Safe Harbor Series

As a full-time single dad to my seven-year-old daughter and a devoted math teacher leading a robotics team, love isn't a priority.

My focus is keeping my daughter, who has Asperger's, safe and dealing with my ex-wife's refusal to sign divorce papers.

Natalia Pagán, my new coworker from Puerto Rico, is beautiful and sweet. Just like me, she is recently divorced and a single mom as well. Which means she is not looking for someone new, especially someone with lots of baggage like grumpy me. I know that Natalia is completely off-limits.

But as fate would have it, we are forced to share a work space together because of the principal. I keep telling myself to stay away from Natalia, but I can’t stop thinking about her. I even find myself doing nice things, like carrying her heavy mail to her classroom or scheduling playdates for our girls.

Acting on my impulses feels wrong, especially since I'm still married. What kind of jerk would I be if I acted on the impulse to kiss her while knowing that I'm still married? The worst kind of jerk.

Actually, I'm worse than that because I didn't stop with a kiss, and now I can't stay away. She makes me feel like myself again. She reminds me what it's like to want something just for me. She's everything I ever needed but nothing I ever imagined. I should have had the strength to resist her from the start, and I did—I decided that if I were rude to her from the get-go, she would never be interested in me. Yet she's everything I need.

Now, I realize I can't keep pretending to be someone I'm not.