Aleena
Rays of late-afternoon sun shined through the window, lighting up the small room. It glowed on the pale yellow walls, wrapped it in luminous warmth that I felt all the way to my bones.
I rubbed the fuzzy fleece blanket between two of my fingers. A smile lifted the edge of my mouth as I pressed it to my cheek. Anticipation hummed in my spirit.
“This room is going to be perfect, Aly.” Megan sat on the floor behind me, folding a pile of blankets and miniature pieces of clothing I couldn’t resist buying. Yesterday, I’d gone on some sort of pregnancy-brain-induced shopping spree, filling my cart full of small things that I wouldn’t need for another four months. This morning, after I’d washed it all, I’d texted Megan a proud picture of the heap in the middle of the floor. I’d captioned it My Tower of Tiny Treasures. Megan showed up unannounced about an hour later with a grin splitting her entire face, proclaiming I want to play.
Apparently baby clothes had some kind of compelling force over women of any age, because I was now hosting a family dinner tomorrow night because my mom wanted a good excuse to come over and play, too.
“Do you think so?” I asked. I cast an appreciative glance around the room.
Jared and I had painted the room over the last weekend. I’d picked a soft yellow color that showered the room in calm and peace. White crown molding capped off the room with a luxurious feel. It flowed perfectly, both comfortable and elegant.
Jared had surprised me by bringing home the white sleigh crib I’d been eyeing. It fit so perfectly into the room it appeared to have been cut from it, the carving almost an exact match of the molding cradling the walls overhead.
I leaned forward and placed the blanket in the crib, then glanced back at Megan.
Her ponytail bounced around as she shook her head like I’d lost a little piece of my mind. “Uh… yeah… I know so. What kid wouldn’t want to grow up with this being their room? It’s gorgeous. Hell, I’d move in if you’d let me.” She pitched an exaggerated wink in the direction of my ever-expanding belly. “That is if Itty Bitty wouldn’t mind sharing a room with me.”
Tiny teddy bears covered the onesie she held up in front of her. Carefully, she folded it into a little square, then reached for another one. We still didn’t know if this was a boy or a girl. And we wouldn’t. I didn’t want to. When I met my child for the first time the day he or she was born, I wanted it to be without expectations. All except for the one that I loved him or her with my entire heart.
“I wouldn’t make offers like that if I were you,” I warned with a sly smile in her direction. “A built-in babysitter is really kind of tempting. You’ll end up here at night watching this little thing instead of hanging out with Sam.”
“Ha. I’m going to have to force you out of this house once the baby is born. My bets go on you not wanting to let Itty out of your sight. I’ll be on my hands and knees begging for auntie time.” She offered a revealing smile, replete with widened eyes. “And believe me, I won’t be missing out on anything by losing time with Sam. What I was all spun up over that guy about, I have no clue.”
I piqued a curious brow. “Bored?”
She shrugged. “Bored… annoyed. Tired of him not showing up when he says he’s going to. I’m so over it. I deserve better than that.”
And I kind of wanted to pump my fist in the air. So I did. “Uh, yeah, you do.”
He’d been stringing her along for months, making promises the jerk was never going to keep.
Megan giggled through an uncontained grin. “Half the time I think he just shows up to some of the places I invite him to because Gabe is hoping you’re going to be around.”
I groaned. “Ugh… that guy is clueless. I mean, seriously…” I flashed my ring that Jared had placed on my finger three weeks ago. “You’d think this would be enough to convince him I’m not into him.” I flung my hands down, gesturing my annoyance toward my stomach. “And if that isn’t enough, then at least this is. I’m thinking these two scream spoken for.”
Megan’s giggle transformed into an outright laugh, loud and uncontrolled, and she listed to the side as she clutched her stomach. “You know he thinks you two are soul mates.”
“What?”
“Yep, that’s what Sam told me, anyway.”
“God, what an idiot.”
“Yep,” she said again, like I wasn’t saying anything she hadn’t thought.
I turned back to tucking the sheets into the crib mattress. My voice lowered. “Jared would lose his cool if he knew that. You should have seen him New Year’s Eve when Gabe showed up…” I shook my head. “If looks could kill and all that,” I said with a shudder.
Or if tension could strangle.
