Read Online Passionate History by Libby Waterford - Free Book Online Page B

think you were such a prude.”
    “I’m a teacher. I kind of find the idea of a teacher having sex with their student offensive.”
    “You’re a kindergarten teacher,” Bree said.
    “So?”
    “So, this is not the issue. The issue is we never saw each other again until this weekend. And last night….”
    “You did it again.”
    “Yeah. Like five times.”
    “Wow.” Lena finally lost some of the judgmental look and appeared appropriately impressed.
    Ha . Bree would have bet money that Lena and Kent had not had sex five times in one night since before Obama was elected. The first time.
    “So, the sex was good?”
    Bree took a huge bite of pie and answered with her mouth full. “Very, very good.”
    “Wow,” Lena said again.
    “But here’s the problem. He lives here. I live in Seattle. He’s trying to get tenure. I’m trying to get into a grad program. We’ve never been on a date, but we have so much chemistry, I’m surprised his bed didn’t catch on fire last night.”
    “How does he feel?”
    “I don’t know. We didn’t have much time to talk.”
    “I’ll bet,” Lena said, not entirely derisively.
    “But I think he likes me, too. He kept saying he didn’t want to let me go. I think I kind of hurt him when I walked away after the last time.”
    “You had sex with him and then didn’t even call him? Cold.”
    “I was embarrassed. I’d never done anything like that before.”
    “So what are you going to do now?”
    “First things first. My parents are driving in to town to see me, so I have to get their visit out of the way. Then sometime before my plane leaves for Seattle tomorrow morning, I guess I have to talk to Aidan, see what we’re really doing here.”
    “Good luck,” Lena said with feeling.
    “Can you at least tell me I’m not crazy? If I really like him, and I think I really do, then it’s worth trying to make it work, right?”
    “Bree, you’ve never backed off anything you ever wanted in your life. Why would you start now?”
    Because the stakes have never been so high . Her heart, which had never been broken, could either find its mate or get crushed to a pulp under his shoe.
     
    ***
     
    If the Acropolis had been a blast from the past, then the modern dim sum place she met her parents at two hours later was the wave of the future. Jade House was a new restaurant built on the outskirts of the village where a boutique hotel and shops were going up. The times were changing, Bree thought. Who would have expected Weston Village, with its idea of haute cuisine being steamed cheeseburgers, to have dim sum?
    Bree parked her rental next to her parents’ ancient Subaru wagon so she could locate it when she came out again. Going through the front door and leaving the once again humid afternoon air for icy air conditioning was a bit of a shock to the system. As was being wrapped in a bear hug by her father, and finding not only her mother, but her sister and two grandmothers as well, sitting at a sleek oval table.
    “Mom! Dad! Tess! Grandma Lucy, Grandma Billie, wow! I didn’t expect to see you all here.”
    “Well, we aren’t getting any younger, and we didn’t know if this would be the last chance for us to see our beautiful granddaughter in person,” said Grandma Lucy.
    “Oh, bah! She’s deranged. Your mother made us come,” said Grandma Billie. They each took turns hugging her, and she basked in their familiar scents. Grandma Lucy, her father’s mother, was a perpetual worrier and clotheshorse who always smelled French and expensive. Grandma Billie, her mother’s mother, was more down-to-earth. Clad in her uniform of grandma jeans and sneakers, she smelled like cinnamon and vanilla. The grandmothers had been fast friends ever since their husbands passed away within a year of one another and, while each was in superb health, it was true they weren’t getting any younger. Bree felt badly she hadn’t seen them since Christmas.
    Bree got a quick buss on her cheek from