Chapter 36
Fisher
Present Day
“What in the fuck happened to the kitchen table?” Bobby asks in surprise, holding Ellie’s hand as they stare at the mess on the floor.
Lucy and I share mischievous smiles over the rims of our coffee cups while we lean against the counter.
“Oh, you know, something slammed into it. Repeatedly,” I tell him with a shrug as Lucy smacks me lightly in the stomach while I try to contain my laughter.
“So, anyway, how are you guys doing? How are you feeling, Ellie?” Lucy asks, changing the subject and busying herself with pouring Bobbie a cup of coffee and heating the teakettle for Ellie.
When Bobby told me a few months ago that Ellie was pregnant, I came close to punching him in the face. Even if Ellie hasn’t been my biggest fan after what I did to Lucy, she’s still like a little sister to me, and I didn’t really like the idea of my best friend knocking her up and not giving a shit. I was more than a little surprised to find out he was in love with her and the feelings were mutual, even though it took Ellie a little while to admit it. Lucy has been pushing her all summer to tell Bobby how she feels and she finally did it a few weeks ago. Bobby immediately bought her a ring and proposed to her the right way, getting down on one knee and telling her how much he loved her instead of demanding she marry him because she’s pregnant.
While Ellie and Lucy talk about pregnancy, morning sickness and what Ellie’s plans are for the wedding, Bobby jerks his head towards the door and we leave the women to talk while we head out onto the veranda.
Kicking back in the rocking chairs with our coffee cups, both of us prop our feet up on the deck railing and stare out at the ocean.
“I can’t believe you’re going to be someone’s father,” I tell Bobby.
“No shit. I’m going to be responsible for shaping someone’s mind and for being his or her role model. I can’t believe no one made me get a permit for that shit.”
We share a laugh as we sip our coffee and stare out at the haze over the water. Most of the summer tourists have started leaving the island now that we’re getting ready to enter into hurricane season. The sky has been more overcast lately and thunderstorms have been popping up sporadically all over the place. It won’t be long until the entire island will need to start inclement weather preparations. September on an island smack in the middle of a hurricane zone meant dragging out the sandbags and storm shutters and taking all of the patio furniture inside.
“Things with you and Lucy seem good,” Bobby muses, fishing for more information.
I’ve kept him as up to date as I could these last few months, not wanting to get into too many intimate details, but he knew I’d been concerned about Lucy keeping something back from me.
“They’re really good,” I tell him, unable to hide my smile. “We had a good… talk last night.”
I keep the chuckle to myself and tell my dick to stay calm when I think about what happened in the kitchen the previous evening. Jesus, how many months did I spend feeling guilty about that night I came home from my last deployment? It was the reason I started spiraling out of control, so certain Lucy hated me for what I’d done. I was such an idiot. Having her yell at me and push me and force me to lose control with her was scary as shit, but it was the best fucking thing that could have happened between us. She’s right, we’ve both changed and there’s no going back to who we used to be. I can’t be afraid with her and I can’t treat her like the quiet, shy girl she was when I married her. She’s the strongest fucking woman I know and she proved that last night. I feel freer and calmer than I have in a long time. I was absolutely holding myself back from her and it wasn’t fair to either of us. I never want her to think I don’t crave her so fucking much that I lose all sense of control. I might need time to myself every once in a while to work through my memories of the war, but I will never hold back any part of myself from her and I will always be open and honest about how I’m feeling.
“I’m glad you guys have worked things out, man. It’s good to see you happy again,” Bobby tells me.
“It’s good to BE happy again,” I tell him with a smile. “What about you and Ellie? Did you guys set a wedding date yet?”
Bobby face lights up at the mention of Ellie’s name and I’m still amazed by that shit. I never thought he would settle down and I’m a little ticked he never told me the crush he had on Ellie since she moved here might actually be something real.
“She wants to wait until after the baby’s born. I hate waiting that long, but I get it. She’s worried about fitting into a wedding dress and she wants to be able to have fun. You can’t have that much fun at your own wedding when you’re pregnant,” Bobby explains.