I was pretty sure if Gabe would have remained standing in front of us any longer, Jared would have snapped. And by snapped, I mean snapped Gabe’s neck. Five seconds after Gabe had walked away, Jared had hauled me out of the house and into the night. He’d seemed desperate to touch me. He always did, really, but this had been… different. Jared had woken me several times during the night with the same intensity, in some sort of aggrieved frenzy. Like he was somehow trying to shed his own skin and seep into mine.
That night it’d been the worst.
“Well, if anyone could shoot deadly daggers, it’d be Jared.” Megan laughed quietly below her breath, so low she had to be talking to herself. “God, that is one scary man.”
“What?” I asked, because I suddenly heard her words in a way I never had before.
Megan’s head snapped up and her eyes went wide. “Oh shit, Aly. That came out wrong. I’m sorry.”
Rapidly I blinked, shaking my head. “It’s fine, Megan. I’m not mad.”
Because on the outside, I knew Jared appeared a little bit scary.
A frown cut across my forehead and tugged at my mouth because I wasn’t entirely sure the exterior was what Megan was referring to. “Do you really feel that way, though? Are you afraid of him?”
She shrugged and busied her hands with folding. “No, I’m not afraid of him. It’s just…” Her attention cut toward me while she seemed to weigh a way to say what she was thinking. “You know I’ve always thought he was different… thought he makes you different. He just makes me uneasy sometimes.”
She lifted her face. Honesty shined in her wide blue eyes. “I don’t know what it is, Aly. And please don’t get me wrong. I like him. I really do. He loves you like crazy and treats you like a princess. Who doesn’t want that for their best friend? But there’s something about him that sets me off kilter. I try to ignore it…” She cringed, then blew out a concerned breath. “But there’s a pressure in the room when he’s there. It’s like there’s a silent warning radiating from him. And somewhere in the back of my mind, I keep waiting for a bomb to go off.”
I nodded and tried to swallow over the sudden fear that crawled to my throat. The thing was, it wasn’t really all that sudden. I wasn’t immune to that pressure, either. Of course I felt it.
Over time, it’d only increased.
“He is different, Megan.”
Stilling, she fully turned her regard to me. “Does it worry you?”
I occupied my hands by placing the stack of tiny receiving blankets into the crib, where I was storing them until I got a dresser. Turning around, I leaned up against the crib. “Am I afraid of him or worry he’ll hurt me?” I shook my head. “No.” Not physically, anyway. “But I know what you’re talking about.”
Fidgeting, I looked to my feet before I lifted my gaze to her. “I love him so much, Megan. Too much,” I clarified, because somehow I really needed to voice it. “He’s still in so much pain. But he’s trying to ignore it. To pretend like everything is okay when it most definitely is not okay. He dreams…” Slowly I shook my head as I trailed off. “It’s awful, Megan. He wakes up shaking… so scared and angry. It’s almost like he’s disoriented and he’s not sure where he is.”
Sickness flipped my stomach inside out. Those nights hurt me so much because I knew he was hurting. They also scared me. It was when anxiety wrapped him so tight he almost couldn’t be touched, even though in the moment he was so desperate to feel.
It’d been getting worse since he proposed. He always seemed on edge. Or maybe it was that Jared was the edge. The sharpest blade. Ready to strike down everything and anything that threatened to expose the pain he harbored inside.
But he’d kept it sheathed, covering it up as he dove into our relationship, pouring everything into us – into this house and me and work and plans for the baby – without regard for everything that happened in the past.
The entire time, that edge had been sharpening.
“Every time I bring it up, he shuts me down. He just wants to focus on what’s good in our lives right now.” I waved my hand around the room. “And we have so much to be thankful for. We do, and I love it and I love him… and there is no question that he loves me. But it’s like he’s hanging on to me so tightly, I’m worried he’s going to squeeze the life out of us.”
Wringing my hands, I shifted and stared down at my friend, who watched me with sympathetic understanding. “I just want to help him, Megan, help him heal and finally forgive himself.”
Her brow creased. “You don’t think he forgave himself before he came back? I figured that was the only way he returned.”
I shook my head, sure of this truth. “No. He shunned it. He wanted me so much he was willing to live with the guilt in order to stay with me.”
