"You’ve come back early, why?” Mr. Powell hands me a cup of coffee. I was only in Los Angeles for a few days, but the temperature difference is enough that I’m cold, even though I love Beaumont in the winter.
“I missed the girls.” That is what I’m going with. He doesn’t need to know the sordid details of what happened with Harrison and me. Truth is, I’m not sure how to explain it. All I know is my heart is breaking all over again, but I have vowed to myself that I’m not going to let it affect me. I need to be strong for the girls. This bump… or whatever you want to call it, will pass.
“They missed you, especially Elle.”
“Not Peyton?”
Mr. Powell leans forward and sets his cup on the table. “Peyton is hurting, Katie, and she’ll do whatever she can to make you suffer for it. She spent most of her time in Mason’s room and when I’d check on her, she’d ask me to tell her a story. I spent a glorious day remembering my son with his daughter.”
I wipe at my face. Listening to Mr. Powell talk about Mason and Peyton makes me ache to see Mason just one more time. To tell him how I feel and how much we love him.
“Elle talks about Harrison a lot,” he adds.
My heart stops at the sound of his name. It’s been two days and he hasn’t called. I half expected him to show up this morning to mow my lawn, but I guess I severed that relationship when I told him to leave.
“Does that bother you?”
Mr. Powell shakes his head. “I thought it would, but she speaks so highly of him that I’m proud you’ve found someone to help fill the void that Mason has left.”
I’m left silenced. I don’t know how to respond. I sip my coffee, thinking about how I can change the subject. I can’t tell him that I’ve ended things with Harrison. I just can’t.
“I think you and the girls should move in here.”
“What?” I choke out.
“This is too much house for me. It’s a four-bedroom home and I can’t maintain it. I don’t want to sell it either, so the only logical thing if for you and the girls to move in and when you take the next step with Harrison, he and his son will fit nicely in here. This house needs a family, not an old man.”
His words throw me. I never thought he’d be accepting of another man the way he is and to suggest that we live together, blows me away.
“I don’t know what to say.”
He smiles although it doesn’t reach his eyes. “You say yes.”
“Where will you go?”
Mr. Powell rubs his hands down the legs of his pants. “I was thinking of travelling some or I could live at your place.”
“We’re really pregnant!”
“Very,” I say showing him the picture.
“Why does the baby have two heads?” I shake my head. Sometimes he’s the poster child for dumb football players, I swear.
“Twins,” I say quietly. We can’t afford one baby, let alone two.
“I made two babies?”
I roll my eyes. “Yes, Mason, your super human sperm created not one, but two babies that have taken over space in my body.”
Mason fist pumps. I don’t think he understands the magnitude of what’s happening here.
“You know two babies means double everything.”
“I know, I can count.”
“Of course you can.” I sit down on the couch and cradle my head. I don’t know how we’re going to make it. We live in a two-bedroom apartment with Josie and Noah, there’s no way we can add two more of everything there. “We have to move.”
Mason sits down next to me and pulls me to him. “I talked to my dad the other day. He and mom suggested we move into the house until we can save for a down payment on our own place. He says that we can take what we’d spend in rent and put it away.”
“Is that what you want to do?” The thought of living with the Powells doesn’t exactly appeal to me, but living with them is better than living with my parents.
Mason shrugs. “I don’t know, think about it. Mom would be there to help with the babies and you know she wants to.”
I nestle into the side of his neck. His thumb is moving back and forth along my abdomen. “We’ll never have alone time.”
Mason adjusts and pulls me into his lap. “Seriously? I’m fairly sure you and I have had a lot of alone time in that house. For all we know, these guys were created there.” He pulls up my shirt and kisses my stomach.
“If you think we should move to your parent’s home, then I’m okay with it.”
“I do. Just think about how much fun Mason Junior and Mason Junior Junior will have there.”
“Oh my god, Mason, we are not naming our children that.” I punch him lightly in the shoulder.
He pulls me into a hug. I cling to him as if it’s last time I’ll hug him like this.
“You know the girls spent their first Christmas here.”
“And others,” he adds.
“After Mason died, I realized I wasn’t going to be able to make the house payments by myself and Liam helped. He told me that I can’t lose the house that holds all of their memories of Mason, but this is where we brought them home too.”
“You’ll move in?”
I smile widely. “We’d be honored.”
I sit in my car and stare at his house. It’s dark and his car isn’t in the driveway. I suppose I’m thankful he’s not home, because getting caught lurking in the shadows is something I definitely don’t want to happen. I don’t know what I’m doing out here. What I thought I’d find.
I feel as if I’ve deceived Mr. Powell. I should’ve told him that Harrison and I are no longer together, but I couldn’t bring myself to say the words. They sound easy in my head, but I’m not capable of saying them out loud because that would make this all too real and I’m not sure I can handle that right now.
