“But we are going to make this work.” That was the one thing I knew. Nothing else mattered.
Her smile was soft, knowing, and she reached out to push back the lock of hair stuck to my cheek. “I know you will.” She laughed a small laugh. “Can’t believe you’re going to make me a grandma.”
Fidgeting, I looked to the wall covered in pictures of the past, across the faces of the people I loved. There was a tiny snapshot, the color faded with age, Christopher and Jared and me with mud smeared all over our faces, grinning at the camera. There was so much joy there… and I’d found that joy again.
I turned back to her. “I know things aren’t always going to be easy with him. But he’s worth it.”
“Then that’s all that matters.” She stepped back, wiping under her eyes and sniffling. She tipped her head toward the door. “Go and get him, Aly. He shouldn’t be out there by himself.”
“Thank you, Mom.”
I started toward the door, and she reached out and stopped me. Over my shoulder, I looked at her. Lines deepened on her forehead and the words dropped in a quick whisper. “I love him, too, Aly. I want you to know that. No matter what has been said, he has and will always be a part of this family.”
Thankfulness thudded my heart. And I just nodded, my small smile saying everything that both of us wanted to say.
I slipped out the door. Night had chased away the muted warmth of the November sun, and a chill pebbled on my arms as I stepped out into the darkness. I crossed my arms across my chest to block out the cold. Quietly I edged down the sidewalk leading away from my parents’ front door.
The night was heavy and quiet. A gentle breeze whistled through the trees. Branches rustled, creaked as they brushed against the side of the house.
My footsteps were light as I walked down the driveway and past my car, to the sidewalk lining the street.
To the left, he was there, slouching where he leaned his lower back against the top of the short, wooden plank railing fence that edged the boundary of the neighbor’s yard next to my parents’.
Directly across from his old house.
His long legs were stretched out in front of him with his feet planted on the ground. Staring ahead, he lifted a half-spent cigarette to his mouth. The red glowed bright as he drew it in. His hand fell to his side, twitching, his head dropping toward the ground in the same movement. Seconds passed before he turned his face to the night sky. Smoke curled above his head as he slowly blew it out. He seemed to watch it dissolve into nothing as it floated away.
Sadness poured from him.
God, I hated seeing him this way.
Cautiously, I slipped forward, never looking away from him as I approached. I wrapped myself around his back. Pressing my face into his spine, I fastened my hands around his stomach. The wooden fence bit against my thighs as I flattened myself to this beautiful man.
I wanted to sink into him, to search for all the guilt and shame inside him. Rid him of it.
Because when he fled from my parents’ house, it was the only thing I could see.
Jared released a weighted breath. He dropped his cigarette to the ground and toed it out. For the longest time, silence took us over. We swam in it. Tension thickened in the crisp fall air.
I knew he was hurt. Those words had cut him deep. I wanted to shield him from them, protect him, but this was just another obstacle we had to face. All I could do was support him, hold him the way I was now, my touch a promise that I didn’t believe the accusations my father had spewed.
Finally, he spoke, the words a strained groan. “Fuck, Aly.” Harshly, he shook his head. It seemed in surrender. “I knew I shouldn’t come here. I don’t belong here. Your dad is right.” He slumped farther forward in a blatant attempt to move away. “Every fucking word of it… he’s right.”
His pain pushed into my spirit, and I wound my arms tighter around him, unwilling to allow him to drive any distance between us. The words came as a muted whisper as I begged at his back, “No, he’s not. He doesn’t know you, not the way I do. He’s just surprised.” I blinked into the darkness, trying to make sense of what had just gone down inside. “Shocked,” I added. “There’s a big difference.”
Even though my voice lowered, my tone strengthened. “And even if he really believed what he said, it doesn’t change anything.” I hugged him closer, my cheek pressed flat against his shoulder blade. “Do you remember what I told you the night you came back? I love all of it, Jared. I love all of you. And what I think is what’s important, not him or anyone else. It’s just you and me. Nothing else matters.”
Jared brought both his hands over mine that were clasped in his shirt, and we fell back into silence.
I didn’t say anything, because I could feel it bubbling inside of him, a swelling of thoughts and emotions brimming at the surface. Fighting for release.
Plastering myself to his back, I hugged him closer. Stood behind him. Holding him. Giving him whatever support I could.
A palpable tremor rolled through him. “How long have they been gone?” The words came on a stuttered breath, on all the pain it took him to force the question from his mouth. Immediately I knew he was asking about his father and his sister.
I didn’t know how I managed to pull him closer, but I did. “Jared,” I said, wavering on what to say because this was something I didn’t know, something I hadn’t even really considered because it’d happened so long ago. But Jared had been estranged from his family for longer. “Did you…” I chanced through a whisper, “Did you know about your grandma?”
