After the world’s most awkward introductions that left me wishing I had sent Porter’s family gift cards in lieu of attending the cookout, the rest of the day was actually a lot of fun.
By the time I met Tommy Reese, he’d gotten the rundown of what was going on between Porter and me. He greeted me with a huge smile that looked just like his sons’ and an even bigger hug.
He talked.
I listened.
And Porter never left my side.
Slowly but surely, I started to relax.
After our showdown of sorts, it was as if a switch had been flipped and Lynn seemed to take to me. I was a relatively quiet person, but she was having none of it. She asked about my family, my career, and my friends. And, in turn, she told me about her family, her career, and her friends.
She’d almost dropped a plate when she’d found out Rita was my best friend. It seemed Tanner was a momma’s boy, because she knew entirely too much about his relationship with Rita. To hear Lynn tell it, her son had been smitten, planning lavish vacations, and introducing Rita to all of his celebrity friends. She’d told me that the two of them hadn’t spoken again since Tanner had shown up at my apartment and unleashed on me the morning after I’d gotten Lucas back. Lynn worried that Tanner was nothing more than a pretty-faced rebound for my best friend. I thought this was probably true but made a mental note to call Rita and see what was really going on.
Lunch had been amazing. It was clear Tanner had inherited his culinary skills from his mother. His steaks were unbelievable, but her bacon ranch pasta salad was to die for. And, after watching Porter eat his fourth mountainous plate of it, I feared that was exactly what was going to happen. Over lunch, the guys reminisced about their rowdy youth. I literally couldn’t stop laughing as Porter recounted stories of how his father had made him cut the grass with a pair of scissors after he’d gotten caught skipping math class in junior high. And Tanner told me that he’d been forced to wash his dad’s Corvette with a toothbrush after he’d gotten caught with his first girlfriend in his bedroom.
Through it all, I couldn’t help but feel that warmth in my chest spiraling out of control, because for as much as I was laughing, so was Travis. He even stopped Tanner a time or two to correct the details of his uncle’s story. Clearly, it wasn’t the first time he’d heard them, and I loved the idea that he’d grown up with that feeling of warmth and belonging.
Once we’d finished eating, the kids took off to the corn hole boards for a game, and during that time, we discussed Travis’s health in great detail. Lynn asked me at least a dozen questions, and Tanner and Tommy listened intently to my answers. Porter chimed in several times, but for the most part, he sat back, anchored his hand to my thigh, and let me brief his family.
While I was sure Travis would have loved to swim with his little sister, excessive exercise wasn’t good for his heart. Something it seemed the Reese family not only knew, but had been mitigating for years. As soon as Hannah waded into the water, yelling for her father and Uncle Tan, Tommy took his grandson down to the dock on the opposite end of the pond to go fishing.
I sat there for hours, watching everyone interact with each other. The smiles were smooth and effortless. And the love was beautiful and refreshing.
Good people did exist. The Reese family was proof.
And it stirred emotions inside me that left my mind reeling.
“You’re still refusing to swim?” Porter asked as he sauntered over to me. His bathing suit—thankfully a pair of board shorts and not a pink Speedo—was dripping and his wet hair hung down over his forehead.
“Did you see the size of the fish Travis caught a minute ago? I’m concerned its cousin the Loch Ness monster might show up for revenge at any minute.”
He chuckled and sank onto the grassy bank beside me. “You doing okay over here?”
“Yeah. Today was fun.”
He looped his arms though mine and folded our hands together, resting them on his thigh. “I told you it would be.”
Hannah’s laughter rang through the air as Tanner ducked under the water and pretended to be a shark.
“Your family is crazy. I see where you get it from.”
He scooted closer until our thighs were touching. “Is that why you’re over here, looking like you are on the verge of a panic attack?”
I tore my gaze off my son, who was casting a line into the water at the other end of the pond. “What?”
“Come on. Don’t bullshit me. You’ve been happy all day, and for the last thirty minutes, you’ve been sitting over here alone, staring up at the sky like you’re waiting for it to fall.”
Wow. That was…surprisingly accurate.
Though I wasn’t waiting for the sky to fall, I’d been trying to make heads or tails of how perfect it felt.
Everything was too right. Too good. Too temporary.
I didn’t get those things in life. Yet, right then, I had them all.
And it scared the hell out of me.
At my silence, his eyes flashed dark. “You want to talk about it?”
“I can’t decide if we’re too real or not real enough,” I whispered.
His body locked up tight. “Confessional?”
“No,” I said. “Not here. Not tonight. Let’s just talk.”
He cleared his throat and stared at me. “Then I’m going to tell you, first and foremost, there is no such thing as too real or not real enough. There’s just real. And there’s just us.”
Guilt slashed through me. “I don’t mean for it to sound like that. I wasn’t talking about us. Well, not completely, anyway. It’s… Today was so great it almost made me uncomfortable. I’m starting to think I don’t know how to be happy. Is that, like, normal in a situation like this?”
