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  “Swayz …” His hand cups my cheek.

  “Griff,” I whisper, covering his hand with mine. “I need a miracle.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Jenna used to lay out my clothes. Today she would have had a tie draped over my suit jacket. The right tie. The color or pattern would be symbolic of my day, and she would know what that symbol needed to be.

  The night I asked her to marry me, we discussed children over her birthday dinner at our favorite steakhouse. She asked me how many I wanted to have someday. I shook my head, afraid to tell her. Jenna rolled her eyes and grabbed a pen out of her purse and an old receipt. She tore it in half and wrote a number on it without showing me. She handed me the other half and the pen.

  “Write your number,” she said.

  “My number?”

  “How many kids you want to have. And if our number is the same, you get down on one knee right here, right now, and ask me to marry you.”

  I wanted to marry Jenna, but I knew there wouldn’t be any kneeling that night. Growing up without much money gave me the drive to make sure my family would always have food on the table. Growing up with no siblings gave me the desire to have a table full of mouths to feed.

  She showed me her number first and asked me not to run away or pass out.

  Five.

  Jenna wanted five kids. Career-oriented people like us did not have five kids. One was a luxury.

  I didn’t run or pass out. Pushing my chair away from the table, I got down on one knee. There was no speech. There was no ring. All I had was half a receipt in my hand that I unfolded to reveal my number—five.

  Life didn’t care about our desires or dreams. We realized it after seven years of trying to conceive a child. That one child of ours isn’t a luxury. She’s a gift and a symbol.

  Today there’s no tie draped over the suit jacket on my bed, symbolizing success, courage, or prosperity. Instead, there’s a little girl grabbing and kicking at the mobile of toys dangling above her play mat on the floor of my bedroom. Morgan is symbolic of life. When I look at her, I see everything I ever wanted, everything I’ve lost, my greatest love, my deepest sorrow, my darkest moment, and the promise that love never dies.

  “Professor?”

  I smile. It’s “Professor” today. I’m glad. Yesterday’s text derailed my afternoon and made it impossible to sleep last night. An average day without incident is exactly what I need.

  “In the bedroom.”

  “Are you dressed?”

  I finish buttoning my dress shirt. “I am now.”

  “Wow. What’s the occasion?” Blue eyes inspect me from head to toe.

  “I have an orientation and I’m speaking at a luncheon for our department. But …” I frown at the ties hanging in my closet. “I need the right tie.”

  Swayze steps in front of me and sifts through the ties. “This one.” She grabs a blue and white striped tie.

  “Can’t.”

  She chuckles. “Why not? It goes with your pants and it brings out the blue in your eyes.”

  “I’m sure it does, but I have to choose between these three ties.”

  “Boring. And…” she grabs one of the boring ties “…you need to untie them when you’re not wearing them or else—”

  “Stop!”

  She freezes. But it’s too late. The unknotted tie hangs from her finger.

  “Um … I don’t understand.”

  I shake my head and sigh while adding that tie to the others I will not be wearing.

  “Wait.” Her jaw drops. “Oh my gosh. You still don’t know how to tie a tie? Nate, how can that be? You’re thirty-six. You have a PhD.”

  There’s my Daisy. Professor is now Nate. And she’s giving me that look. The one that says she knows the most intimate details about my childhood.

  “I hate ties.”

  “I know.” She looks up at me and wrinkles her nose.

  “It’s okay.” I smirk. “I know you know.”

  With a slow nod, one that looks equal parts relief and regret, she returns her attention to the ties. “So why do you have all these ties that require you to tie them? Why not buy clip-ons?”

  “Because thirty-six-year-old men with PhDs don’t wear clip-on ties.”

  She laughs. “Who tied your ties? Your wife? Please don’t tell me your dad is still tying your ties.”

  “Jenna did. She liked to do it. She should have been a stylist or a personal shopper.”

  “That explains the walk-in closet full of clothes for Morgan.”

  I nod.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to bring that up.”