But I knew, in my spirit and in my heart, that would never be enough.
The next evening, Jared barreled through the front door. At the counter in the kitchen, I stood facing out the window that looked over the backyard, furiously chopping the vegetables for the salad. Over my shoulder, I glanced at him.
Jared bit back a suggestive smile as he stalked forward. He pressed his body to my back. My entire body sighed.
“Damn, baby, it smells delicious in here. What are you making?”
“I made homemade meatballs… my family is coming over tonight for dinner. Remember?”
And by my family, I meant everyone, my father included.
What had brought on the change, I didn’t know. I’d fretted the entire day about it. Part of me wanted to reject the idea of him coming here, to denounce his attempts at reconciling our injured relationship. The truth was, I’d been shocked, stunned by my father’s actions. Above all of that, I’d been hurt. But I’d never been one to harbor hate, and I knew I at least owed him the chance to make his intentions known.
“Of course I remember,” Jared murmured at my neck. His nose lifted a flash of goose bumps where he nuzzled my sensitive skin. “Anything I can do to help?”
“No, I’ve got everything set. I just need to finish up this salad and everything is done. Why don’t you go grab a shower?”
He pecked me against the cheek. “Is that your way of telling me I stink?”
“Mmhmm… maybe,” I teased, turning my head to catch him at the throat, my nose and my mouth and my smile pressed there. He smelled of dirt and wood and hard work. His soft, stuttered breath was minty, mixed with the lingering hint of cigarettes. Not for a second was it unappealing. Everything about Jared screamed Man. One delicious, gorgeous man.
I hummed.
A knowing chuckle reverberated at my back, and he held me close. “I love you, Aly Moore.”
Playfully, Jared rocked us. “When are we going to change that name of yours, anyway?”
I giggled and lost myself in this Jared, the one who was carefree and whose words flowed with ease and eyes shined with light. The one who chased swarms of butterflies through the fields of my belly, stirred them up with the steady stroke of his hand and the tempting tenor of his voice.
“Don’t you want to wait until I don’t have to waddle down the aisle?”
Jared scoffed. “Waddle? You are insane. You still have no idea, do you? How absolutely stunning you are?” Jared palmed the front of my thighs. “These legs.” This time it was Jared’s turn to hum. “No… I don’t want to wait… just want to make you mine. Forever.”
“I already am yours,” I contended, grinning, letting him know I was playing even though I was one hundred percent serious. I’d told him again and again. Jared held me in the palm of his hand. Eternally.
Of course, that didn’t mean I couldn’t wait to be his wife.
Mine and Megan’s conversation from yesterday intruded my thoughts. I shoved it down. With Jared here… like this? I didn’t want to be scared, didn’t want to be afraid of what he had the power to destroy.
“It’s beautiful in March… maybe sometime in the middle?” I suggested through the bundle of emotion that made itself known right in the center of my chest.
“March,” he reiterated on a murmur that was utterly profound.
Jared and I had just set our wedding date.
He left me with a searing kiss before heading into our bathroom to get cleaned up for dinner.
Half an hour later, the doorbell rang.
I dried off my hands, tossed the hand towel to the counter, and ambled to the door. I opened it to my parents and Aug.
I did my best to ignore the unease that so clearly clung to my father’s being.
Instead, I set my attention on my mom. Her hair was sleek and straight, blonder than the last time I saw her. She wore a pair of skinny jeans and heels, topping it off with a cream-colored sweater and a deep plum infinity scarf twisted snugly around her neck.
I stepped forward and threw my arms around her. She squeezed and rocked me.
“Are you trying to make me look bad?” I asked when I pulled away.
She rolled her warm brown eyes. “Hardly.” She let her gaze slide down to my belly while she talked, not hesitating to place her hands on it. “I would’ve killed to look like you when I was pregnant. I was a house. Ask your father.” She hooked her thumb over her shoulder. “He slept on the couch for the last two months each time because my stomach took up the entire bed.”
He grumbled behind her, although his mouth hinted at a smile. “I think you need to check your memory, Karen, because it had nothing to do with the size of your stomach. You complained the entire time that I was hogging the bed. You ran me off.”
She waved offhandedly. “Semantics.”