My thoughts run away as I ponder all the things he could be doing now. Is he at the bar dancing with some woman that he doesn’t plan on knowing the name of? Does he hate me for leading him on? That’s how I feel right now. I was just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Looking for any excuse to kick him out of my life and that’s what I’ve done.
“Mommy, what are we doing?” I look in my rear view mirror at Elle and close my eyes to erase the thoughts of Harrison.
“Nothing, mommy just had to stop and think for a minute,” I say as I put the car in drive and make my way over to Liam and Josie’s to pick up Peyton.
I open the door to Liam and Josie’s house and am met with just the sound of the television. Usually this house is loud and boisterous, especially when the kids are all here. Elle runs past me into the living room and shrieks.
“What are you doing?”
“Coloring,” I hear Peyton respond. My heart stops and my stomach falls. I close my eyes and pray that she hasn’t done too much damage to Josie’s living room wall.
My steps are tentative. I’m afraid of what I’m going to find when I walk into the room. Both girls are laughing as I enter. Harrison catches my eye briefly before he turns away. My mouth drops in shock. Peyton is sitting on Harrison’s lap with a marker in her hand and Elle is sitting next to him.
I walk around the front of them to get a better look. Both my girls are coloring on Harrison, filling in his tattoos, bringing them more to life than they already are. “What are you doing?” I ask in shock, repeating Elle’s earlier question.
Peyton sighs. “Coloring.”
“I see that, but why?”
“Because Harrison is a real life coloring book.” Harrison laughs along with Peyton. Her laughter is music to my ears. He’s found a way to make her laugh, and I can’t even thank him.
I look at Harrison, who isn’t looking at me. I just want to see his green orbs so I know that this is okay, but he’s focusing on the girls. He’s ignoring me, and rightly so after what I’ve done.
I stand back and watch Peyton interact with Harrison. He moves when she asks him to and even holds the markers for her. I don’t know what happened while I was gone, but something changed for them. I’m not sure how I feel about it now that he’s not going to be around, but I know I like that she’s responding to someone other than just Liam.
Harrison looks relaxed and he’s clearly enjoying himself, pointing out places that have been missed. I try not to stare, but can’t help it. He has both my girls wrapped around his finger like he was meant to be in their lives.
“What did you do to your hand?”
For the first time since I’ve been here, he looks at me. His lips are in a thin line. I recoil and shrink back into myself. I have to look away for fear I’d start crying under his gaze. He doesn’t answer, but goes back to paying attention to the girls.
“Are you going to answer me?” I ask again. I know my tone is demanding, but I can’t help it.
“Don’t do this in front of the girls,” he says quietly. Both of them look at me, confused. I don’t know if he’s trying to placate me or what, but it’s not working. Peyton glares at me before she goes back to coloring. “I’ll be right back,” he says to them. They groan and huff, but let him get up. I watch as he leaves the room, knowing I should follow, but I can’t make my legs and feet cooperate.
Both girls are staring at me, wondering what just happened. I have no idea how I’m going to tell them that Harrison won’t be around anymore. I finally relent and go look for him. I square my shoulders when I find him at the kitchen sink. He stands with his back toward me. I want to reach out and touch him. Trace my fingers over the newest ink placed on his arms by my daughters, but I can’t. I have to let go and move on. We aren’t right for each other.
“Harrison,” I say, alerting him to my presence. I see his back visibly stiffen and wonder how he went from being comfortable to this awkward stance so quickly. Is it that easy to just shut off emotions?
He sets his glass down hard. I jump at the sound of it hitting the counter top. He leans forward, even farther away from me. “What do you want, Katelyn?”
I want to yell out that he’s the one I want, but I can’t. I won’t be something he keeps on the side. I need to be everything to him. I need to matter.
“What happened to your hand?” I ask again, more for curiosity than anything. He holds up his casted hand, one that has been colored with gold and silver markers and twists it in the air. He doesn’t turn around to address me and that bothers me.
“I hit a wall and broke it in two places. Anything else you want to know about me?”
“N… no,” my voice is quiet as the word gets stuck. He pushes away from the counter and walks to me, stopping when we are shoulder to shoulder. There’s no eye contact. There’s no touching.
“All you had to do was trust me.”
He walks away without looking back, without waiting for me to catch up. He talks about trust, but I can’t, not with what I’ve been told. Not with what I’ve seen. Photos don’t lie, do they?
I walk back into the living room, but stop at the entry and watch Harrison interact with the twins. They’re being their usual selves by acting like monkeys and he doesn’t even care. He’s not fazed by them in the least. He tickles them and their laughter is music to my ears. He’s bringing it out of them in droves.
Why can’t life be as simple as laughter?