The lock slid open and Trina emerged with her phone in her hands. The girl wasn’t looking down or hiding her face, though. In fact, she didn’t appear to be upset at all.
“I got your text that you were here, honey,” Monica told the girl. “Why are you hiding in the bathroom?”
“It’s Wednesday,” Trina said, as though that explained everything.
“Are you worried about your math test?” Ethan asked his daughter, and Monica realized he was just as clueless as to why Trina had resorted to hiding out in the bathroom. Again. “I thought that was tomorrow.”
Monica glared at Ethan and mouthed, Are you drunk?
He frowned at her and gave a quick shake of his head before hopping off the counter. Hmm, he appeared steady enough on his feet.
She would’ve assessed his sobriety more, however, Trina began speaking again. “No. I’m not worried about my math test. I mean, I will be tomorrow, but I figured the sooner I got you guys together the better.”
“Okay, so it’s Wednesday and you’ve got us both here, Trina. She wouldn’t tell me what was going on until you arrived,” Ethan told Monica then turned back to his daughter. “Is everything okay?”
“No, it’s not.” Trina planted her hands on her hips. “Both of you guys have told me that you want to do what’s best for me, right?”
“Definitely,” Monica replied at the same time Ethan said, “Of course.”
She and Ethan were now standing side by side and Trina’s brows were lifted in challenge as she faced them. “Well, it’s best for me if you guys are dating and making each other happy.”
Ethan lifted his eyes to the ceiling and made a choking noise that suspiciously sounded like a smothered chuckle. Monica opened her mouth to protest, but Trina held up her palms. “I know you two haven’t been talking. Dad, you were looking at your cell phone every five minutes last weekend waiting to hear from her. And, Monica, when we visited Gran on Sunday, she told me that you were crazy about my dad and it would be up to me to get you back together.”
“Honey, you can’t listen to what Gran says half the time—” Monica started, but Trina cut her off by pointing her little eleven-year-old finger right at them.
“Gran told me that was exactly what you’d say. When I saw you staring at my dad in the library yesterday I knew she was right.”
Ethan’s nose made a hissing sound as he drew in a deep breath. “So you decided the best way to get us together was to call both of us and tell us that it was an emergency and we needed to meet you in the girls’ room in the middle of the school day?”
“I never said it was an emergency. But it’s Wednesday and my tutoring session tomorrow got canceled so I knew that I needed to do something quick or else you guys wouldn’t see each other until next Monday again. It worked when Gran had you both show up together, so I figured it would work for me.”
“It’s more complicated than just getting us alone to talk.” Monica looked at Ethan. “Back me up here anytime.”
Ethan merely shrugged, the fabric of his shirt releasing its boozy odor in the air. “No harm ever came from talking.”
“Okay, so you guys have about twenty minutes until the lunch bell rings and everyone heads this way.” Trina put her cell phone in the back pocket of her jeans. “I have to go back to class right now, but I’ll be in the cafeteria later if you need my advice.”
Advice for what? Monica thought. But as the door closed behind the girl, Monica wanted to call out and ask her to come back so she wouldn’t have to face Ethan alone.
“So what do you want to discuss first?” he asked, leaning a hip against the bathroom counter as though he was ready to settle in for the long haul.
A little girl wearing pigtails and a laminated hall pass around her neck shoved through the door and paused. She looked back and forth between Ethan and Monica before glancing up at the sign on the door that clearly read Girls.
“We were just leaving,” Ethan told the child as he cupped Monica’s elbow and steered her into the hall. She thought she’d gotten another reprieve, but then he added, “We can finish our discussion outside.”
* * *
When they got out to the parking lot, it was still drizzling and Ethan watched Monica clean the splatters off her glasses. “It’s really coming down, huh?”
“It’s barely a mist,” he pointed out. “Or are you so desperate to avoid me, you’re going to pretend we’re in a category four hurricane?”
“I haven’t been avoiding you.” She wrapped her arms around her waist and stared at the empty flagpole behind him.
“Okay, well I see we’re not going to get anywhere by actually talking about what’s going on.” Ethan’s lower lip curved into a frown as he nodded. “Let me know when you’re ready to have a conversation.”
He pulled the keys out of his pocket and Monica made a sputtering sound. “Are you sure you should be driving in your condition?”
“In what condition?” Ethan had seen the way she’d looked at him in disgust earlier when she’d walked inside the bathroom and took her first whiff of him. But he wanted to hear her say it out loud. She didn’t trust him.
“Oh come on, Ethan. You smell like you’ve been doing shots all morning.”
“No, I smell like I was dumping a bottle of bourbon down the toilet and a kitten tried to attack the toilet paper roll and knocked the contents all over me.”
