CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE - LUKE
When I got home after work, Marla greeted me.
“Emery’s still awake,” she said. “She wants to tell you something.”
I frowned. “Is everything okay?”
Marla nodded and started gathering up her things. “Yeah, I think so. I’ll let her tell you.”
“Okay. You heading out?”
“Yes, Sir. See you tomorrow Mr. Harrison.”
“See ya, Marla.”
I climbed the stairs, wondering what Emery could possibly have to tell me. She was sitting up in her bed, waiting for me.
“Hey there, munchkin.”
“Hi, Daddy.”
I sat at the foot of her bed. “So, Marla says you have something to tell me.” Emery bounced on her bed, like she was so excited she was about to burst. “Well, what is it?”
“I saw Amber today.”
My eyes widened in surprise and my heart swelled. I hadn’t been expecting that. “She came here to the house?”
“No. Marla took me to the store, and Amber was there.”
“Oh, okay. Did you say hi?”
“Of course. She said she missed me. I told her I missed her too.”
I felt a pang of guilt in my chest. It was my fault they hadn’t been able to see each other. “Well, that’s nice. What else did you talk about?”
“Oh, nothing. I just told her you lied to her to make her mad so she could have a better life.”
My mouth fell open in shock. “What? That’s not nothing. That’s everything!”
Emery shrugged. “She wanted to know. And you never told me not to tell her.”
“I never thought you’d see her again. What did she say when you told her?” My blood ran cold.
She grinned mischievously. “I’m not telling you.”
“Oh, sure. Now you’re keeping secrets. That’s not nice.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll tell you.” Emery crawled over to me and put her mouth right up to my ear like she was going to tell me a secret. “She said her life isn’t better now. Her eyes filled with tears and she said she hated it.”
Emery tumbled back on the bed, giggling. That was an odd reaction.
“That’s not a good thing. Why do you seem so happy?”
“Because, Daddy. I told her that means she can come back.”
“You said that?”
She nodded.
I was impressed. She had more courage than I ever did. Ever since my conversation with Colton, I’d been thinking about calling Amber, but I couldn’t figure out what to say. I didn’t even know where to begin. Emery didn’t have that problem. She cut right through the bullshit and just asked her to come back.
“What did she say?” I asked, trying not to show how much the answer meant to me.
“She said ‘maybe.’”
“Maybe’s good. I’ll take maybe. Right? Maybe’s good?”
Emery nodded. “I think so, Daddy.”
“Should I call her, do you think?”
“Yes! Yes! Yes!” she shouted.
“All right. I’ll give her a call tomorrow. Now you need to calm down and get some rest, you little devil, you.”
Someone knocked softly on Emery’s bedroom door. Marla must have forgotten something. I opened the door to see Amber standing on the other side.
I thought I might be imagining it until Emery bounced off from her bed and wrapped her arms around Amber’s leg.
“Hi,” I said.
She smiled at me, stealing my heart for the hundredth time. “Hi.”
It was good to see her again. On the outside, I tried to play it cool, but on the inside, I was jumping up and down like a dog who hadn’t seen his owner in months.
There were so many things I wanted to say, so many things I wanted to do, but I was frozen in place. All I could do was look at her. It wasn’t like I’d forgotten her face or how beautiful she was, but seeing her in person was so much better than the ghost of her memory.
Amber gently pulled Emery from her leg. “Emery, honey. Your father and I need to talk. Why don’t you get in your warm, snuggly bed?”
“Okay,” Emery said. “Will I see you tomorrow?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
Amber seemed delighted by the response. “Maybe’s good,” she said, repeating my words from earlier. “Daddy says that maybe is good.”
I tucked her in and closed her door. Then Amber led me downstairs. I wanted to say something, but the moment felt fragile like glass. One wrong word and it would shatter around me.
We sat down on the couch. Still, I said nothing. It hurt just to look at her, but it was a good kind of hurt. She looked at me, too, studying the lines of my face.
Finally, she spoke. “Tell me everything about what happened that night.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but she raised a hand to stop me.
“And let me be clear. I want the truth, all of it. No lies, no omissions. If I think you’re lying to me, if I think you’re holding something back, I’m walking out that door and you’ll never see me again. Agreed?”
I nodded. “Agreed.”
“Okay, good. Now talk.”
“If I’m being totally honest with you about everything, let me just say that it’s so damn good to see you again. I missed you in a way I didn’t think it was possible to miss someone. And I’m so sorry for everything. For what I said to you and for what I put you through. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“What the fuck were you thinking?”
“Look, when you first got that job offer, I was pissed off that someone was trying to steal you away from me. After I thought about it though, I realized that was just me being selfish. You aren’t my property. I don’t own you. You should be able to take the job if you wanted it.”
“I never wanted that job, Luke,” she said.
“I know that now. But at the time, I thought you turned it down because of me. Because of us. I thought our relationship was getting in the way of your professional life. And I know I was an idiot for thinking I knew what was best for you. I just kept thinking like, what if I wasn’t in your life? What if you’d never met me? Would you take the job offer then? I was sure you would have. And I was sure I was holding you back from great things.”
