She turned to look at him.“Does that surprise you?”
He nodded.“Yeah, it does.You know, I spent my whole life trying to get away from this place.”He ran a hand down his face.
“Hawk, you are a success story.”
“Not that much of a success story.”He couldn’t help but rub his chest.
“We all hit ...problems,” she said.“Look at me and Adam.”
“I never saw what was coming,” he said.“I didn’t think I was ever going to come back home.”He let out a forced laugh.“You know, if someone had said to me a year ago that I was going to be living back home with my parents, I would have laughed, because there was no fucking way that was happening.”
“Do you hate it here?”she asked.
“No, and that is the craziest thing about this.I don’t hate it.I love it here.I just finished with the mayor and we’re talking about a maze, a pumpkin patch, and a whole bunch of other things, and I am enjoying it.”
“You don’t miss going on a private plane to different countries?”she asked.She moved from her spot beside Adam and sat next to him on the bench.
“No, I don’t.”He sighed.
“What’s wrong?”
He ran a hand down his face and tried to clear his mind.“When I woke up in the hospital after everything, I didn’t call the nurse or the doctor.I laid in that hospital bed, and I looked up at the ceiling, and you know what I realized?”
“What?”
“I had nothing.”
“Hawk?”
“No, hear me out.I had absolutely nothing other than my company.Sure, I had built up this amazing brand, and I’m grateful for it, and thankful and all that shit, but it doesn’t change the fact that it was all I had.My sister has a husband and kids, and my parents have each other and us.They have people.I had no one.I’ve stayed so focused on earning money, on building my reputation, that I didn’t do anything else.”
Katie sat down beside him.
“They never tell you that you would have this regret,” he said.
She smiled but it was one of those sad smiles that never quite reached the eyes, but you just knew the other person was feeling nothing more than pain.“There are a lot of things they don’t tell you about getting older.”
He laughed.“Yeah, because life has got to hit you in the ass.They don’t tell you that you’ll live most of your life thinking one thing, and then something will hit you like,bam, and next, there is nothing but deep regret.”
“Do you regret building up your company?”she asked.
“Yes and no.Do I regret it completely?No, because I know I made something amazing, and let’s face it, the advertisements you see are top-notch.”
This time there was a genuine laugh as he gave her a cocky grin.
“Do I regret focusing solely on my company and turning myself into nothing more than a robot?Yeah, I do.I’ve got lots to show, yet I don’t have a lot of memories.I bet you have tons of memories.Opening the shop.Your wedding day.Being with Adam.I mean ...I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Katie said.“I’m not going to sit here and pretend that Adam and I had the perfect marriage.We didn’t, and yet I wouldn’t change anything about my time with him.That doesn’t mean I don’t have regrets.Adam was so afraid of his illness, and he had a right to be.But even when he fought it the first time, knowing both his parents died of cancer, he always said the risk of having children was too high.I know some people believe it was from the treatment, and I guess we let them believe that, because it was easier than having to explain why he didn’t want kids.”
“You want kids?”he asked.
“Yeah, I do.”She shrugged.“But I loved Adam so much, and I wasn’t going to leave him to go and get something that at the time I didn’t know if I truly wanted.”
“He was lucky to have you.”
She looked at him.“What about you?Do you want kids?”
He turned to look at Adam’s graveside.“I don’t know.”This wasn’t entirely true.In the last few weeks, he had to face the truth—that he wanted it all.He wanted a family.He wanted to be a father and a husband, and that scared the shit out of him.It was something he often ridiculed—the family man, the family life—it was not something he wanted.There had even been times he had mocked it to promote a product or sell something.
