Page 117 of Slapshot Bride

“Okay.” She leans down and seals her lips to mine.

I kiss them. Softly and passionately like it’s all I want to do for the rest of the night, because it is. The awkward conversation with my dad is forgotten in a second, and I just lie there, kissing her.

When she pulls back, I lift her until she’s straddling me, palms splayed on my chest.

She’s wearing another one of my shirts, and I love how they swallow her. She looks super cute, I can’t look away. My arms wander of their own free will, landing on her thighs, fingers slowly gliding higher to her waist, and I stop there for a moment.

And maybe it’s the call, or the need to share my world with her, or maybe it’s just the fact that I’ve been carrying this particular weight for twenty years, but I start talking.

“My father is a very controlling man,” I say. “Donovan Blake never raised his voice in my entire childhood. Not once. He didn’t need to. He had other ways.”

Riley is still, listening.

“My mother would suggest something, and he’d listen. Then he’d explain, very calmly and very reasonably, why it wasn’t a good idea. And he’d do it in a way that made her feel like she’d thought of something small and insignificant. By the time I was twelve, I’d watched her stop living. It was like she hit a pause button and decided to let him fully take the reins for her life. Keep her small.”

I look at the ceiling.

“She used to paint. Did she tell you that?”

“No,” Riley says quietly.

“She painted for years. Landscapes, mostly. She was good. She had a whole corner of the house set up with her supplies. And then one year, my father mentioned, very offhandedly, that it was a messy hobby and the smell of the paint was getting into his study. He didn’t tell her to stop. He just said that. And within two months, the corner was gone. The supplies were in a box in the garage. She never took them out again.”

Her hands on my chest travel higher, till her fingers are buried in my hair. I drag in a deep breath and close my eyes for a second.

I needed that.

“I learned to read rooms because of him. I had to know what mood he was in before I said anything, before I brought home a grade or asked to go somewhere or existed too loudly in his space. I got very good at it.”

The memories of my childhood I’ve worked hard to lock away pour in. I keep talking, letting it all flow out.

“Physically, he’s never done anything you could point to. He’s never hit anyone. He’s never yelled. He goes to church. He gives to charity. By every external measure, he’s a decent man. And he spent thirty-two years making my mother smaller in ways that left no evidence.”

Riley’s hands return to my chest. She leans down and kisses my temple.

“When you got in my car, and you told me about Preston. The way you described him. The way he made your friends into problems, and always explained your own feelings back to you until you doubted them… I knew exactly what you were describing. I grew up in it.”

By now, her fingers are somehow laced to mine, and I can’t recall when it happened. I lift our joined hands to my lips and kiss them.

“That’s why I drove. I understood what you were running from because I’d spent my whole life trying to figure out how to run from the same thing, and getting my mom out of it was the best thing I’ve ever done.”

The lamp flickers slightly.

Then she says, “Does he know? What she gave up?”

“No.” I scoff. “He genuinely doesn’t. That’s the worst part. He’s not performing. He actually believes it.”

“Your mom is one of the strongest people I’ve ever met,” she says. “Well, if the one time we had breakfast counts…”

That makes me laugh, and for the first time since I moved Caroline from Donovan’s home, I feel lighter about it. Like I’ve dropped the weight.

My hands snake around her sides, and I tickle her. She falls apart in my arms, giggling. I flip us over until she’s on the bed, hands pushing at my shoulders while I’m hovering over her, staring at her beautiful face.

My gorgeous girl.

“You both are the strongest women I know.”

I kiss her.