“You’re right. You were being an idiot.”
I smiled. “Yes. I was wrong. And that’s not something I’d admit to most people. I thought I was helping you by removing me from the equation.”
“So, you broke up with me.”
“So, I broke up with you,” I repeated. “At the time, it seemed like the right thing to do.”
“And all that stuff about wanting Halcyon’s money? What the hell was that? I called Martin. He told me you refused to take it.”
“It was never about money. There’s no amount they could offer me to let you go.”
She arched an eyebrow at me. “But you’d give me away for free?”
“Well, when you put it like that, it sounds even dumber.”
Amber patted my arm. “It sounds stupid no matter how you put it. But why tell me that? Why lie to me?”
“It wasn’t enough for me to break up with you. I needed you to want to break up with me. I thought it would be better that way. Like a clean break for you. So, I said that because it was the most hurtful thing I could think of.” I let out a long sigh. I was disgusted with myself for hurting her.
“Yeah, well it worked.”
“I know, and I’m sorry.”
Amber looked at me, her gaze locking with mine. “No, seriously. You really hurt me that night.”
“I’m so sorry, Amber,” I said, covering her hand with mine. “I’d give anything to take it back. All of it. Being with you has been the best time of my life. After you were gone, I felt hollow inside, empty. I don’t want to live that way anymore. And look, I know I don’t deserve a second chance, but I’m asking you for one. Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it. Anything. You want some grand, romantic gesture? Just say the word.”
“It’s a tempting offer, but I have to say no.”
My whole world felt like it was crashing down around me. “Oh.”
“Yeah, you’ve already made your grand, romantic gesture.”
“What? When?”
“When you broke up with me, you handsome bastard.”
Amber slid over on the couch and rested her head on my shoulder. It was the greatest feeling in the world. Just sitting beside her, leaning against her, there was something so perfectly intimate to it, something so right.
“So, you’re saying that breaking up with you was romantic?” I asked, not sure if I heard her right.
“In a weird, twisted, fucked up way, yes. I mean, yeah, it was stupid. Like really stupid. But despite all that, your intentions were good. You were willing to sacrifice your own happiness for mine.”
“Well, I love you. And when you love someone that much, their happiness comes first. I didn’t always understand that. But when Emery’s mother left, I learned that lesson the hard way.”
“You never told me what happened with her.” She looked up.
I nodded. “It’s not something I like to think about. But I suppose you’ve earned the right to know.”
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” She reached out and touched the side of my face. I cupped her hand and turned my face to kiss her palm, breathing her in.
“No. I want to. Believe it or not, I was pretty wild when I was younger. I’d work all day in the kitchen and then I’d party all night. The next day, I’d drag my carcass out of bed and do it all over again. That’s when I met Emery’s mom, Jennifer.
“She was a hellcat. All she cared about was getting blitzed and having a good time. That’s all I cared about back then, too, so I thought we were perfect for each other. Looking back, we were so reckless and self-destructive, I’m surprised I’m still alive.
“Anyway, everything changed when I got Jennifer pregnant. It put things in perspective for me. I needed to get my shit together. It wasn’t just myself I had to worry about. I had to take care of the little one once she popped out.
“Jennifer seemed to be on board. We both quit drinking and quit acting like we didn’t care if we lived or died. But after Emery was born, she couldn’t handle it. Too many late nights taking care of a crying kid. Too much responsibility. She kept telling me how she missed our old life, how she never wanted the party to stop. Then one day she left. No real warning. No goodbyes. Not even a fucking note.
“That’s when it hit me, you know? How selfish she was to put her own happiness before the needs of our daughter. Emery was still a baby, and Jen left her when she needed her the most.”
“That’s terrible,” Amber said. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
“I know Emery and I are better off without her, but it still burns me up inside that someone could abandon their own child like that.”
“Some people just aren’t meant to be parents.”
“I guess so. Anyway, that’s the story. And now I never have to talk about her again.”
Amber laughed softly. “Fair enough. Thank you for telling me. Although now you’ve got me curious about your wild and crazy youth. Is that when you got all those tattoos?”
I grinned at her. “Yes, it was. But I don’t think you’re ready for those stories.”
“Too shocking for innocent little me?”
“Yeah, some of them. And some of them are way too embarrassing for me.”
“Well, now I have to hear those.” She smiled and brightened the room.
“No way. Not gonna happen.”
“I’ll find a way to drag it out of you.”
I heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs. “Emery? Is that you?”
Now that she’d been busted she stomped loudly the rest of the way down. “Are you guys friends again or what?”
I glanced at Amber, silently asking her for the answer.
“Yes,” she said. “We’re all friends again.”
Emery appeared in front of the couch, her eyes heavy with sleep. She had the stuffed unicorn that Amber had given her. “Finally. You adults are so confusing.”
Emery hopped up on the couch and snuggled up between Amber and me. She rested her head on Amber’s lap, where she drifted off to sleep in no time.
Amber looked over at me in the dark. “I want you to know, Luke. I’m not going to abandon you. Either of you. I love you both with all of my heart.”