Birdie sits up and turns, draping her legs over my lap and looking me in the eye. She has her head leaning against the back of the couch, and she watches me with only the slightest smile on her lips.
“How are things?”
This is actually a very loaded question. It seems innocent in nature, but it isn’t. She’s asking a real question, expecting a real answer.
And if there’s anything I’ve learned in the last few weeks, it’s that Birdie deserves the respect of me telling her the full and unbridled truth.
“Well, where should I start?” I ask, injecting some humor into my tone. I feel on edge, like the weight of our relationship hangs on the balance of this one conversation. “I started the expansion you wrote up.”
Her eyes widen and her head lifts. “You did what?”
“Yeah.” I nod, running my hand across her leg. Even through her jeans, I can feel her warmth, and just that simple bit calms me. “I showed the group your business plans, and they have been helping me from there.”
“But I thought you couldn’t.”
Her words bring back that memory of her fallen face, not just from me rejecting her plans, but from me yellingabout it. “I didn’t think I could,” I reply, mustering up my courage. “Birdie, I’m sorry for how I treated you.”
“Derek.” She shakes her head, about to shove it away again.
“No, I’m a man, and men don’t treat people like that. Period. My father would be ashamed of how I acted.” I clear my throat and reach up to take her hand. “I couldn’t do any of this without you, without your support, and your big, beautiful brain helping me do it.”
Her eyes grow shiny, making me wonder if there is going to be a point that this night doesn’t turn out how I want.
“Your plans, your faith in me—it’s been overwhelming,” I continue, squeezing her fingers tighter. “But I wouldn’t be here, I wouldn’t still have a shop if it wasn’t for you.”
She sniffs and turns her hand, making our palms line up, and electricity fires between us. It never took much for that to happen, from the first moment I placed my palm against hers, there’s always been something.
I remember when I was a silly kid, and I saw the tall, willowy girl across the patches of picnic tables. She had been laughing about something, and my gaze had been completely transfixed.
My buddies from camp always made fun of me and always called me names and called girls gross or dumb.
I never felt that way.
Then, I’d started finding wildflowers in the woods that surrounded camp, small, fragile little things that would be embarrassing today if I handed them to her, but I didn’t have much else to work with when I was thirteen.
I’d always hoped, no matter what, that the flowers made her smile.
“I don’t know about that,” Birdie says, wiping underneath her eyes.
“I do.” I nod, sure of my answer. “I absolutely believe that if you hadn’t come back into my life, I wouldn’t have my father’s store anymore.”
“Derek.” She gives me an exasperated look. “You would. You’d have figured it out.”
I shake my head. “I think you’re underestimating how badly in the red I have been.”
“Does that,” she proceeds hesitantly. “Does that look like it might change?”
“Thanks to you.”
“Derek.”
“Can’t I just be grateful to you?” I ask, almost desperately. Gripping her knee in my hand, I say, “After everything you’ve done for my dad’s store, after everything you’vedone for me, I ask that you just let me give you props and let me be thankful that you’re in my life.”
For a moment, we stare at each other, the tension between us high. “That is.” I clear my throat, shaking my head and wanting desperately to look away in case the answer to my next question is no. “If you’re still in my life.”
Her words are soft. “I want to be.”
Then, like the final wave of a tsunami, relief crashes over me, and I get to keep the love of my life.