“Why did you have a bottle of bourbon in the bathroom?”
“I found it when I was finally going through those boxes in an effort to get ‘stable’ for you.” Oh great. He’d just used air quotes. There was no pretending that he wasn’t completely off his rocker now. “But then I got a call from Trina and I practically flew over here.”
“Oh.”
“Oh?” Ethan moved both of his hands on his hips. “That’s all I get is an ‘oh’?”
“I’m sorry for thinking you had a relapse.” Her curls were getting tighter in the rain and she shoved a hand through them.
“I’m not going to pretend that it doesn’t hurt to know that you doubt me, Monica. And I’m not going to pretend that there’s no chance I’ll ever have a relapse. I’m a work in progress, okay? But at least I’m trying to put myself out there.”
“I’m having uncomplicated, mind-blowing, soul-reaching, earth-shattering sex with the most attractive man I’ve ever laid my eyes on,” she said, and Ethan felt the edges of his mouth reverse course and turn up into a grin. So she thought their sex was mind-blowing, too? He would’ve followed up on that last part, but she wasn’t done talking. “At least I thought it would be uncomplicated until all of my emotions got involved. Do you have any idea how outside of my comfort zone that is? You don’t think I’m putting myself out there, too?”
Ethan had to tamp down the pride rising in his chest so he could keep her talking. “I think you’re upset about your grandmother and you’re dealing with all this new stuff about your dad. But I also think it’s easier for you to hold me off at a distance.”
“Don’t you see that I have to keep you at a distance, Ethan? That I have to protect myself?”
“Protect yourself from what?”
“From falling in love with you!” she yelled in a very nonlibrarian way.
Ethan’s lungs seized at her admission, and then his pulse sprang back to life so quickly, his heart felt as if it was blasting against his rib cage. “Why would you want to stop doing that?”
“What if you left?” she asked, her voice no longer as confident as when she’d been yelling.
“What if you did?” he countered.
“Why would I leave?”
“I don’t know. Maybe for the same reasons you think I might. The past four weeks, you’ve been refusing to make any promises and commitments, yet that didn’t stop me from falling absolutely completely crazy in love with you.”
“But you’re a risk-taker, Ethan. I’m not like you.”
“Not when it comes to my emotions, I’m not. But I also know that I can’t stay safe and let life pass me by.”
“Are you saying that I’m letting life pass me by?”
“I believe it was your gran who said that.”
“But you clearly agree with her,” Monica accused.
“Listen. The other day, you asked me why I was attracted to you and I put it all out there, yet you still blew me off. My feelings weren’t enough for you. I wasn’t enough for you.”
“Of course you’re enough for me. You’re more than I have ever wanted. But happily-ever-afters are only in books. We need more than just a connection. Than just a physical attraction.”
“So you admit that you’re attracted to me?” Ethan exhaled. “At least that’s a start.”
“I think we established that on my staircase and then again in the closet behind the circulation desk at the library.” The dampness in the air coupled with the heat radiating from Monica’s blushing cheeks made her glasses steam up.
“That’s why you had sex with me.” He carefully took her glasses off and used his dry T-shirt under his flannel to wipe them clean before setting them back on her nose. “But why did you help me so much with Trina? Why did you share so much of yourself with me?”
Monica took a deep breath, then shuddered. “Because you’re strong and you’re resilient and you don’t give up. I love that when you’re completely out of your element, you still do your best to get things right. I love the fact that you try to understand Trina and where she’s coming from, rather than defend yourself or push her to see things your way. I love the fact that you go to visit a little old lady every day, even though she doesn’t know who you are most of the time, and that you patiently wait for your daughter at shopping malls and public restrooms despite the fact that you’d rather be skydiving off a cliff somewhere. I love the fact that when I’m in your arms, your eyes don’t look so empty anymore. And I love the fact that you completely proved me wrong about the kind of man you are.”
He stepped to her and brushed her hair away from her cheek. “You’re using the L-word an awful lot. Does that mean that you’re rethinking that whole no-promises, no-commitments thing?”
“I was rethinking it before I ever said it.” She put her hands on his shoulders and sighed. “I love you, Ethan Renault.”
The words floated around him, a sense of peace settling over him. He wanted to kiss her but he also wanted to stare at her and memorize the exact way she was looking at him right that second.
“I love you, too, Monica Alvarez,” he said, feeling the words all the way down to his bones. “I know that things in our lives are crazy and chaotic and between Trina and your gran, we don’t know what the next day will bring. All I can do is love you through it.”
Monica’s hands linked behind his neck and she pulled his head toward hers. “And all I can do is love you back.”