“Charlotte, there is nothing normal about us.”
“Right. I know that. But are you happy?”
“Today? Unquestionably.”
“See, for me, it’s like I go through these spurts where I’m really happy, and then I realize I’m happy and it scares me because I’m well versed in how quickly that can be taken away.”
“I get it, baby. We’ve lived through a lot of sour over the years. But this is the sweet. Remember when I told you I used to come here every year and get in the water, trying to figure out how to let go?”
My chest tightened, but not a single word made it to my tongue, so I nodded.
He pressed a kiss to my forehead, allowing his lips to linger for several beats. “One dip in that pond, knowing you were sitting on the bank, my boy down on the dock, fishing with his grandpa, my daughter playing with her grandmother and her uncle, and I didn’t just figure out how to let go—I felt the pain disappear.”
“See, rational thought tells me that it’s impossible to find the energy to feed the pain and hate when you’re surrounded by so much goodness and love. And yet I can’t seem to relax. No matter how good it is. It’s like I’ve been programmed for the darkness and I’m lost in the light.”
“Sweetheart,” he purred in understanding.
I looked at the water. “I love this life. I’ve never been happier than I have been in the last week. I close my eyes at night, knowing when I open them you’re still going to be there. I still stress and worry about losing Travis, but it’s manageable with you. I, as a general rule, don’t like people.”
He chuckled, but I wasn’t joking.
“I don’t, Porter. But I love you. And I love that he loves you. And then, today, you bring me to meet your family.” I paused when the emotion of my confession became too much. But I refused to cry. Not anymore. “And don’t think I didn’t notice you calling me your girlfriend all day.” I laughed and it luckily kept the tears at bay. “But this all scares me so much.” I peered up into his blue eyes and asked the question I didn’t actually want to know the answer to. “I need to know the truth. I’ve been doing it for so long. I don’t even know what’s real anymore. Are we pretending here?”
He grinned. “Are you pretending?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think so or you aren’t?”
“I…uh…” I stammered.
He chuckled. “Charlotte, are you happy?”
I swallowed hard. “Right this second? Yes. But what about—”
He pinched my lips closed with his thumb and forefinger. “Stop with the buts and what-ifs. If you always expect to get kicked in the stomach, that’s all you’re ever going to get. There are going to be ups and downs, sweetheart. But you can’t let the lows color the highs. You had a good day today, right?”
“Yesh,” I mumbled around his fingers.
That damn sexy grin of his grew exponentially. “Good! Then enjoy it. Today, we have it all. And we fucking earned every second of that happiness.” One of his hands went under my legs and the other around my back.
I draped my arm over his neck, assuming he was dragging me onto his lap.
He didn’t.
He rose to his feet with me in his arms.
“You have to embrace the good times or the bad times will always overwhelm you. When you look back on this day, a year from now, I don’t want you to remember the last thirty minutes of fear. I want you to remember laughing and living in the light with people who love you.” A smirk tipped the side of his mouth. “And maybe swimming too.”
My eyes flashed wide as he took a step toward the pond.
“Porter, don’t!” I demanded, squirming in his arms. “There are fish in that pond.”
“They aren’t piranhas though.” He laughed, and that sexy rat bastard just kept walking.
“Please!” I squealed.
“This is as real as life gets,” he said, stopping at the edge.
“If you throw me in that water, you are going to wish you were pretending,” I snapped, but then I laughed when he started swinging me toward the pond. “Stop! I don’t have a change of clothes.” I cackled, clinging to his neck.
“How do you feel right now, Charlotte?”
“Like I’m going to kill you.”
He laughed. “But you aren’t scared, are you?”
“For your safety? Yes,” I shot back.
“A year from now, you’ll remember this.”
“From the inside of a prison cell!”
“Say you love me,” he ordered.
I glanced up and saw that everyone had stopped what they were doing and were now watching us as they smiled. “I love you!” I whisper-yelled. “Now, put me down.”
He jerked like he was going to throw me. “Louder.”
“Porter!” I hissed. “People are staring at us.” I squeaked when he faked me out again.
“Louder.”
“Fine. I love you!” I yelled, tucking my face in his neck as my cheeks flashed hot with embarrassment.
“Good. Then you should have no problem forgiving me for this.”
“No!” I yelled, but it was too late.
He jumped into the water with me securely held against his chest.
Laughing underwater, I tried desperately not to think of the possibility of a fish brushing my leg and, instead, focused on Porter.
Maybe he was right. We’d been through hell. If ever there were two people who deserved a happily-ever-after, it was us. Happiness was a state of mind, not something you had to hold on to for fear you’d never get it back.
But, for people like us, life wasn’t a case of sour and sweet.
It was more like the deepest pits of despair and the high of cloud nine.
And, as my head popped up out of that water, I knew I’d been wrong to ever assume I wasn’t still in that pit.