Laughing, I stepped back and widened the door. “Come on in, you guys.”
Mom came in, stalling in appreciation in the middle of the room. “Oh my God, Aly… this place is… unbelievable.”
She hadn’t been over for a couple of weeks. Not since Jared had added all of his elegant touches. Everything had come together cohesively and seamlessly. Jared had turned what would have been a simple, comfortable house into something memorable and unique.
It truly was gorgeous.
“It is, isn’t it?” I murmured.
Aug came inside and gave me a less than stellar one-armed hug. I tugged his headphones from his ears and slugged him in the arm. “Hey, can’t you take these out long enough to say hi to your sister? And give her a real hug?”
He shrugged with a dimpled smile and wrapped me up in one of his bear hugs. “Of course I can.”
“Much better.”
With a smirk, he stepped back, working a single ear bud back into his ear while he spoke. “And believe me, I could hear just fine. I should have turned it up… the last thing I need to hear are the words Mom, Dad, and bed in the same sentence.”
Mom rolled her eyes again. “You’re so dramatic, Aug, and you have no right to talk. If I have to watch you get that look on your face while reading a text ever again, I might puke. Don’t think I didn’t notice that on the way over here.”
Guilt colored my brother’s face, and he shifted through his laughter. “I swear, you’re some kind of freaky ninja spy.” Exasperated, Aug glanced at me. “She has to have eyes in the back of her head or something,” he said as he wandered the rest of the way inside.
Mom lifted a telling brow. “Keep it up, and you can make it ninja assassin. How I ended up with two boys who don’t understand the meaning of virtue, I’ll never know. You and Christopher need to start taking some pointers from your dad before you send your poor old mother here to her grave.”
Mom and Dad had been together forever, and I knew she was none too impressed with my brothers’ romantic hijinks.
The worst of them rumbled up in his truck. Christopher pulled to the curb in front of my house and hopped from the cab. Raking a hand through his messy hair, he sauntered up to the door on his long stride. “Hi, Dad.” He clapped our dad on the shoulder, angled around him to place a quick kiss to my temple. “Hey there, little sister.”
“Hey, you. Glad you could make it.”
He crossed the threshold and went straight for Mom. He dropped a kiss to her cheek. Then he sniffed the air. “Holy shit, Aly, did you magically learn how to cook since I left earlier today? It smells like a fucking gourmet restaurant in here.”
Like always, he made himself at home. He walked directly into the kitchen and ducked into the fridge for a beer.
“Don’t act like I didn’t spend the last two years cooking for you.”
He stood up and twisted the cap from his bottle. “Ha, bringing home to-go boxes from the diner does not count as cooking.”
Shaking my head, I laughed. “Watch yourself or I’m going to make you eat the leftovers that have been sitting in the fridge for the last week.”
“Not on your life. I have dibs on firsts… whatever you’re making, my mouth is watering.”
Reluctantly, I turned from the lightheartedness of the rest of my family to my dad, who still hovered in the shadows outside. He shoved his hands deep in the pockets of his pants and rocked back on his heels. Agitation billowed from him in waves.
I stepped outside and closed the door behind me.
Never in the nearly two months that Jared and I had lived here had my father stepped foot inside our house. And I could count the number of words that had been spoken between us… on my right hand. A quiet hostility and an outright sadness had clouded all the moments we’d shared, which had been few and even farther between. I hadn’t seen him since Christmas morning. I’d gone for the shortest time, reluctant to leave Jared on the holiday but drawn to my parents’ home all the same.
I’d asked Jared just to forget what my father thought. To go. For me. But that request was good for only one redemption. He still felt he was honoring my father’s wishes by staying away, even as, at the same time, he was proving him wrong by taking care of me.
Going to my parents’ house without Jared had stung. He was my family. I’d gone only to save my mother from the hurt she would feel in my absence. She’d even attempted to convince Jared to come, but he wouldn’t have it.
Now I wasn’t exactly sure what had drawn my father to my door today. What had changed, if anything at all? Perhaps my mother had shamed him into being here. If so, then he could just go. I didn’t want him here out of obligation, and I sure as hell didn’t want him here because of guilt.
The only explanation good enough was that he truly wanted to be here.
