It's not often Walker asks for anything. He's not asking now, not in words. But I know what this is. So I wrap my arms around him and rub slow circles on his back. I press my cheek to his chest and let him take whatever he needs.
After a while he says, muffled against my neck: “Just a lot of memories today. My own childhood. Mom.”
I stroke my fingers through his hair. “I wish I could have met her.”
“She would have loved you,” he says. “Just like everyone else in the Rhodes clan does.”
I swallow the lump in my throat at the thought of the whole Rhodes clan loving me.
Present company included?
His expression is tired and honest. “I should have been there for her. Same way I should have been there for Jonah.” He shakes his head. “I missed his first words, Sadie. First steps. First Christmas pageant. So many firsts I'll never get back. All for what? To chase a career I don’t even want anymore? I made all the wrong choices.”
The regret and self-loathing in his eyes sends a pang through my chest. He’s so hard on himself.
I take his face in my hands. “You’ve been carrying so muchby yourself,” I say. “The kind of stardom that burns people up and leaves nothing left. The breakdown of the family you wanted to make. It’s okay to feel hurt and disappointed and worry it’s all gone wrong. But you’re doing so much right. And you’re not alone. Everyone here loves you.”
Including me.
“Especially that boy in there,” I say instead, throat tight.
I continue, “He’s not keeping a tally. He doesn't know what he missed. He only knows what he has. And what he has is a father who tucks him in every evening and dries his tears and gets up in the middle of the night when his tummy hurts. Who taught him to hold a sparkler and sit a horse and make pancakes on a Sunday morning.” I brush my thumb across his jaw. “He'll remember the Fourth of July parade. He'll remember you were there for his first heartbreak and first graduation and every hard thing in between. That’s what counts.”
His thumb moves back and forth across my hip, slow and absent.
At last, Walker says, “He's like a plant with strong roots in good dirt. But this summer taught me he still needed sunshine. Taught me he’s blossomed under it. Under the love of a good woman.”
“Most men do,” I tease, trying to lighten the mood. “The good ones, anyway.”
He pulls me in close again. “Ain’t that the truth,” he mumbles against my hair.
He reaches up and tucks a curl behind my ear, his fingers trailing down the shell of my ear. He looks at me then like he wants to say something.
Something important. Something big.
But in the end he just presses one more kiss to my lips before he laces his fingers through mine. Without another word, he walks me back out into the summer night.
Chapter 30
Making Music
SADIE
“Close your eyes,” Walker says from behind me.
We’ve been back home for all of thirty seconds and I have no idea what he’s been planning, because he won’t say a peep.
“Why?”
“No more questions.” His hands come up to cover my eyes from behind. “Don't peek.”
“I'm going to trip,” I laugh.
“I've got you.” His chest presses against my back as he walks me forward, one slow step at a time, still covering my eyes. “Trust me.”
“I do trust you. That doesn't mean I can walk blind across a field.”
“You’re not flying blind. I’m right here with you. Almost there.”
