An Unexpected Mate

Chapter 18 - Wooing

I wanted to get this chapter out before Thanksgiving. I hope you enjoy! A few more chapters left to establish a relationship and deal with some lingering issues. 

I just realized I have not been adding in the picture headers. I hope you don't mind. Maybe I can come back and add them in later. Feel free to post suggestions in the comments for what might be a good image for a chapter.

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It had been five days since their date and Brax was starting to worry. He had texted Lily on Tuesday thanking her for the date and wasn't too concerned that she didn't immediately get back to him. She was likely at work. As the day dragged on into Wednesday, he started to question how the date had gone. On Thursday, he had decided to text again, asking her out over the weekend...since she had kids and would need a sitter...but still no response. Friday morning, he had Lucas go check that she was at least alive and going to work as usual. His report back had mentioned she looked fine, but tired and anxious. 

Now Brax was at an impasse. Should he wait her out until she had dealt with whatever emotions or mental demons she needed to work through, or should he push and confront Lily? She could close off further if he came on too strong, but she could slip away if he let her take too much time to think about them...at least without his input.

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Lily was wrapping up her emails and getting work ready to take home for the weekend. It was Friday and she was exhausted. Sleep had been illusive this week. First, she started the week out nervous about her date with Braxton, then she had spent the remainder of the week worried about how the date had gone, what she wanted with her life, how he fit into it, and whether these things had impacted her marriage. On top of this, Lily had successfully ignored Braxton's two texts and developed severe anxiety on how to even respond after she didn't immediately to the first one. She felt at a loss and blocked from really doing anything at the moment, back to barely making it through the day on auto pilot.

Pulling on her jacket and grabbing her bag, Lily left her office and ran right into the man who had not left her thought for days.

"Ooof. Ah...so you are alive?"

"Um. Oh. Hi. Sorry."

Braxton smiled down at her flustered face. Obviously he could not stay away. Even while he had been debating on whether to check in on Lily he had been driving into town and towards the campus. "Since you haven't been responding to my texts, I thought I would come down and see you in person. Looks like I almost missed you. Are you done for the day, for the week?"

"Yes. I was cutting out a bit early today since I can't focus on anything anyways." Lily groaned internally as she gave away that little tidbit.

"I was having trouble too. So, I decided to come and see you. It would alleviate some of my worries tied to whether I scared you away on Tuesday. I hadn't meant to almost jump you. I promise to keep my hands to myself if you go to coffee with me. If I remember right, you like something with caramel in it."

"Caramel Macchiato. Although, they have some of their holiday flavors out now, so I might switch it up."

"So will you come?" He looked down at her with almost pleading eyes and Lily felt guilty that her own doubts had impacted Brax as well. She hadn't really thought about how her unanswered texts would leave him.

"Ok. I have time before the kids are done. Let's grab some coffee."

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