A Love That Was Big Enough
Chapter 4
Romance Sex Story: Chapter 4 - Alex has been struggling to move on from his wife's passing five years ago. His friends insist that he move on and force him to install a dating app. It guarantees a match by Valentine's Day. He reluctantly agrees. The problem is that he finds someone. Actually... two someones. And life gets complicated.
Caution: This Romance Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Fiction Workplace
16 January
Alex dragged himself into work late that morning. He’d barely slept. Just lay there staring at the ceiling, replaying yesterday. The hot spring. Kara’s skin wet, catching the light. The way she’d whispered “I love you” right in the middle of it, no space between them.
Seven years of nothing. And then her.
His phone sat on the desk. That reminder: tomorrow. Ember. The meet-up.
He opened his laptop. A spreadsheet stared back at him. They might as well have been hieroglyphs. Nothing would stick. His brain kept drifting.
“Morning.”
He looked up.
Kara stood at the edge of his cubicle with two coffees. She looked ... Wow. It wasn’t like she had dressed in anything sexy. Navy dress with her honey-blonde hair down. But it wasn’t the outfit. She just looked different. Happier, maybe.
“You look really good today,” he said.
She smiled. “Funny how that happens when you finally go out with the love of your life. Here you go. Black. Two sugars.”
“Thanks.”
She stayed there. Her fingers brushed the desk edge. “Sleep okay?”
“Not even close.”
“Same.” Her smile got softer. “Couldn’t stop thinking about yesterday either.”
He glanced around. The office was waking up. Chairs scraping, people talking, printers going. No one was looking at them.
“Kara...”
“I know, not here.” She leaned in slightly. “I just had to see you. Make sure it wasn’t some fever dream.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Good.” Her face changed back to work mode. Professional. “Lunch? Together?”
Alex wanted to say no. He didn’t want to hurt Kara. This wasn’t fair to her.
But he said, “Okay.”
Her whole face lit up. “Come to conference room B at noon. I’ll grab sandwiches for us.”
She turned and walked off. He watched her go, remembering yesterday. Every touch. He forced his eyes back to the screen to stop his daydreaming.
The spreadsheet still made no sense to him.
That evening, Alex was putting the leftover Chinese food back in the fridge at home when there was a loud knock on the front door.
He found Kara pacing the hallway when he opened it.
She stood there in her work clothes, hair pulled back too tight, mascara smudged enough that it was obvious she’d been crying for a while.
“Hey,” she said.
He didn’t answer right away.
“Can I come in?” she asked timidly.
He stepped aside. She gave him a thankful smile and walked past him. Suddenly, she stopped in the middle of the living room like she’d forgotten why she’d come.
“I wasn’t going to come here, you know,” she said. “I got halfway home.”
“Okay.”
“And then I-I turned around.” She looked at him then. Her eyes were red and swollen. “I’m sorry. I know this is ... pathetic.”
“It’s not.”
“It ... kind of is.” She tried to sit on the couch and then immediately stood again. “I sat in my car for twenty minutes trying to make myself leave. And I can’t. I can’t stop thinking about tomorrow.”
He stayed where he was. He honestly had no idea what he was supposed to say.
“Don’t go,” she said suddenly. “Please! I know you’re going to go! I know you probably should go, but I’m begging anyway. Just ... don’t ... please baby!”
“Kara.”
“Alex ... I love ... you.” The words came like she was exhausted. Like she didn’t have the energy left to dress them up. “I have been for two years. Two years of you not seeing it. And then yesterday happened and it was...” She stopped, swallowed. “It was everything I ever dreamed about. And now you’re going to meet Ember tomorrow. What if that’s it? What if you pick her and yesterday is all I get?”
His chest tightened in a way that made it hard to breathe. “I don’t know what you want me to say Kara.”
“I don’t either.” She pressed her palms into her eyes, hard. “God, I’m being crazy. You told me. You were honest. You said you weren’t ready. You said there was someone else. And I said it was fine.” She laughed once, sharp and humorless. “It’s not fine. I thought I could do this. I can’t.”
Elena would have known what to say. Elena always knew what to say. The thought hit him sideways and made him feel sick.
“Do you love her?” Kara asked quietly. “Ember.”
“I don’t even know her.”
She shook her head. “That’s not what I asked.”
“I don’t know how I feel about anything right now,” he said. He ran a hand through his hair. “I haven’t felt much of anything in five years. And then yesterday I felt everything all at once, and now I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”
She didn’t bother hiding it when she started crying again. Alex felt like a wretch. He was making this wonderful girl who had cared for him cry.
“Was yesterday real for you?” she sobbed.
“Yeah.” His throat felt tight, raw. “Yeah. It was real.”
