After dinner, they migrated to the living room, taking a new bottle of wine with them. Siobhan thought about putting in a horror movie she could use as a pretense to snuggle with Josh, but they ended up sitting on the couch, facing each other, just talking. Before she realized what she was doing, Siobhan asked, “So, you mentioned your parents are already bugging you to have kids.”
Josh rolled his eyes. “Don’t remind me.”
“Sore subject?”
“You could say that.”
Siobhan hesitated, not sure she wanted to know the answer to her next question, but in the end, she was unable to stop herself. “Do you want to have kids?”
Josh looked up at her. He seemed to be searching her face for something before he answered. “I don’t think so?”
One corner of Siobhan’s mouth quirked up into a half smile. “That sounds like a question. Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s rude to answer a question with a question?”
Josh huffed a laugh as he ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know. I mean, I guess I’ve kind of always assumed I’ll want kids someday. My mom says I just have to meet the right woman.”
Siobhan’s face wrinkled in confusion. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything. Wouldn’t the right woman want the same things you want?”
“Exactly!” Josh surprised himself with the force of his reaction. He had never thought about it that way, but when Siobhan said it, it sounded obvious.
“Let’s try this again. Do you, Josh Insert Middle Name Insert Last Name, want to have children at some point in the future.”
Josh laughed. “OK, first of all, my middle name is Bo and my last name is Allen. Second of all, no, I don’t think I do. It’s actually the reason my last relationship ended. She wanted to have kids and I didn’t.”
“So, it’s not that you didn’t want to have kids because she wasn’t the right woman, she wasn’t the right woman because she wanted to have kids.”
Josh took a moment to digest all that before saying, “Yeah, ultimately I think that’s about what it boils down to.”
Siobhan nodded. “Good to know. I don’t think I want to have kids either.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Josh stared at her until it made her uncomfortable and she finally had to laugh. “What?” she said.
“I don’t think I’ve ever met a woman who doesn’t want to have kids.”
Siobhan snorted. “No, you’ve never met a woman who’s admitted she doesn’t want to have kids. We’re practically bred to be mothers and most women either won’t admit that’s not what they want because we’re made to feel like a woman not wanting to breed is some sort of freak of nature. Or they don’t honestly know they don’t want to have kids because the first toy they were handed was probably a doll and they’ve never stopped to consider whether that’s really something they want.”
Josh was still staring at her.
“I’m sorry, am I freaking you out? Should I shut up?” She took a big gulp of wine just to have something else to do with her mouth.
Josh laughed. “No, you’re not freaking me out. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever been more attracted to a woman.”
Siobhan almost choked on her wine. “I’m sorry, what?”
“I’m sorry. Was that a weird thing to say?”
“Kind of. But also … kind of not?”
Josh narrowed his eyes at her. “Didn’t anyone tell you it’s rude to answer a question with a question?”
They both laughed, but when they were done laughing, Josh put his wine glass down on the coffee table, then gently took Siobhan’s glass from her hand and placed it next to his. He turned sideways on the couch so he was facing her, then he reached over and tucked a strand of hair behind one ear, but instead of pulling his hand back once the hair was in place, he wrapped it around the back of her neck and pulled her in for a kiss.
It started off slow and gentle, but quickly escalated. Siobhan was climbing onto Josh’s lap when her phone started playing “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”. She ignored it, so Josh ignored it and focused on the task at hand, which at the moment involved taking Siobhan’s shirt off.
She was reaching back to unhook her bra when the phone went off again and Siobhan let her arms flop down at her sides as she grunted in frustration.
“Do you have to get that?” Josh asked, hoping the answer would be, “no.”
“It’s Jessica. Obviously she knows I’m on a date, so she wouldn’t call, much less call twice, if it weren’t important.”
Siobhan climbed off Josh and answered the phone with, “If this isn’t a life-or-death emergency, I swear I’m gonna…”
Josh watched her face as she went from frustrated to concerned in about three seconds. “Hang on, hang on. Where are you? OK, don’t go anywhere. I’ll be there in 10 minutes.”
“What’s going on?”
“It’s Jessica. I have to go. I’m so sorry to cut this date short, but I really do have to go. I’ll call you, OK?”
“I don’t understand. What happened?”
“I don’t have time to explain, OK, my Uber will be here in 5 minutes, at which time, I will be leaving, regardless of whether you’re still here. I don’t have a spare key to give you, so I’d really appreciate it if you’d leave first so I can lock up.”
“Or you can lock up while I go start my car, which is a lot closer than an Uber.”
Siobhan looked at him as if she were afraid to believe him. “I can’t ask you to do that for her.”
“Well, according to you, she made me dinner, so I feel like it’s the least I can do.”
“This is so much more than dinner.”
“Look, this is your best option at the moment, so why don’t you stop arguing with me and just take it?”
Siobhan didn’t have an answer to that, so she nodded and Josh headed out the door while Siobhan grabbed her purse.
If you want to know how it ends, you’ll need to buy the book. To make sure you’re the first to know when the book becomes available, sign up to get my newsletter.