Page 107 of Until You

And for the next fifteen minutes, I stand aside and watch the girls try to teach their dad how to dance. There are a lot of frustrated sighs, even more giggles, and about as many heads in their hands as rolled eyes.

And as much as I want to join in and be a part of this with them, I’m having more fun watching Crew be the attentive, silly, incredible dad he is.

I mean, I don’t know how anyone can say single dads aren’t sexy. Because this one? He is over-the-top incredible in every sense of the word.

And I’m the lucky one he’s chosen to be with.

The girls begin to cue everyone back up to their places, and while he waits, Crew meets my eyes.

Every woman should have a man who looks at her like he looks at me. Like even when he’s in the midst of being in the moment with his own daughters, I feel like I’m the only one in the world he sees.

And nothing could be further from the truth . . . but it’s how he makes you feel.

I smile softly at him. Loving Crew Madden is one of the easiest things I’ve ever had the pleasure of doing.

It’s the self-preservation that’s much more difficult. The keeping it to myself and trying to pretend that casual is all we are.

The constant reminders that Crew and the girls are leaving in just a few weeks.

There hasn’t been a day that’s passed that I don’t have to repeat it to myself.

It’s a telling sign that I’ve let him think that I believe his excuses as to why the cottage isn’t complete. Even more so that I haven’t called him on it by moving my things back there when he wasn’t around.

But I don’t want to leave this family I’ve grown to love. A love I’ve felt in silence to protect myself from the devastation I’ll feel when he leaves. A pain that will hurt like hell but that will reaffirm that this was real. That this really happened.

So I sit here and watch Crew and his uncoordinated dance moves, hear his rich laughter, revel in the glances he slides my way, and try to soak up each and every minute I have left with him.

Hopefully the memories will help ease the sting.

But I’m not sure if anything ever will.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Crew

The night is warm. The lights strung up all over town cast a soft glow that one might say is romantic. The song is slow and bluesy. And the woman dancing in my arms owns me.

So much so that when the fireworks go off overhead, I have more fun watching her react to them than watching them myself.

The girls walked to the lake that borders the festival with Phoebe and her parents so they could watch the fireworks there—supposedly it’s a better show because of the reflections off the water.

But I don’t need a better show.

I have it right here.

Tenny turns and looks at me with narrowed eyes. “What?”

Nothing.

Everything.

So much that I haven’t said and desperately want to. But I don’t quite know how to say it because it was a shock to me as well.

I’ve fallen for her.

I love her.

But haven’t I felt that way for some time? Haven’t I questioned and doubted and told myself I was full of shit because I’m not exactly the expert person on picking who to love?