“Then let me stay.” She crossed the room toward him, stopping just short of touching him. “One more night. That’s all. One night before you go meet her and decide.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea Kara. You are my friend. Look at what I’m doing to you! You should go home.”
“No ... please! Don’t send me away. I need you Alex. I need you ... tonight. I love you.”
“I can’t promise you anything,” he said.
“I ... know. In my head I know what you are saying ... but my heart...”
“Tomorrow might change everything.”
“I know.” She reached out then, placing her hand flat against his chest, right over his heart. “I know all of that. I just want tonight.”
He thought about Elena. About whether she’d forgive him for this. For any of it. For moving on, or being this completely lost about someone who wasn’t her.
“Okay,” he said finally.
She almost jumped on top of Alex as she kissed him passionately. He didn’t pull away. Her face was wet, her hands trembling. He wrapped his arms around her and she made a small, broken sound against his mouth. Something between relief and falling apart.
“Will you sleep with me one more night, baby?”
“Come on,” he said after a moment.
17 January
When Alex got to work the next morning, Kara wasn’t anywhere to be seen. She had left his home before he got up. There was no morning coffee delivery waiting for him, no lingering looks across the office, nothing at all.
She was preparing herself for the worst.
Jessica was acting a little strange as well. Maybe she was a little nervous about something. At lunch she mentioned that she had a date that night and she was terrified and excited in equal measure about it.
He smiled at her and wished her good luck. At least someone was happy.
Alex reached Morrison’s Books at six forty ... He’d made it twenty minutes earlier than he was supposed to be at the store.
Classical music was playing softly through the speakers, something string-heavy and melancholy.
He drifted toward the poetry section because that was where Ember had said she liked to browse. Or maybe she’d said essays. He couldn’t remember.
He checked his phone. It was only 6:47.
She’d said seven.
He ran his thumb along the spines without really reading any of them. Frost. Dickinson. A slim volume slipped forward and he pushed it back into place, annoyed at himself. His palms were damp. He wiped one discreetly against his jeans.
Footsteps sounded behind him.
He turned, not all at once.
A woman stood at the far end of the aisle holding a book of Neruda’s poetry. Dark hair, loose around her shoulders. A modest blue dress with a vintage cut, the kind that looked intentional without trying too hard.
She looked up from the book and their eyes met.
For a second, his brain simply refused to cooperate.
It was Jessica.
His friend. His coworker. Kara’s best friend. The person who sat across from him at lunch and asked thoughtful questions.
She was just standing there with Neruda in her hands, blue eyes wide. But it wasn’t shock on her face. It was recognition. Like she’d known this moment was coming and had been bracing for it.
“Alex?” Her voice wavered.
He opened his mouth. Nothing came out.
Jessica. Gentle, intellectual Jessica. The woman who had listened to him talk about Elena endlessly without shirking. Who had understood the worst parts of his grief without trying to fix them. Who had given him permission to still be broken.
Jessica was Ember.
“You’re...” He stopped, swallowed. Tried again. “You’re...”
“I’m Ember,” she said. She set the book down carefully, like she was afraid it might make a noise. Her hands were shaking. “I know this is a shock. I ... I know ... I should have told you sooner. I was just ... scared.”
“Scared of what?”
“That ... you’d be angry. That ... you’d think I tricked you.” Her eyes were glossy now.
“I was scared ... that ... you’d only ever see me as your friend. Or as Kara’s friend.”
He took a step toward her without really deciding to. “Jessica, you need to listen to me.”
“Please don’t be mad at me,” she said quickly. “I know you’re probably wondering why I didn’t say anything earlier, why I let you think Ember was someone else. But I needed you to see me first. The real me. Without all the history getting in the way. Without you already having me filed away in some category.”
“Jessica.” He reached out and took her hands. They were cold. “I’m not mad at you.”
She searched his face like she didn’t quite believe him. “You’re not?”
“No.” He exhaled shakily. “I am shocked though.”
There was silence.
“I ... feel like a complete idiot, honestly. But I’m not mad.”
“Really?”
“Really.” A small, crooked smile escaped him. “All those conversations about Kierkegaard and grief and why love doesn’t end just because someone dies. The way you understood Elena. It was you. It was always you.”
“It was me,” she said softly. “I’ve been in love with you for two years, Alex. Ever since that first lunch when you asked me if I preferred Kant or Heidegger. Ever since you treated my brain like something attractive instead of something inconvenient.”
His chest tightened. “Two years?”
She nodded. “Two years of being your friend. Of watching you grieve. Of not wanting to make things harder for you. I kept telling myself there would be a right time. And then when Kara and I were helping you with the dating profile, I thought ... maybe this is it. Maybe this is how I finally get to be seen.”
“Jessica, I...” He stopped.
Reality hit him all at once.
Kara. Wednesday. Last night.
