For Everything I Am | KTH 18+ ✔

Chapter Twenty

After frantically making sure my daughter had everything she needed for her week's stay with my family, her first-ever long stay away from me I might add, Taehyung was finally able to pull me away and talk me into getting in the car. Promising me that she will be just fine and there's no need to worry.

Aunt Gigi found it comical that I worried about things such as if she had enough clothes when they have a washer and dryer and left her with a list of everything she does and doesn't like, forgetting that she is also a mother and this isn't her first rodeo. Isabelle on the other hand didn't seem to be as concerned as I was given that she just quickly gave me and Tae a hug and a kiss goodbye before running back inside to play with her cousins. I do wonder if the reality that I'm not around will end up hitting her by the end of the night or sometime tomorrow.

More than likely, she'll be too distracted playing and having fun to even be thinking about it. Just like her first day of preschool when I dropped her off and cried in the car for thirty minutes while her tears dried up before I even walked away once she found a group of children to interact with.

By the time we made it back to my place, Taehyung and I plopped down on my couch and just stared at the suitcases in the middle of the living room. Honestly, it can all wait. We were both full from the Gimbap his mother and I had made for us for the trip when Izzy and I visited this morning along with the chips, candy, and soda we honestly should not have grabbed when we stopped at the gas station, but it was fun having a road trip with just the two of us again.

Sometimes I forget that I'm still just a young twenty-four-year-old woman and that it's okay to let loose from time to time, even if I am a mother. Your world may change once you become a parent but it's okay to have a life of your own, too, and I sometimes have to remind myself of this.

"How come you didn't tell me Izzy was staying the week at your parent's house?" Tae asks as he forces himself to stand up from the couch and dig through his suitcase to find his phone charger.

"It was just a last-minute thing." I, of course, leave out all details of Aunt Gigi's so-called master plan to get him and me alone together.

After plugging up his phone to charge, he comes to sit down next to me on the couch again. Ever since I started seeing this man in another way, other things have become more apparent to me as well. The way his fluffy hair bounces whenever he moves too abruptly, the way his natural masculine scent is subtle yet still the sweetest nectar to my senses, the way his veins are visible in his forearms, and his muscles almost unnoticeably flex with the tiniest movements. Just him existing was becoming overwhelming. He was the forbidden fruit I craved to taste.

Taehyung looks over at me curiously, "What do you want to do this weekend since you're free? We could catch a movie or go to a restaurant this weekend. Or both! My treat."

I notice the slight shakiness in his tone as if maybe he was nervous but it was barely detectable, a slight change in pitch and his wide eyes giving him away. Just as I was about to agree to do those things or agree to anything else entirely as long as it meant I got to spend alone time with him, there was a knock on my door that forced me to unlock my eyes with his and reluctantly get up to answer it.

"Oh, hi Andrew." I acknowledge, almost forgetting about him completely again.

"Hey. Welcome home." He smiles and I politely show my gratitude for the greeting, "I was going to call, but since I was about to head out anyway, I thought I'd stop by instead. Are we still on for tomorrow night for date number two?"

Fuck.

"Yeah, of course," I respond with a nod. Taehyung hasn't made a move yet so I can't say no right now and I would honestly feel dumb if this whole thing between the two of us is just being made up in my head and I put my life on hold for nothing. No, it's best I just go on this date as promised, "What time should I be ready tomorrow?"