Swallowing down all the anger I still felt, I took a tentative step deeper into the burly shadows of my father.
His eyes dropped. I thought to his feet. But no. I realized he was doing his best not to look at my stomach.
Resentment flared. It clashed with the truth of how much I missed my father. “Dad…” I choked saying it, not wanting it to sound like a plea. “Do you have any idea how happy it makes me you’re here? I’ve missed you so much.”
Moisture filled my eyes. I swiped it away and stood my ground. “But I need to know you’re here because you want to be… because you care about me and my family and you want to be a part of it. I don’t want you to come inside if you’re just here because Mom made you come or because of any other reason than you came here to support me and Jared.”
Dad rubbed his hand across his mouth. Disquiet shifted his feet. “How have you been feeling, Aly?”
I blinked, trying to make sense of his question. I frowned, and frustration poured from my mouth. “Are you really going to stand there and try to change the subject? After everything that’s been said? I asked you to tell me why you’re here and I want you to be honest with me.”
He exhaled heavily, and lifted his chin toward the door closed behind me. “I wasn’t joking when I said your mom chased me from bed when she was pregnant with you kids. She was miserable the whole time. God, I worried about her. For nine months, I ran around, trying to take care of her, making sure she was as comfortable as she could be. It made me sick that she was sick. Nervous, too. I was always worried something would go wrong, and I did anything I could to make sure that didn’t happen. I drove her crazy.” He paused, blinked toward his feet before he lifted his face back to mine. “I’ve always been protective of the people I care about. To a fault. To the extent that I can’t see past what I think is best for them.”
Understanding dawned. It blunted the surge of anger that had pushed me out my front door to confront my dad. Still, it didn’t make what he’d said before to Jared okay.
“I know you care about me, Dad. That you love me. But you also have to know that isn’t enough.”
His gaze glided down to the ring I nervously twisted around my finger. For a beat, he stared, and I saw his throat bob when he swallowed. “You’re going to marry him?”
I fisted my hand over my heart. “Yes.”
He nodded and his eyes glistened. He blinked it away. “You wanted to know why I’m here? I’m here because I miss you. Because when I lie down at night, I can’t close my eyes because I know things aren’t right. My daughter will barely talk to me… barely look at me. That kills me, Aly.”
“I’m not the one who’s responsible for that.”
His own frustration bled into his words. “I know that. Yes, I’m here because of you and because I want to set things right between us. But I’m also here because it’s high time I apologized for the way I reacted on Thanksgiving. I had no right to do that. There is no excuse for the things I said.”
Dismay twisted into his expression. “I was scared for you, Aly. Shocked. Blindsided by it all. One minute I think you’re going to school… happy… working toward the career you want, and the next you’re pregnant?” His voice dropped low and transformed into something that sounded like an accusation. “You gave me no warning, Aly, no indication of any of it.”
“The school thing… I’m sorry,” I said. “I should have told you a long time ago it wasn’t really what I wanted. I’ve always wanted to draw, and I thought it was impossible. But Jared showed me it wasn’t.” In one of my classes with a mentor, I’d been working on drawing families, working on photographs, images that captured emotion in time. That was exactly what I wanted, the direction I wanted to go, to pour myself into faces of families, making them come alive in an image that would become a family treasure. “But you know this isn’t really about what I want to do for a living, Dad. This is about me being with Jared.”
Looking down, he shifted. “And I’m not going to lie to you and tell you I’m not still scared for you, because I am. You’re my daughter. Of course all I want is the best for you. But I also accept how unfair I’ve been to Jared.”
He dipped his head, shook it in remorse. “He was always a good kid. Super smart, but kind, too. Then after what happened with his mom, a switch was flipped inside him. A destructive trigger there was no stopping. None of us could get through to him. Even though I cared about him, I was much more terrified he would lead Christopher down the same road. I was relieved when they sent him away. I kept a lot of guilt for a lot of years for feeling that way.”
A flash of regret hit me. Yeah, I’d hidden Jared. For many years. Maybe I should have given my dad some sort of warning. But the truth was, I’d kept Jared a secret for this very reason, because of the way my father had treated Jared during that time. Within our house, he’d made Jared’s name a dirty word. Nothing but taboo.
