with me, too.”

He smiles gently at me but there’s a teasing glint in his eye. “Teagan Elizabeth Foster, will you be my girlfriend?”

I wrap my arms around his neck. “Yeah,” I whisper. “I would love to be your girlfriend.”

Grace wiggles between us and I pull away and smile at her. She reaches over and pats a slobber covered hand against my nose. “Momma.”