Jared gripped my hands harder. “Yeah,” he said, sorrow weaving through his tone. I felt him quake before he continued to speak. “They brought me in to see this social-worker lady when I was in juvie… I’d been in there a long time… I don’t know… like a year and a half or something. Had been in another fight the day before and I figured I’d done it that time and they were finally going to give me a real punishment, send me away for good, but instead she sat me down and told me my grandma was gone. Said she could arrange to get me to the funeral.” His voice cracked. “Fuck.” He ran a shaky hand through his hair. “I just couldn’t go, Aly. I couldn’t. I didn’t belong there, either.”
A sob thickened in my throat. Jared had been through so much. Lost so much.
I pushed around the sorrow. “It happened during the second summer you were gone. Your sister had been living with your grandparents after the accident, but when your grandma passed, your grandpa brought your sister back here to your dad. I guess he didn’t think he could take care of her without your grandma. Two days later, the house was for sale. They moved about a month later.”
I could hear him gritting his teeth, like he could grind away the panic that came with talking about his family. “You know where they went?”
I shook my head against his back. “No. He still didn’t have much to do with my parents. He promised my mom he’d be in contact, but he never was.”
Remorse tightened Jared’s voice. “I haven’t seen my sister since she was nine.” He looked away, his head bobbing like he was calculating. “God… she has to be like fifteen now.”
Terror filled me with the assertion I had to make, but I was more terrified of what would happen if I didn’t voice it. “Jared, you need to find your father.”
My gut burned with this truth. Jared needed to face his father, face the past, if he was ever going to heal.
“No.” The word came harsh and fierce, with a brute force that knocked loose the breath in my lungs. He squeezed my hands like he was trying to soften the blow. “No, Aly,” he said again through a ragged murmur. “I told you before, I ruined his life. Not going back there. What’s done is done.”
“Jared, I —”
His hands clamped down on mine. “Please… Aly… you need to let it go. For me, I need you to let it go.”
“Okay,” I said with the greatest reluctance, because nothing inside me agreed. Ultimately Jared would have to face his fami
ly. I knew it.
I thought maybe he did, too. He just wasn’t ready yet.
A heavy sigh puffed from his lips, before he slowly turned around to face me. Chills rushed through my body when he set his cold palm on my face. I leaned into it, welcomed the freezing burn.
“I’m sorry, Aly,” he whispered, running his thumb under my eye.
“What are you apologizing for?”
“For being me… for not being better for you. You deserve someone you can bring home without it ending in a war zone in your house.”
“You are the best thing for me.” There was no being better. “Remember it’s just you and me. Nothing else matters.”
His strong hand spread out against my still flat belly where our child grew. Blue eyes flamed when they locked on mine. “Just you and me and this.”
Everything softened, the tension, the worry, the shame that had seethed through his veins.
It was Jared’s own promise. An oath.
We wouldn’t let any of this stand in our way.
“Just you and me and this,” I promised back.
Jared glanced toward my parents’ house, before he settled the questions on his face on me. “What you said back there… about being a nurse. Were you serious about that?”
“Yeah.”
He frowned. “You never wanted it?” he asked again. Confusion tipped his head to the side.
I shook my head. “No. I mean, it’ll be a good job, it’s just not what I really want.”
“Then what do you want?”
Redness rushed to my cheeks as embarrassment set in, and I dropped my forehead to his chest to hide my face. “It’s stupid,” I mumbled.
He ran his hands up and down my arms, warming me up, inside and out. “Baby, nothing you say could possibly be stupid.”
My face was still buried in his shirt when I let the admission bleed out. “I want to draw.” I almost choked over it. And I hated it, wanting something so desperately and knowing it was an impossibility, a foolish idea floundering through my mind. One that had been there since I was a child.
I almost wished I could take the statement back.
Jared didn’t say anything. He just kept rubbing his hands up and down my arms.
I chanced peeking up at him. “See, it’s stupid, right?”
His expression was tender, his voice just as soft. “No, Aly, it’s not stupid. Not at all.”
In thought, he glanced away, before he brought his attention back to me. “We should get our own place, yeah?”
An unexpected thrill raced through me. I chewed at my lip, trying to contain it. I probably shouldn’t be so excited over the prospect, but I was. The thought of Jared and me having our own place, sharing our lives. Growing it. Well, I couldn’t think of anything more appealing.
A blush crept to my face when I thought of what we’d get to do with all that privacy.
I fiddled with a button on his shirt. “Before you came back, I was thinking I needed to get my own apartment or something. I figured a baby running around the apartment might put a cramp in Christopher’s style.”