His face must have changed, because Jessica’s expression did. “What is it?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”
“I need to tell you something.” His voice sounded steadier than he felt. “Before we go any further.”
She nodded slowly. “Okay.”
“RedHeart,” he said. “The other woman I told you about.”
“You said you were meeting her on Wednesday.”
“I did. And I slept with her.”
She flinched, but didn’t pull away. “I figured you might have.”
“There’s more.”
Her grip tightened. “What?”
“RedHeart is Kara.”
The aisle went silent.
Jessica stared at him like she hadn’t understood the words. “What did you just say?”
“Kara is RedHeart.”
It took a few seconds. He could see the realization moving across her face in pieces.
“My Kara?” she whispered. “My best friend?”
“Yes.”
“And you slept with her.”
“Yes.”
“When?” Her voice was barely holding together.
“Wednesday afternoon. And ... last night.”
Her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh my god!” Her face crumpled. “I was sitting at home terrified you wouldn’t want me. And you were with her.”
“Jessica...”
“Does she know?” she snapped. “Does Kara know Ember is me?”
“No. She doesn’t.”
Jessica laughed, short and broken. “Of course she doesn’t. We tell each other everything.” Her voice cracked. “Except this...”
She turned away, arms wrapped around herself. Her shoulders shook. Every instinct in him screamed to go to her, but he stayed where he was.
When she turned back, her eyes were red but her voice was steadier.
“I should leave,” she said. “I should walk out and never speak to you again.”
“I’d understand if you did.”
“But I don’t want to.” She wiped her face. “That’s the problem. I’ve waited too long for you. And now I find out I’m competing with my own best friend. Aphrodite reincarnated.”
“You’re not competing...”
“Yes, I am,” she said fiercely. “She got you first. She got two days with you before I even got this.”
She stepped closer. “I’m not giving up. I know that makes me a terrible friend. But I’ve waited too long.”
He stared at her. “You still want this? After everything?”
“Yes.” She took his hands again. “Because what we shared was real. I was real.”
“I know you were.”
“Then give me one date,” she said. “Just one. No Kara. No guilt. Just us.”
He studied her face. He saw both the fear and the resolve on her face.
Why were these beautiful, intelligent women in love with him?
“ ... Okay,” he said.
Her smile broke through like a sunrise. “Thank you.”
“But you need to understand something first,” he said. “I care about Kara. What happened between us mattered.”
“I know,” she said quietly.
“And I care about you too. That matters as well.”
“So ... you’re confused.”
“Yes.”
She reached up and touched his cheek. “Then don’t decide tonight.”
He covered her hand with his own. “Okay.”
She took a shaky breath. “Dinner?”
“There’s an Italian place nearby.”
“I love that place.”
He smiled faintly. “Of course you do.”
She slipped her arm through his. “Shall we?”
“Yes.”
They walked out together, leaving Neruda on the shelf behind them.
They were sitting across from each other at a small table in the corner. There were candles burning between them, wine in their glasses, and soft music playing in the background.
Alex couldn’t stop looking at her.
“You’re staring at me,” Jessica said with a small smile.
“I can’t help it. I still can’t believe that it’s actually you.”
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
“It’s definitely a good thing.” He shook his head slowly. “I feel like such an idiot for not seeing it sooner than this. All those lunches we’ve had together over the past two years, all those deep conversations we’ve been having. You’ve been right there in front of me the whole time.”
“I was hiding in plain sight the entire time.” She took a small sip of her wine. “I got very good at it over the years. At being just the friend, just the coworker, just the safe person you could talk to about things. But on the inside I was dying a little bit every single day.”
“What do you mean?”
“I died slowly every time you talked about how you would never find love again. Every time you treated me like I was just a friend and nothing more than that.” She met his eyes directly. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to be completely in love with someone who doesn’t see you that way at all?”
“I do now,” he said quietly. “Right now I’m torn between two people that I care about very deeply. It’s complete agony.”
Jessica’s expression softened when she heard that. “I’m sorry that you’re going through this. I know this whole situation is incredibly complicated. I know that Kara is...” She stopped herself. “We said no Kara talk tonight.”
“We did say that.”
“Then let’s talk about us instead.” She leaned forward over the table. “Tell me about Elena. Really tell me about her. Not just the grief that you show to everyone else. I want to hear the real story.”
So he told her everything.
He told her about meeting Elena back in high school. About their very first kiss behind the bleachers after a football game. About how they had gotten married when they were only twenty-one years old. Everyone kept saying they were way too young, but they had just known it was right.
He told her about her cancer. About how she went from this healthy person to someone he could hardly recognize in just eighteen months. And then, one day, she was just gone.
And he told her about the guilt that still ate at him sometimes. About how he still felt deep down like he had somehow failed her. Like if he had just taken better care of her, then maybe she would still be alive.
