“But we saw you after that. Dean is right, we’ve all been together for a long time. You lean on your friends.”
I shut my eyes and nodded. “I’m sorry if I hurt you. It’s just been a lot the past few months.”
“Oh, I can see that.” Her brows jumped as she scooted closer. “He hasalwaysbeen in love with you. I knew this day would come, and I am so thrilled for you guys.”
“I know, and I’ve always loved him too. We’ve just been idiots and didn’t realize it until now.”
“Until you became husband and wife?”
I tilted my head from side to side when her brows popped. “We are, and we aren’t.”
“No, youare. You can’t see how in love with you he is?”
“I know he loves me, but we started out married for insurance reasons, then fell into being lovers. I love him like crazy back, and we throw around the words husband and wife, but we never had the ‘Are we really married?’ conversation.”
“Julie,” she said, grabbing my wrists. “I don’t know anyone more married than the two of you.”
I shrugged and squeezed her hands back. “I’m sorry I wasn’t honest with you. I’m relieved that you know. I’m sure you have questions, and I’ll answer anything once I’m feeling better.”
She shook her head. “I trust you to tell me what I need to know from now on. But like Dean said, please don’t suffer alone ever again.”
I nodded and let my head fall against her shoulder when she pulled me in for a hug. It was odd to feel cursed yet so blessed at the same time.
29
JULIE
THREE WEEKS LATER
“Again, I could have driven myself today,” I told my mother’s reflection in the rearview mirror of Sean’s car from where I sat in the back seat. “You wouldn’t have had to deal with all this traffic.”
When I’d suggested coming to visit for the afternoon, Mom insisted they wanted to go for a drive and could pick me up for lunch out. I knew their ride home would be bumper-to-bumper, and they didn’t have to double their time in the car just to baby me.
“You could have, but why if we can just come to get you and treat you to an early birthday lunch.” She flashed a smile over her shoulder.
The residual effects from pneumonia took a lot out of me, but I was going stir-crazy in my house. I’d recovered from most of the symptoms, but I still got winded going up and down my stairs, and I wiped out a lot quicker at the end of the day. I regained a little more energy every day, enough to want to do things for myself and get into my car without someone offering to behelpfuland take me instead.
I tried to keep in mind that I wasn’t the only one who’d had a good scare, so I dug deep for more patience and reminded myself they were all driving me crazy out of love. At least Landon had started working in the spare room again. When I’d first come home from the hospital, he’d camped out with his laptop next to wherever I’d decided to lie down. My husband had meant it when he’d told Dean and Maria he wasn’t going to leave me alone for a while.
As much as I’d tell him that I was fine and that he didn’t have to watch me every second, I didn’t hate snuggling into his side on the couch every afternoon. Landon was the one person I’d never get sick of. Since we’d first met in college, we could talk for hours and never be bored, and it had stayed like that between us ever since. It was one of those pesky clues that we kept stumbling on and more evidence of how we were always meant to be but somehow never picked up on it.
Falling in love with someone I liked so much was the best kind of surprise, even if it should have been a given after all this time.
“What time did we say we were bringing her back?” Sean asked my mother.
“What time did you say?” I asked as I scooted to the edge of the seat. “Back to whom?”
“He just means that…we have something else after this, so we need to make sure we have enough time,” Mom stammered and cut a look to Sean. I held in a laugh at his apologetic shrug.
“Did Landon tell you to keep me out of the house until a certain time?”
That made sense since this was the first time I’d left the house in a while without him peppering me with questions of how I was feeling and telling me not to overdo it. Butwhydid he want me out of the house?
“I think he just wanted to make sure he was home.”
“I have a key to my own house.” I chuckled. “Why does he have to be home when I’m home?”
Mom groaned and shifted toward me. “Maybe he just doesn’t want you to be home alone in case you need something.”
