“Liam’ll bring it by later. Or I’ll get it tomorrow.” I closed her door gently and walked around to the driver’s side. “It’s not going anywhere.”
I thought about my father again.
Showing up is ninety percent of everything.
He wasn’t wrong. But he wasn’t completely right either.
Showing up mattered. Being reliable mattered. But somewhere along the way, I’d confused being useful with being loved. I’d convinced myself that if I just kept appearing—kept fixing things, kept making myself available—eventually someone would choose me.
That wasn’t how it worked.
You couldn’t earn love by being convenient. You could only be yourself and hope someone wanted that. Wantedyou. Not the version that made their life easier, but the real, complicated person underneath.
Grace wanted me.
Not because I fixed her porch steps or built her a nursery. Not because I showed up every Saturday for sixteen years. Not because I was safe or reliable or easy to have around.
She wanted me because of who I was. Because I’d never asked her to be smaller. Because I loved her in a way that made her feel more like herself, not less.
That was the difference. That was everything.
Grace’s hand found my knee somewhere along the winding road. I covered it with mine and laced our fingers together. Neither of us spoke. We didn’t need to.
The B&B appeared around the final bend—a white Victorian with a wraparound porch, the house I’d been coming to since I was eighteen. I pulled into the driveway and cut the engine.
The morning light was full now, warm through the windshield.
“Ready?” I asked.
She turned to me and smiled. “Yeah. I’m ready.”
I got out, walked around to her side, and opened her door. Helped her out the way I would have done anyway, pregnant or not. But this time, when she was standing, she didn’t let go of my hand.
“So,” she said. “What now?”
“Now we go inside,” I said. “And you make me coffee that’s too sweet. And I pretend to like it.”
Grace laughed. “You’ve been pretending all these years?”
“Sixteen years of too-sweet coffee, Grace. Yes. I’ve been pretending.”
She shook her head, still laughing. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because you made it for me.” I lifted our joined hands and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “That was enough.”
Her expression shifted—something tender and aching.
“I’m going to make you coffee you actually like,” she said. “From now on.”
“You don’t have to?—”
“I want to.” She tugged me toward the porch steps. “I want to know what you actually like. Not what you tolerate because you think that’s what love means.”
I stopped walking and pulled her back toward me.
“Grace.”
She looked up at me. Patient. Waiting.