My father’s chest trembled with the admission. “It was wrong, and I knew it. But when you showed up with him at Thanksgiving dinner and I saw the way you two were looking at each other, it took five seconds for that same fear to take hold of me again. All I could think was this guy was going to hurt my baby girl. Then when you announced you were pregnant, it flipped my own switch. I lost it. I couldn’t control how angry I was at him. At you,” he emphasized. “Even at your mother. I knew she had to know something was going on between the two of you and she’d never once let on. I felt like a fool… like a lesser part of the family. Like I’d been shunned from all the important pieces of my daughter’s life.”
He scrubbed his hands over his face. When he looked back at me, his green eyes were pleading. “I regret that reaction so much, Aly. I handled it about the worst way I could. And again, I was laying all the blame on Jared. All of my reactions have always been controlled by my own fears and insecurities. Feeling threatened by the things I can’t control. It’s a personal flaw I’ve had to deal with all my life. I know it. All I can do is ask you to forgive me for it.”
My lids dropped closed as I absorbed my father’s admission. Slowly, I opened them. “Dad, I don’t blame you for being disappointed or worried.” The words cracked over the sob stuck in my throat. “I completely get it. But I don’t think you understand the kind of guilt Jared carries over his mother. If you did, you could never have said those words to him. It’s not me who you owe an apology to.” Lines creased my brows and my head tilted in supplication. “You owe one to Jared.”
My father blew a breath toward the sky and spoke toward the night. “I already gave him one, Aly.”
Confusion took me aback. “What?”
My dad heaved a sigh. “I texted him this afternoon and asked him to meet me when he got off work. I figured I needed to ask him for forgiveness before I could ask you for it.”
A torrent of relief swept through me. I realized how burdened I’d felt by this dispute with my dad. I hated it. Hated that he thought badly of the single most important person in my life, hated that distrust had wedged a separation between us.
I felt the distance collapse.
With a step forward, I narrowed the gap between us. “Thank you.” It tripped from my mouth, fast and hard.
In surrender, he pulled his thumbs back from his jeans in a conceding shrug. “I was wrong. I can admit when I am.” His green eyes flashed in the porch light. “It doesn’t mean I’m not worried about you. I talked with Jared for a long time this afternoon. And you already said it all. I don’t understand the kind of guilt Jared carries over his mother. At all. I can’t fathom that grief. And I honestly don’t know him anymore. But I’m betting you do, and that guilt was pretty glaring when I talked to him. That’s a lot of baggage to deal with, Aly.” It slid from him as a warning.
I bristled, but I forced my tongue silent.
A gust of wind rushed in, pressing along the desert floor. I hugged myself against the sudden cold. Dead leaves whipped up from beneath the barren tree that protected my home, beat and stirred.
I lifted my chin for him to continue, trying to ignore the swell of defensiveness I felt at his admonition. As if he wasn’t saying anything I didn’t know. As if I didn’t know the risk. As if Jared wasn’t worth every bit of it.
He lifted his hand in a telling gesture to the house behind me.
To my sanctuary. My home. Somehow I felt as if I was standing in guard of it. Defending what Jared had built for us with his bare hands inside.
My father’s tone shifted, laced with remorse. “It was also pretty glaring that he loves you, Aly. I can’t question that or his intentions with you anymore. I believe him when he says he’s doing everything he can to make this work and he’d do anything to protect you.” He chuckled a little, though it seemed completely lacking in humor. In discomfort, he scratched at his jaw. “Apparently Jared and I have something in common, after all.”
His voice lowered, although his expression hardened. He pinned me with the intensity of it. He ground his teeth. “I just have to know you’re happy. Really happy. That this is truly what you want and you’re not doing it because you think it’s the right thing to do.”
I clutched both my hands to my chest. I just wanted to find a way to make my father understand. But I realized that was impossible. Because what I felt for Jared went beyond understanding, deeper than the rational. I explained myself the best way I knew how. “Dad…”
My voice quavered. “I love him so much. With all my heart. I always have,” I admitted quietly. “I would do anything… give up anything to be with him.” Tenderly, my hand slanted over my belly. “And this baby… I love it more than anything in this world.” As much as Jared. But different. In a capacity I couldn’t quite grasp. “Never in my life have I been happier than I am now.”
