“You know, you can stay as long as you want.”Please stay forever.
An instant crush of anxiety hits me like a clock to the skull.Is this it? Is this where I’ve pushed too far?
Her fingertips slide along my wrist where it wraps around her. “Thank you. I can’t tell you what a relief it is to feel so welcome here. So at home.”
My eyes shut with her words.Home.I want her to callthisplace home in a ravenous kind of way. Before I speakthat into the air between us, she links us, her fingers weaving with mine.
“I’ll need to go back at some point…”
The intonation makes me question whether there’s more. I breathe through the desire to press, to discover more, to learn everything I need to know. I ease off of my tendency to interrogate and instead breathe with her, relishing the soft feel of her skin against my chest.
Then I go for it, because I don’t want her living with a second of doubt where it comes to me. “Well, you are welcome back here whenever you want to. Whenever you’re ready.”
She turns, repositioning so we’re facing each other and I can see her lovely dark eyes blinking back at me in the moonlight filtering in through the far window of my room.
I won’t press her, but what I can do is give her all of it. She’s been so brave at every turn, isn’t it time I joined her?
What if this obsession withnotpushing her is actually exactly why things fizzled with Michelle? I waited too long, didn’t pursue her. And yes, that was different. That was nothing like this. But isn’t that at least part of the lesson? Shouldn’t I be showing her my hand and telling her what I want so she can decide knowing everything?
It’s a risk, and my heart is thrumming so fast. My throat is dry. But it’s time.
“The truth is that I carry a lot of guilt for how I handled the news that Julia and Brad were gone and I’d have the girls. I panicked, and for a few hours, I scrambled for a way out of it. I thought I couldn’t do it, that I knew nothing about being a parent, let alone to two little girls in an instant.”
Her hand presses into my cheek, offering comfort and support. I continue, heart thundering as I lay myselfbare.
“Michelle, my ex, wasn’t up for it. At the time, I took that hard, too, because I felt like I was completely alone in this life-changing thing, even though I had Mac and other people from work, and my parents took turns flying out every few weeks. I was never alone.” There’s a burn in my chest, a deep ache I’ve associated with these memories. “She left, and I got it. I’d dragged my feet with her for too long and now, in a moment of crisis, that’s when I wanted more? It was messed up and it wouldn’t have been right. I was necessarily focused on the girls. At the same time, I felt so much guilt. I’d failed her. Then, I failed them in that moment when I wavered. I remember holding Poppy, who’d finally fallen asleep, and thinking, ‘God, I can’t do this.’”
“But you did. You didn’t fail them. You’re amazing and they love you so much.”
My eyes fall shut. She hugs me close, wrapping me up in her as though holding me tighter will impress her words upon me.
“Sometimes, I believe that. Then I start thinking about how I failed my family by not being here, or myself for ending my career, or my siblings for not supporting them more actively before I needed them when I got back here. I’m even failing this town, because what did I do for it?” It’s all dumping out faster than I can stop it, though I don’t want to. I want her to know this part of me, too, so that she has all the information she needs to choose.
“I’ve always been someone who tries to do the right thing. But the older I get, the more I realize that ‘the right thing’ isn’t always clear. All I can do is my best with what comes.”
She frames my face with her hands. “You have done that. I don’t need every detail to know you have. And havingdoubts or messing up doesn’t mean you’vefailedthe people you love. It means you’re human, Grant.”
I huff. “So I’m told. And I believe it sometimes. It’s just hard to accept when I’m faced with looking ahead, you know? Because I know what I want, but I’m not sure it’s what’s right.” My pulse is thrumming now.
“What’s right about what? What do you want?”
“About us.”
Her lovely face softens. “Why don’t you start by telling me? I might have a sense of what’s right, too. We can compare notes.”
Damn, but I love her. Completely.
She’s asking now, giving me full permission, and this time, I will not fail.
“I want you here forever. Want you with me, with us, forever. So you say the word. If you think that might be right, too. At some point.”
She doesn’t give me time to feel nerves or anxiety. She doesn’t leave space for me to regret putting myself out there or worry it’s too much or even to feel that cold whip of fear I’m conditioned to feel when I’ve risked myself.
She just cups my cheeks, kisses me like the world’s ending, and then grins. “I absolutely will. It’s just a shame my name’s not more Irish.”
I huff a soft laugh and joke, “Well, that’s why I want to give you Ryan, if you want it.”
She beams, once again refusing to let me doubt. “I just might.”
