“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”He rubbed my knuckles with his thumb.“There’s something else we need to talk about.”
“What’s that?”
“If something were to happen ...to me.”
My heart dropped into my belly.
“I don’t want to talk about that,” I whispered.
“I know.But we have to.”
I nodded through glassy eyes as they filled with tears.
“I want you to have custody of Lenni.Should anything ever happen to me, God forbid, I want her with you.”
“Not Brooks?”I asked.“He’s your brother.”
“Yes.”Archer nodded.“If there was no you, then I’d want Lenni to be with Brooks and Poet.But there is a you.And we’re a family now, aren’t we?I mean, even though we haven’t gotten married yet, we’re a family.We became a family the moment the three of us moved in here.”
I scooted closer to him and swiveled my legs off his lap so I could curl against his side.“I don’t want to think about a life without you in it.”
“I’m not planning on going anywhere,” he said, his hand sliding beneath my hair and resting at my nape.“But as we know, we don’t have a crystal ball.”
“No.We don’t.”I raised my head and gently brushed my lips against his before getting up.
“Where you going?”he asked.
“I just need to look in on her.I know she’s fine, but I ...”
Archer stood immediately.“Let’s go.”
We padded up the stairs and I pushed her door open.The mini night light from the hallway illuminated a path just enough so that we wouldn’t hit our knees on furniture.
Lenni was asleep on her back, Mildred smushed up against her side.
Archer walked over to the bed and bent down and swept Lenni’s hair off her forehead.After a few deep breaths, we slowly retreated.
We headed down to his—our—bedroom and got ready for bed.
“You know what I was thinking about just now?”Archer asked.
“What?”
“I was thinking about how one day in the future, we’ll be looking down at a baby in a crib.And I’ll be so fucking happy, but also so fucking sad.Because I missed all that with Lenni, and I can never get it back.”
“No.You can’t.”
I crawled beneath the covers and waited for him to slide in next to me.He took me into his arms, and I rested my head against his chest, listening to the steady rhythm of his heart.
He’d missed the beginning of Lenni’s life, but he was here for her now.
We both were.
ChapterThirty-Six
The Truck
