“These cupcakes look delicious,” he said with an easy smile.
“Lily made the frosting. She’s over there pretending like she hasn’t been dying to eat one.”
“We should end her suffering, don’t you think?” Christian suggested.
“Yes!” Mallory said with an exaggerated nod. “We really need to. It’s the humane thing to do.”
Christian laughed and called Lily over. Before he’d finished pronouncing her name, she was up and running over to join them. She looked longingly at the cupcake stand while Mallory passed small dessert plates around. Without her realizing it, Christian had placed two small boxes onto the table. Once they took a seat around the island, he pushed the purple box toward Lily and the yellow box toward Mallory.
“Open it,” Christian encouraged after Mallory took a moment to stare at the suspicious box. She’d been dying to know what was inside the gift bags, but she was having a hard time working up the courage to open it as she looked at the box in front of her. A shiver of nerves washed over her.
She spared a glance at Lily who was watching her instead of opening her own box. “Should we open them together?”
“Good idea. Okay three,” Lily began the count down. “Two. One.”
Mallory opened her box and looked down at a silver key with a keychain that read “Sweet home.”
Lily held up a key that was attached to a keychain with “home” written in pink script across the same black background as Mallory’s. Both girls looked at Christian for an explanation. He stood with his hands in his pockets, but the way he rocked back and forth on his heels told her he was anything but relaxed.
“I got some important papers in the mail today,” he began to explain. “A while ago I contacted Vivian about letting Lily stay here for good. She never responded, so I figured it would be a fight and that I’d be taking her back to Florida in a few weeks.”
Mallory swallowed, listening as she tried to figure out what any of this had to do with the keys.
“Well, Lily,” Christian continued, turning his attention to his daughter. “I received everything I need to enroll you in school. The paperwork has already been started to have you live here, with me.”
“Really?” Lily was out of her chair and in Christian’s arms in no time, relief and happiness written all over her face.
“Yes, sweetheart. You can stay.”
“Thank you, Dad! Can I go call Alyssa? I was telling her today that I want to babysit once she has the baby if I’m still here.”
Christian chuckled at Lily while Mallory blinked back tears. She was so happy for the girl. The way her entire body slumped with relief at the words “you can stay” had her heart in an uncomfortable mixture of breaking and soaring. She watched as Lily ran to her bedroom, the key and keychain forgotten on the table.
“And the keys?” Mallory prompted once she regained her composure.
“My mom is insisting on staying in that assisted living, no matter how much I try to convince her otherwise. She asked me a while back if I would take her house. Obviously, I didn’t want to. It’s her house. She somehow had some sixth sense that Lily needed to stay with me. She even told me the house would be a better place to raise Lily instead of my apartment. Well, I’m in the process of buying it for nearly nothing, just to make it official. The only reason I agreed to buy it was with the hope of Lily staying.”
Mallory wasn’t following. Maybe she was tired, or maybe it was nerves. She stood stock-still and waited for him to explain the damn key.
“You’ve met my mother,” he continued. “She’s stubborn as hell. I need to just accept that the house is mine now, even though I’m still waiting to hear about the closing. Anyway, I’m rambling.”
He stood behind where she was sitting and wrapped his arms around her. She leaned into his warm embrace and allowed him to settle her nerves as he settled his own. No matter how she was feeling, his arms were home.
“Lily came here completely broken. You saw her. But with you, and Dan, and your family, she’s started to become whole again. She’s trusted us enough to open up and share her needs and her feelings,” he spoke quietly. “The point is, I couldn’t have done any of this without you.Wecouldn’t have done any of this without you. And I don’t want to do anything else without you. This is the key to my house. Well, it’ll be mine soon enough, and once it is I’d like to make it ours. When you’re ready.”
Holy shit. She hadn’t expected any of this when he walked into her apartment carrying a pizza box and a gift bag that he barely managed to keep from dropping. She’d somehow sensed that whatever was in the gift bag was serious, but not this serious.
“Are you asking me to move in with you?” she asked once she found her voice.
“No,” he said quickly. “I mean, yes. I want you to moveonwith me. If and when you’re ready.”
She continued to stare at him, not quite able to form words. Moving in with someone was the last thing she ever thought she would do. It had taken so long to pull herself out of the abyss the last time things fell apart leaving her to clean up the devastation, she swore she’d never put herself in that position again. But thiswas everything she wanted. The man. The house. The kid. All of it.
“You want me to move in with you,” she repeated, still in disbelief.
“Yes.”
He tightened his grip around her, and the firm squeeze of his body surrounding hers gave her the reassurance she needed. There was no hesitation, no pulling back. He was coming to her with honesty and strength. Closing her eyes, all she could see was the sheer joy on Lily’s face when she learned she could stay in the safe bubble they had created around her. It was a bubble Mallory never wanted to be away from.