I’m happy for him, I really am, but a part of me is sad that Lucy and I never had children. We talked about it a lot when we first got married. We talked about how many we would have and what we would name them and how we would raise them completely different from how my father raised me. As the years wore on, the talk of babies fell by the wayside and neither one of us brought it up again. I couldn’t stand the idea of her being pregnant and having to raise our child practically alone, since I was never guaranteed to be here with her for more than a year at a time. I couldn’t saddle her with something like that when I never knew when or if I’d ever get out of the military. I know I should be grateful that we didn’t have children to witness my breakdown when everything went to shit. I can only hope that since we’re both still young and we have a lot of years ahead of us, there’s still time and it’s still something she wants.
“I still can’t believe everything is falling into place for both of us. This is fucking nuts,” Bobby says with a laugh.
“Now I just need to convince Lucy to let me help her out with the inn.”
Bobby laughs even harder and shakes his head. “Good luck with that. Not going to happen.”
I roll my eyes and take a sip of my coffee. “I can’t let her lose this place, Bobby, especially to my fucking father.”
“You also can’t just fork over money and expect her to be okay with that. She will cut off your balls and shove them down your throat.”
She didn’t react very well to my mother sending her money every month, especially thinking it was from me, and according to Trip, she was so pissed that I sent her a lump sum after the divorce that she refused to touch it.
“What the hell am I supposed to do, just sit back and watch her lose her dream? Her family’s business and the place that makes her happy?” I ask him.
“I don’t know, just don’t do anything stupid like go behind her back and pay off the mortgage. I can already see the wheels turning in your head and that will NOT end well for you, my friend,” Bobby informs me.
I don’t tell him that I was already thinking of doing just that and pretending like I had no idea when she found out. Last night, we broke down every wall left between us, though, and I’m not about to screw it up by lying to her right off the bat.
“She made enough money this summer to keep the place going through the winter, so I have some time to come up with a plan,” I let him know.
“You’ll think of something. You have to think of something. Ellie wants to have our wedding right here on the veranda. No pressure or anything,” he tells me with a smile.
“Speaking of weddings, when are you going to give Lucy those damn rings you’ve been holding onto for a year?” he asks.
I reach into my pocket and finger the diamond solitaire and plain gold band that I’ve carried around with me ever since she sent them back with the divorce papers.
“Soon. Definitely soon. I just want to make sure the timing is right and she actually WANTS them back,” I say with a shrug as I remove my hand from my pocket.
“She loves you, of course she’ll want them back.”
I shrug again. “She hasn’t said it yet, so who knows.”
I don’t tell him that it’s killing me not to hear those words from her. I know her actions have more than proven that she loves me, but I need the words. I need to hear her tell me she’s still in love with me so that I know without a shadow of a doubt that she wants this. That she wants everything. I can’t blame her for not trusting me completely, but I hope what happened last night goes a long way towards proving to her that she can put her faith in us again.
“Hey, do you remember that sign I made for Lucy as a wedding gift? The one that said The Fishers on it?”
Bobby nods, taking a sip of his coffee.
“When I stopped by the cottage, it wasn’t hanging next to the door. I went there a few weeks ago to look for it and couldn’t find it. I even looked all around the inn and it’s not here, either. I wanted to surprise Lucy by hanging it back up at the cottage and asking her to move back in there with me.”
Bobby sets his coffee cup down on the table between us and gives me a sheepish look. “You’re not going to find it anywhere.”
I look at him in confusion and he continues. “The day you sent Lucy the divorce papers, she sort of went a little nuts. Ellie got her drunk and drove her out to the cottage. Lucy pried the sign off of the wall and proceeded to beat the shit out of it with a hammer.”
“Yikes,” I reply.
“And then she lit the pieces on fire.”
“Oh, Jesus,” I mutter. “So much for THAT surprise.”
Bobby laughs and pats me on the shoulder before pushing himself up from the chair.
“You’re a romantic asshole, I’m sure you’ll think of something else. I need to get Ellie and head over to the mainland. She’s got an appointment for one of those fancy 3D ultrasounds in an hour. I guess the machine Doc Wilson has here on the island isn’t good enough for the first look at our little munchkin.”
We shake hands and I tell him to have Ellie call Lucy after their appointment to let us know how it went.
Bobby heads inside the house and I finish my coffee, wracking my brain for ways to convince Lucy that I truly love her, I’m not going anywhere and that I want to spend the rest of my life with her.