Jared chuckled, pulling me closer to keep me warm, wrapping his strong arms fully around me. “Oh, I’m sure that asshole would find a way to use it to his advantage, sucker in a few more girls with a cute little baby.”
I couldn’t help my laughter. “Yeah, he probably would, wouldn’t he?” Sobering, I splayed my hand across Jared’s firm chest. “But I like that idea… like, a lot.”
Jared nuzzled his face into mine. “That’s good… because I think I really like the idea, too.”
And I was grinning, loving everything about this man. How could I not?
Stepping back, I took both his hands in mine. “Come on. Let’s go back inside. Warm up and get a piece of pumpkin pie. I know it’s your favorite.”
He pulled away. The grimace that lined his face was full of regret. “I’m sorry, Aly, but I’m not going back in there. Your dad doesn’t want me here and I can at least give him that amount of respect.”
Sometimes Jared shocked me with how truly good he was inside. The amazing man hiding beneath all that shame. One day he would see it. He had to. Jared needed to see himself the way I saw him.
Of course, my father’s hatred didn’t help things.
And it really sucked that it had to be this way, but for the time being, I could accept that it was. My father was my father. I couldn’t change him, sway what he saw. He was the one who was missing out, the one shutting Jared and me and our baby out of his life.
I pushed off the heaviness that weighed in the air and on our chests. “I think I have a much better idea, anyway,” I said with a smile touching one side of my mouth.
Jared smirked, and a salacious grin spread across his face. “Oh, you do, huh? And just what would that be?” Suggestion rode on his voice, his fingertips flicking up to brush along the bare skin exposed over the neckline of my dress.
“You’ll see.” A tease filled my words. Jared was so obvious. And I was thinking Not a chance, because it was really stinking cold out. This boy was just going to have to wait until we got home.
I gathered his hand and lifted it high, leading him down the length of the short fence to its end at the Schmidt’s driveway. As soon as we were free of the barrier separating us, I tugged him behind me, running ahead. I dragged him up the sidewalk to the old rickety fence backing the neighborhood.
Over my shoulder I tossed him a wide smile, before I ducked down, maneuvered around, and wedged myself through the hole in the wooden fence, all the while still hanging on to his hand while I whisked us away to our special place.
A throaty chuckle rumbled from his mouth and floated out to embrace my senses in an inundating swell of joy. My heart pounded as he squeezed himself through the hole that led to the center of our world, where our dreams had been bred, we’re we’d discovered and grown into the people we were.
Tall, dead grasses grew up in the field. They swished and snagged at our clothing as we passed.
I led him right to the base of our tree. Dropping his hand, I wedged my boot onto the first rung of wood that had been hammered into the trunk and began pulling myself up to our fort housed in the branches above.
“Aly, are you crazy?” Jared asked, full of concern and worry, though there was an undertone of laughter in his words. “What if you fall?”
I hiked myself up one more step and looked down at the beautiful man staring up at me. The man I trusted with my life. “Then you’ll catch me.”
Something so perfect transformed his expression, a look of devotion so sincere it was enough to fuel all the hopes I had for this life. “Yeah, I will,” he mumbled, so quietly I was sure he was only talking to himself.
I climbed the rest of the way up and settled onto the decaying wooden floor. Those large branches grew tall, stretching toward the sky. Jared hoisted himself up onto the old sheet of plywood in one swift motion. He scooted up beside me and rested his back on a thick branch that helped to support our fort, this place made of fairy tales and hopes and dreams.
They all came crashing back to me now.
Vibrant. Brilliant. Finally within my reach.
Jared pulled me against his side, and I nestled my head on his shoulder and sank into his warmth.
Our breaths were just barely visible in the cool air.
We stared up through the barren branches of the tree. Stars blinked where they dotted the sky.
Everything slowed, my heart contented.
Jared’s arms were the best place to be.
His gentle gaze slipped all over my face. A caress. “I love you, Aly Moore. You know that, don’t you?”
I reached up and cupped one side of his face. His fire burned my skin, the connection we shared greater than anything that should be possible. “Of course I know that.”
I knew it long before he knew it himself.
TEN
Aleena
Anxious hands kneaded the steering wheel, the numbers st
amped across Jared’s knuckles prominent, his fingers bristling with unspent energy. He sat in the driver’s seat of my car, cautious as he made his way through the heavy afternoon traffic on the freeway. He cast me a sidelong glance.
That same stirring of excitement I felt in my stomach danced all over Jared’s gorgeous face, but it seemed amplified a thousand times, this carefree hope so evident in the searing blue of his eyes.
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