Sadness swirled through the depths of my father’s eyes before acceptance took hold. “That’s all I really needed to know.” He chanced a tentative step forward. And for the first time in months, my dad hugged me. “I’m sorry, Aly. Please tell me you’ll forgive me for the way I’ve treated you.”
“How could I not?” I whispered into the collar of his shirt, clutching him to me. All my resentment floated away. In its place, I just felt grateful. The only thing I’d ever wanted was for my family to be whole.
Jared missing from it had left such a stark void. And he completed me in ways no one else could.
Now, with my father coming back to me, everything would finally be perfect.
Pulling away, I wiped the wetness from under my eyes. “Would you like to come inside?”
Slowly, my father gave me one resolute nod. “Yeah, I’d like that.”
I fumbled with the latch and opened the door.
Mom, Aug, and Christopher lingered around the island in the kitchen, catching up. Out of the corner of her eye, Mom cast me a knowing glance.
She’d been telling me everything would turn out okay.
And she’d been right.
Without missing a beat, she turned back to Christopher, who was filling her in on his classes, the last he’d have before he graduated in May.
As I stepped inside, Jared rounded the corner from the short hall that led to our room. His hair was all wet, deepened a shade, his clothes fresh. He hadn’t taken the time to shave the coarse layer of stubble coating his jaw.
Need turned me inside out.
God, it didn’t matter when or how many times I found him this way. It was always the same. He struck me with a bolt of energy, somewhere deep inside, in that place I’d always kept for him.
When he caught sight of us, he came to a full stop. His eyes were soft as he traced over my face, softer when they met with my eyes. A flash of doubt sparked in them when they hit my father, before he lifted his chin in acceptance.
The two were calling a truce.
Biting my lip as an uncontained thankfulness flared, I rushed to Jared. I squeezed him around his middle, whispered too low for anyone else to hear, “You didn’t tell me.”
A soft breath left him, and he brushed his full lips across my forehead, over my closed eyes, to my ear. “Whatever you and your dad talked about tonight needed to be said between the two of you… without me getting in the middle of it. I never wanted to get in the way of your family, Aly, to put pressure on it. I’m just glad he’s here and you both can forgive the bad blood I brewed between you two.”
My father’s presence weighed heavily behind me. Like he was an unwilling partner to the embrace Jared and I shared.
As I held Jared closer, a frantic murmur of truth expelled from my mouth. “You are my family.”
Relief hit him hard. Palpably. His heart beat erratically, and I held on tighter. Jared shed his own truth at the tick of a pulse throbbing at my temple. “You’re the only thing I have.”
Pride simmered through my consciousness as Jared showed my father around our house. He was so knowledgeable. So capable. Even still, I could feel the flickers of tension coming from him. His movements were subtly uneasy. Of course I noticed it. He was on edge. As if he felt he was always being studied, judged. Not only by others, but by his own self-contempt. It didn’t mean his pride didn’t tug at one side of his perfect mouth when my father complimented him, or that he didn’t go into detail about the kitchen, how much work it had been, and how happy he was with the result. Of course he’d played up my part in it, as if I’d had any bearing on the outcome of that impressive room.
When the oven buzzer chimed, my family gathered together at our little dining table. A couple extra chairs were squeezed in to make it suitable for six. I scoffed when they all went on about the meal, touting that it was one of the best they’d ever had. It clearly was not.
But it didn’t stop the affection that buzzed in the air.
I couldn’t contain my smile.
Christopher was no-holds-barred tonight, rambling on in constant entertainment, as if this moment was his ultimate calling.
Jared razzed him, and Aug laughed too loud, smacking Jared on the back. My mother played along with amused tenderness while my father settled into the fray, content to observe us all with a quiet calm.
It felt so good. Amazing.
Bliss shivered along my skin. I hugged myself, wishing I could hold on to this feeling forever.
Jared squeezed my leg under the table, like he innately knew what I was experiencing, his head cocked as he smiled over at me.
My heart fluttered haphazardly in the confines of my chest. It was warmth. It was joy.
I loved him.
I smiled back at him, my hand stretching out to embrace one side of his face.
God, I loved this man with all my life.
And I would never stop.