  “It’s fine. We found out we were having a girl a month before Morgan was born. Jenna’s nesting involved nonstop shopping.”

  “You said she should have been a stylist or personal shopper. I’ve never asked, what was her job? I’m sure you make good money, but I feel like this house exceeds the salary of a professor your age.”

  “Her grandfather—her mother’s father—invested in cheap real estate years ago. When he finally decided to sell it, the land was worth millions. Like every other millionaire who wants to feel like they’re giving back, he started a foundation. When he died, Jenna took over running the foundation and the hefty salary that came with the job.”

  “Foundation for what?”

  “Botanical research.”

  “Are you talking about Strauss Botanical Gardens and Research Center?”

  I nod.

  “Wow. I’ve attended several weddings there.”

  Morgan fusses. Floor time is about over.

  “This one.” Swayze holds up the blue and white tie she originally suggested.

  “Can you tie it?”

  “Maybe.” She gives me the just-a-minute finger and fishes her phone out of her pocket. “Everything you could ever need to know is on the internet. Here.” She plays a YouTube video.

  “You think I’m supposed to learn how to tie my tie from a video?”

  “No.” She hooks the tie around my neck and gives it a playful tug. “I’m going to tie it for you while watching the tutorial. And if you’re lucky, someday I may teach you how to tie it on your own like a big boy.”

  “If you tie it well, I can simply loosen it and slip it on and off like I do with my other ties.”

  “They’ll get all wrinkled. That was my original point. If you’re going to leave them knotted, then you might as well buy clip-ons.”

  Swayze’s eyes flit between her hands working the tie around my neck and the screen of her phone on the bed. I’m impressed she’s able to talk, tie, and follow the instructional video at the same time.

  “Boom! Perfect.” She takes a step back and grins.

  I go to grab it, feeling the natural need to adjust it because I hate wearing the damn thing.

  “Don’t touch it.” Shooting me a warning glare, she picks up Morgan. “Look at your daddy. Isn’t he handsome?”

  Swayze looks at Morgan, but I look at Swayze. How can she not see the obvious explanation for this?

  “What’s the grin for, Professor?”

  “Nothing.” I slip on my suit jacket.

  “You’ve had a lot of nothing smiles lately.”

  I head toward the kitchen. “It’s you.”

  “Me? You find me amusing, do you?”

  Filling my stainless steel coffee mug, I search for the right response. I wish it could be how much I love reminiscing about the past with my best friend. It’s better therapy for coping with the loss of Jenna than anything I’ve received from my time with Dr. Greyson.

  “I find you to be a good distraction.”

  “Oh …” she says, like the oh someone might say before running to the bathroom to vomit.

  I turn, screwing on the lid to my mug. “That’s a good thing. In case you didn’t catch my meaning.”

  “I think I understand your meaning, and I’m not comfortable with being that kind of distraction. I don’t think it’s appropriate.”

  Whe
re do I go with this? Has she made the connection? Or maybe she’s just made the connection that I think she’s Daisy even if she still can’t recognize it.

  “I need you to be more specific about what you find inappropriate.”

  “Really?” She narrows her eyes on a sidelong glance as she heats up Morgan’s bottle. “And I thought we were done talking about this. What happened to the ‘forget it ever happened?’ Gah! I can’t believe Griffin was right about this.”

  With one arm crossed over my chest and the other bringing my coffee mug to my mouth, I let her words play in my mind. They don’t make sense.

  Shit!

  Now they do.

  “No.” I shake my head. “You’ve got this all wrong. I wasn’t referring to the text. I meant your knowledge of my past. Talking about Daisy. That’s the good distraction.”

  “Oh, oops. Well, thank God.” She sits in the recliner and gives Morgan her bottle.

  “You thought thinking about your text was my good distraction?” I made an emergency trip to Dr. Greyson’s office yesterday. My voice shouldn’t hold such an offended tone.