Jessica listened to all of it without interrupting him once. When he finally finished talking, his eyes were wet with tears.
“You didn’t fail her,” she said very softly.
“How can you possibly know that?”
“Because you loved her with everything you had. That’s what you were supposed to do for her. You can’t control fate or tragedy. All you can control is how you choose to love someone while they’re still here with you.” She reached across the table and took his hand in hers. “And from everything you’ve told me about her, you loved her absolutely beautifully.”
Alex’s throat felt tight. “Thank you for saying that.”
“Is it my turn now?”
“Please, yes.”
She told him about her college boyfriend. About how they had met in a philosophy seminar and immediately bonded over books. About how he had been her first real love, her first everything.
And she told him about the night that he died. There had been a car accident while he was driving to her apartment. He had been bringing her flowers because she had been having a bad day. She got the call from the hospital. By the time she managed to get there, he was already gone.
“I blamed myself for it for years,” she said quietly. “If I hadn’t been so upset that day, he wouldn’t have been on the road at all. He would still be alive right now.”
“That wasn’t your fault at all, Jessica.”
“I know that intellectually. I understand it in my head. But grief isn’t intellectual, is it?”
“No. It’s really not.”
They sat there in silence for a long moment with their hands clasped together across the table.
“That’s why I understood everything you were saying,” Jessica said finally. “When you wrote to me about Elena in all those messages. About the guilt and the grief and the feeling like you’ll never be whole again. I understood every single word of it.”
“You did understand it. You still do.” Alex squeezed her hand gently. “That’s what made our conversations so powerful for me. You got it in a way that most people just don’t.”
“And what about Kara?”
He had promised himself that he wouldn’t talk about her tonight. But Jessica had asked him directly.
“Kara makes me feel alive again. Like I can do absolutely anything. Like the whole world is full of possibilities.”
Jessica nodded slowly. “And what about me?”
“You heal me. You understand me. With you I feel like I can be completely broken and that’s perfectly okay. Like the grief doesn’t make me any less of a person.”
“So they’re different kinds of love then.”
“They’re different kinds of connection,” he corrected her gently. “I don’t know yet if it’s actually love. Not with either one of you.”
“But it could become love eventually.”
“Maybe.”
They finished their dinner while talking about books. About Arthur C Clarke and Isaac Asimov and whether science fiction could ever truly capture the real human experience. They debated and laughed together and fell right back into that easy rhythm they had been sharing for two years.
Later they were standing on the sidewalk outside the restaurant. Neither one of them was quite ready to say goodbye yet.
“Do you want to come over to my place?” Jessica asked very quietly. “Just for tea?”
Alex looked at her carefully. He really looked at the modest blue dress she was wearing, the understated beauty of her face, the intelligence that shone in her eyes.
“Jessica, I really don’t think that’s a good idea right now.”
“Why not?” Her voice came out very small.
“Because I just slept with Kara last night. I don’t want to be the kind of man who just takes advantage of people like that.”
“You’re not taking advantage of me at all.” She stepped closer to him. “I want this. I have wanted this for two entire years.”
“But Jessica, I don’t think we should.”
“Please just listen to me.” Her eyes were starting to fill with tears again. “I’m so scared right now, Alex. I’m absolutely terrified that you’re going to leave here tonight and all you’ll be able to remember is Kara. Beautiful, spectacular, bubbly Kara who every single man in our office wants to be with. Who turns heads everywhere she goes. Who has this natural confidence and energy that I could never possibly have.”
“Jessica, please don’t do this.”
“I know that I’m not like her at all.” The words were tumbling out faster now. “I know that I’m quieter and more reserved than she is. I know that men don’t look at me the way they look at her. But I love you so much. I have loved you for two full years. And I can’t lose you without at least showing you all of me first. Without letting you see who I really am.”
“I already see who you are.”
“No, you don’t see me. You see the friend version of me. The safe intellectual who’s good for deep conversations.” The tears were falling freely down her cheeks now. “But there’s so much more to me than that. And if you walk away from me tonight without knowing that, I’m going to regret it for the rest of my life.”
Alex reached up and cupped her face in his hands. He used his thumbs to wipe away her tears. “What about Kara? What happens with her?”
“I’ll sort everything out with her tomorrow. I’ll tell her everything that happened.” Her hands came up to cover his. “I know that makes me a terrible friend to her. I know it’s incredibly selfish of me. But I love you more than I’m afraid of losing her friendship. Does that make me a terrible person?”
“No, it doesn’t.” He pulled her into a tight hug. She clung to him desperately with her face pressed against his chest. “It just makes you human.”
They stood there like that for a long moment.
Finally she pulled back and looked up at him. “Please come home with me. Please let me show you who I really am. All of me.”
He searched her eyes carefully. He saw the vulnerability there, the fear of being rejected, the desperate hope that he would say yes.
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