Swallowing down a bite of my cone, I clear my throat and tell her, “Yeah, there’s actually one a few miles down the road from our house. Could this be considered our second first date?”
I shoot her a playful wink when her cheeks heat an adorable shade of pink.
“We may have gone about things in a round about way considering we’re already married.”
“Griffin was just telling me he and Kenna read an article that said it’s important to always date your spouse,” I tell her, thinking back to what Griff and Kenna were talking about when we were on the way home from the bar the other week. The details are a bit fuzzy, but I think I got the gist of it.
Taevin’s small smile at the mention of my best friends warms my chest. “I’ll be sure to ask Kenna for all the marital advice she can give us. They seem like relationship goals from what I’ve seen.”
“Yeah, I mean in their second act for sure. But they’ve had to work for it. After Katie died, Griff went a bit off the rails. He cut everyone out of his life, even Kenna. G didn’t even know about Cadence until she was eighteen months old.”
“Wait, really? I didn’t realize that,” she admits.
“Yeah, he actually found out he had a daughter after his game against Carson in Minnesota when Kenna happened to be there with Cadence.”
Taevin shifts, tucking a stray piece of hair behind her ear. “Grief changes people and affects everyone differently.”
I nod in agreement. “It does. And Griffin lost himself for a bit there after he lost Katie. But together Cadence and Kenna brought him back and breathed life into him again. Now the life they’ve built together is beautiful, but it didn’t come without sacrifice and hard work to get where they are now.”
“Then they one hundred percent are relationship goals. Life is messy, overly complicated, and often catches us off guard. Being able to find your person to share in the good times and hold onto throughout the chaos is the ultimate goal.”
“Couldn’t have put it better myself. I’m holding on and I’m not letting go, Tae.”
“I’m going to hold you to that,” she whispers, fidgeting with her cone and worrying her lip before looking up at me with teary eyes. “I thought about coming back home for the funeral, but I wasn’t sure you’d want me there.”
Pain slices through my chest at her admission. I rest my hand on her thigh and give it a gentle squeeze. “I would’ve wanted you there. In fact, I kept looking around the gymnasium where they held the memorial service for you.”
“If I could go back in time and change how I went about things, I would in a heartbeat.”
Licking my lips, I hesitate before saying, “What I still can’t wrap my head around is why you left the way you did. I mean, I get that you were presented with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity at eighteen, but we were so solid leading up to that.”
She bites the inside of her cheek. “Do you remember when you brought me turkey hunting with you in the spring right before graduation?”
I give her a small smirk, remembering exactly what we did in the woods. “Yeah. How could I forget?”
Tae doesn’t smile back. In fact, she winces. “Well there were, um, pictures of what we did. In a compromising position.”
Confusion must be written all over my face because without waiting for me to respond, she continues. “There were trail cameras.”
My stomach sinks and nausea takes over. “But those cameras were on our land,” I stammer.
She nods once.
“What does that have to do with you leaving, T?”
Wiping a stray tear, her eyes search mine, bouncing back and forth like she’s begging me to find the answer hidden in her gaze so she doesn’t have to say it out loud. Finally she murmurs, “Your father approached me the day I met with Kyle for the first time. I was leaving the meeting thinking I’d turn Kyle down, or at the very least, that I’d consider the record deal only if I got to continue with my plans to attend school in Boston.” She pauses, licking her lips and it gives me a moment to put the pieces together.
“Taevin, did my father blackmail you with pictures of us?”
Her lip quivers as she nods her head.
Holy shit. I didn’t see that coming. At all.
“He said if I didn’t break up with you, he’d release the pictures to the media and both of our futures would be ruined. Apparently he even had footage of us from the cameras. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, Jax. I was sick about it for weeks. You have to know, I never wanted to break us, but I didn’t see any other way. I signed with Kyle and took the record deal because I didn’t see any other way. But then when I found out I was pregnant, I knew I couldn’t keep it from you. Even if it meant your father ruined our futures. So I sought you out when I was in Boston. I had planned to tell you about the baby and, well, you know the rest.” She buries her head into my chest, and I rub my hand up and down her back in an attempt to soothe her while my world feels like it’s crumbling around me.
How could he do this to his own son?
I’ve come to realize over the years just how controlling and manipulative my father is, but even knowing that, I never thought he’d do something this vile.