  “Maybe.” She cringes. “It’s my boyfriend’s fault. When I told Griffin what happened, he tried to convince me that you … well …” Her teeth chomp down on her lower lip while her nose scrunches.

  “I what?” My head juts forward.

  “He insisted that, for at least a split second, your mind imagined I was talking about you in the text. You know, like I didn’t accidentally send it to the wrong person. So …” She shrugs. “Griffin thinks you won’t be able to easily forget the image that first popped into your mind.”

  My jaw relaxes to say something, but I’m at a loss for words so I clamp it shut again.

  “I’m not the one who thinks it. It would be really wrong for your brain to go there. And he doesn’t know you like I do. He wasn’t there last night when you said those things to me before I left. Those weren’t the words of a man who had inappropriate images in his mind. Right?”

  I nod several times.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  Good. She read my nod as “you’re correct” instead of “yes, it was really wrong of my mind to go there.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know why my brain went there just now—making absurd assumptions about the meaning behind your smiles. It really makes me feel good to know that something positive has come from my unusual knowledge of you. I can deal with the crazy if it gives you a sense of peace—a needed distraction.”

  Grabbing my bag, I give her a tightlipped smile. “Very kind of you. Well, I have a long day ahead. You two have fun.”

  *

  Nate’s thinking about me giving him a blowjob. This isn’t good. Griffin was right. Why does he have to be right about this? Personal fact number 6742 that I know about Nate Hunt: he flaps his jaw like a puppet when he’s contemplating telling a lie. He didn’t exactly lie, but he also didn’t exactly tell me the truth. I’m surprised he didn’t slip on the puddle of guilt beneath him as he made his way to the garage. I could see it dripping from him as he lost his battle to find a single good response to my accusation—Griffin’s accusation.

  I won’t confront Nate. That’s just wrong. What if he can’t control his thoughts? I’m not telling Griffin either. He’ll lose his shit and refuse to ever let me step foot in this house again. But the worst part is now that I know Nate has thought or is thinking about it, I can’t stop thinking about him thinking about it, which means I’m thinking about it.

  My mind won’t stop creating an image of my mouth around Nate’s cock. The mind isn’t simply a dangerous place, it’s the most dangerous place. All that’s wrong, sinful, and evil starts in the mind. It’s ironic how the part of the human body that controls everything is also the most out of control part of the body.

  When Morgan goes down for her morning nap, I put her in her crib because I’m feeling a little snoopy today. Nate already confessed his busy day, so I feel fairly certain monitoring the nanny cam is not top priority. Besides, he gave me permission to snoop yesterday, citing that he has nothing to hide.

  I start in his office. Boring anatomy books and other textbooks clutter his shelves. He never was one for reading novels. I move his rook and knight on the chessboard just to mess with him. There’s no doubt in my mind that he’s in the middle of a grueling chess match with himself. A picture of Jenna sits on the corner of his desk. She’s looking down at her hands folded on her baby belly. It’s painful to look at it.

  After exploring all that’s in plain sight, I wander down the hall to his bedroom. There’s a camera in the corner of the room. I noticed it the first time I came in here. It’s a good idea to monitor most of the rooms, but I can’t stop my thoughts from stretching to the obvious possibility that on Nate’s computer there’s footage of Jenna and him having sex.

  I can’t think of them having sex without thinking about the text. And there’s no way to think about the text without thinking about my mouth around his cock. That sends my brain in the direction of Nate’s thoughts. Does the idea arouse him? How often does he think about it? Where does he think about it? Is that really the reason for his grins that seem to come out of nowhere but always when he’s staring at me?

  Twenty-one feels too young to contemplate fate, big goals, or even a grand purpose in life. Since meeting Griffin and his family, I’ve found the place I want to be. I’ll take a small house, a couple of kids, maybe a dog, and our vacations will be wherever we can go with four wheels and a rooftop cargo carrier. We can pack a loaf of bread, peanut butter and jelly, and a bag of chips to eat at roadside picnic stops. It won’t be a four-star hotel, but when Griffin and I sit beneath a tree, hold hands, and watch our kids chase butterflies while the wind carries their laughter, we’ll feel certain no one has it better than we do.