Epilogue
The morning of April 8 was sunny and bright. It was also exactly two months since Trina’s actual birth date, but Ethan insisted he wasn’t going to wait until the following year to celebrate his daughter. Monica and Trina hung decorations in the backyard while Ethan drove to Legacy Village to check Gran out for the day so she could attend the belated birthday party.
Trina had invited several kids from her class, but when word got out that Ethan was renting an inflatable obstacle course and a bungee jumping trampoline, everyone from the neighborhood wanted to come celebrate the eleven-year-old.
“Mija, this is exactly what this house needed,” her grandmother said, transferring a sleeping Tootie to the crook of her arm as she took the cup of frozen lemonade Monica brought her. “Children and friends and music and laughter. But why didn’t you ask me to cook the food?”
“Well, Ethan lives above Domino’s Deli and Mr. Domino offered to do the catering. Plus, I wanted you to sit back and enjoy the party.” Gran had been pretty with it since she’d arrived a couple of hours ago, but that didn’t mean that Monica was going to let her guard down when it came to sudden episodes. “How’re you feeling, Gran?”
“I’m about as good as you’d expect. Some days are better than others.”
“Do you hate it at Legacy Village? You don’t have to go back.”
“Actually, I rather enjoy it. Even when I feel like my old self, I enjoy it. You were always a quiet thing and, after your dad died, I had to keep to myself more. But I like people. I like being social and helping the other residents at the home. No offense, mija, but living at the house was so boring. You were always gone at work and I couldn’t drive or have any fun. It’s better that I’m there.”
“I miss you, though, Gran.” Tears filled Monica’s eyes and she hated that she sounded like a spoiled child. Especially since they were surrounded by so many people who’d come there for a party.
“You miss who I was,” her grandmother replied. “So do I. Unfortunately, I can’t be that person anymore.”
“Okay. But the house is pretty quiet without you.”
“Then do what you did today. Bring some life into it.”
“You are my life, Gran.”
“No, you need a real life. Invite Ethan and Trina to move in with you. They can even bring their little cat with them.”
Monica felt the heat climb her neck. It’d only been a few weeks since she and Ethan had admitted that they loved each other. She didn’t want to scare the guy off as soon as she got him. “I think Ethan and Trina are happy living at their apartment.”
“Actually—” Ethan sat down on one of the rented folding chairs next to them on the deck “—Trina hates the apartment and thinks it’s too plain. Even with the borrowed decorations. I’ve always loved the houses on this street, though. Especially this one. When I was doing work on the kitchen a few months ago, I kept envisioning a sunroom right over there off the nook.”
“You know, I always wanted one of those.” Gran’s eyes brightened. “I would’ve used it for a dance studio, but you could probably also make it a reading room for Monica and Trina.”
Ethan’s eyes locked on Monica as he took a chug of his own cup of frozen lemonade. When he set the drink down, he revealed that sexy smirk above that even sexier chin dimple. “I’m willing to make anything that Monica and Trina want.”
Trina ran up to the deck right at that second, and passed Gran a piece of chocolate birthday cake. “Did you convince them yet?”
“I’m working on it, mija.” Gran stage-whispered to the girl.
“Convince us of what?” Monica narrowed her eyes.
“You know, since you’re building things, I also always wanted my own gazebo. Right over there.” Gran pointed to the spruce tree in the corner. “It doesn’t have to be as big as the one in Town Square Park, but something big enough for...oh...let’s say a wedding ceremony? Think you can build one of those wedding gazebos, Ethan?”
Monica felt the heat rushing up her face and scooted to the edge of her seat, facing her grandmother so she could tell her to stop making such crazy suggestions. But Ethan’s voice interrupted her.
“One wedding gazebo coming up.” When Monica turned back around, Ethan was down on his knee, holding out a small box.
Everyone in the backyard went completely silent. Except for a lycra-clad Freckles, who’d just been launched on the bungee jump and was shrieking with laughter. Monica’s stomach boinged just as hard.
She looked down at the ring box and then back at his sapphire-blue eyes, no longer hollow, but full of laughter and love and hope. “Is that...? Are you...?”
“I love you, Monica Alvarez. And if you marry me and promise me a life of stability, I’ll promise you a life of adventure.”
All she could do was nod and Ethan didn’t bother putting the ring on her finger because he was too busy lifting her into
his arms, her cowboy boots coming off the ground.
A cheer rose from everyone in the backyard and Trina jumped up and down before extending her hand to Gran’s and giving the older woman a high five.
Theirs wouldn’t be the typical family, and Monica knew they’d have their share of ups and downs down the road. But there was nobody else she’d rather have by her side.
* * *
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