  I want the Calloway life, where everything is measured in love, and time together is the ultimate gift.

  This is the confusing part for me. If that’s my life, then why am I here snooping around another man’s bedroom? If fate exists, then I know that’s the reason I forgot my wallet the day I met Griffin. Yet, none of that explains how I ended up here in Nate’s house, watching his daughter and reminiscing about a past that happened before I took my first breath.

  I walk around his bedroom, but I don’t touch anything. What am I looking for?

  A sign?

  An explanation?

  A missing puzzle piece?

  The other end of this wormhole?

  There are two sinks in the en suite bathroom. An electric toothbrush, a bottle of foam soap, a beard trimmer, and several bottles of cologne surround one of the sinks. The other sink is naked.

  One hand towel.

  A single bottle of shampoo and a bar of soap in the shower.

  The toilet seat is up.

  Several dozen empty hangers occupy one side of the closet.

  Not one pair of high-heel shoes.

  Half of this room is a ghost. It’s lonely. It’s heartbreaking.

  I berate my mom for clinging to the past, but maybe it’s something. Something feels less empty than nothing. If Griffin died, would I be able to purge my life of every reminder of him? How did Nate do it? Less than three months after losing Jenna, he let her go with the exception of a few photos.

  Sitting on the edge of the bed, I stare at the digital alarm clock next to a coaster holding a partially-filled glass of water. After a few moments of drumming my fingers on my legs, I make my boldest move yet and slide open the drawer to his nightstand.

  There are two books.

  “Reincarnation. Really, Nate?” I chuckle as I take the top book out and open it. At least a half dozen sticky notes mark different sections of the book. He’s written on the sticky notes.

  Calls Morgan “Daisy”

  Birthmark

  Snoopy and Charlie Brown

  Spanish test

  Hockey camp

  The time period

  “What are you d
oing?” I whisper. He what? Thinks I’ve been reincarnated? That’s crazy. Reading minds falls under crazy as well, but reincarnated people remember their past life, not other people’s past lives.

  “Wow.” I shake my head. “What am I thinking?” Without a second of hesitation, my mind jumps to my own imaginary rules of reincarnation, an unconscious acknowledgment that it exists. I’ve never given it much thought, but Nate certainly has given it a lot of thought and research.

  “Jesus …” He has half the book highlighted. I flip to the end, a photo falls out of the back of the book onto the floor. I bend down to pick it up. A grin tugs at my mouth. It’s the Nate I remember. He’s rolling his eyes at the blond girl standing next to him on a dock. She’s sticking her tongue out at him.

  “Morgan Daisy?” I grin even more. I have a true face to put with the name. She’s so close to how I pictured her in Nate’s stories. I shiver, holding out my arm to see the goose bumps pebbled along my skin. I’m not sure I’ve ever listened to Nate talk about his memories of Daisy without it giving me goose bumps.

  With my back to the spy cam, I slip my phone out of my pocket and take a picture of the photo. I can’t stop staring at it. I can’t imagine finding love at such a young age. And I definitely can’t imagine losing a first love—a best friend.

  The more I think about it, I agree with Daisy’s parents. What kind of God takes away such beautiful innocence? They lost two children. If there is a God, he can’t blame them for losing faith. It’s easy to give thanks and praise for blessings. It’s easy to feel loved when life bestows happiness upon us. But blind faith in the face of such tragedy is a jagged pill that not everyone can swallow.

  Making sure all the sticky notes and the photo are in their original spots, I close the book.

  Threads of the Soul – A Case for Reincarnation by Dr. Hazel Albright

  “I’m not Daisy,” I whisper, running my hand over the glossy-finished cover. Sometimes I wish I were her. She’d know all the right things to say to Nate, where I fumble words and do stupid stuff like sending him inappropriate texts and untying his ties.