Young Revelations (Young Series)

by Kimble, W. R.

  “At the risk of starting an argument,” Samantha says, using her finger to wipe up a bit of the whipped cream on her plate. I watch longingly as she sucks the topping off her finger. She looks over at me as she realizes why I’m practically drooling over the ridiculous desire to be a finger and quickly uses a napkin to clean off the remaining whipped cream. “Claire says you were drinking again.”

  I sigh, cutting into my pie and taking a bite. “Like I said,” I begin around my dessert, “it’s been a long, miserable few weeks.”

  “Matt,” she says in exasperation.

  “I know,” I say, cutting her off before she can lecture. “Though I pretty much depleted the liquor supply at both the house and work, what was left has been dumped down the drain since Claire visited. I was starting to scare myself anyway.”

  “How?” she whispers.

  Looking over at her, I know I need to be honest, but this isn’t something I want to share with anyone. “There were a few nights that I wondered how much it would take to drink myself to death,” I admit, unable to look away from my plate. “Or I thought about taking the boat out into the middle of the lake and just jumping in. I had other thoughts, but it’s nothing you need to hear.” I only say that because she’s looking at me with such horror in her eyes that she doesn’t even seem to realize she’s about to dump her pie on her lap. I lean over and take the plate, placing it on the coffee table. “I’m not having those thoughts anymore, if you’re wondering. I think I’ve managed to snap myself out of that.”

  “Tell me this is about more than just me leaving,” she whispers, her tone begging.

  “It’s everything,” I tell her, though I’m not sure how that is supposed to make her feel any better; her ragged breathing suggests she’s bordering on tears. “You’re in no way responsible for my actions, Samantha. That’s all me. Even if you had stayed, I’d still be dealing with losing Leo, and maybe it’s best that you and Tyler weren’t around for that.” Taking a deep breath, I’m determined to get this conversation back on the right path. “I wanted you to know that I’ve been seeing somebody.”

  Her brow furrows as she meets my gaze and the only description for the expression currently on her face is one of disbelief and incredulity. Her mouth drops open slightly and she almost looks angry. It takes me a moment of replaying what I’ve just said to realize why she’s reacting this way.

  I let out a huff of laughter, shaking my head. “No,” I say firmly. “That is not what I meant.”

  She seems skeptical. “You might want to pick better words then,” she instructs me quietly.

  “You’re right,” I reply, trying not to laugh at her. I think it would only make her angrier at this point. “What I meant to say is that I’ve been seeing a therapist.”

  After a few moments, her expression begins to clear, though she still looks suspicious. “Is this seeing a therapist in a professional capacity or personal?”

  I smirk. “Definitely professional,” I say, nodding. “Though my therapist is a woman, she scares the shit out of me.”

  “Oh,” she says, turning to better look at me. “When did this start?”

  “Last week.” I hesitate slightly. “Marcus recommended her to me the night we went after Tyler. He thought it couldn’t hurt for someone else to tell me I’m an inconsiderate dick and so far he’s been right.”

  “You’re not an inconsiderate dick,” she tries to tell me, smiling.

  I raise an eyebrow. “Dr. Morris begs to differ, though she hasn’t stated it in quite those terms.”

  “What do you discuss?”

  I shrug. “Everything. Me, my business, my family, my trust issues, you, Tyler… The list goes on.”

  “And do you think it’s helping?”

  “It’s starting to,” I say softly. “I’ve come to a lot of realizations I wouldn’t have come to without her prodding. She’s good. She has a way of discussing topics I’ve thought about a hundred times and makes me see them from different angles. You’d like her; she doesn’t put up with my bullshit and she’s not intimidated by my charm, good looks, or money.”

  “I like her already,” she murmurs. I grin at her. “I assume you’ve discussed our relationship.” I nod. “Have you come to any conclusions?”

  I smile sadly. “Only the ones about me being nothing without you and my need to fight for you and prove to you I trust you.”

  “Do you, though?” she challenges. I open my mouth to speak, but she shakes her head. “Matt, the night after the engagement party, I heard you talking about Natalie while you thought I was asleep. I heard how you believe she brought you out of the depression of losing me and how she saved you and all of that. I heard you say how you’re terrified that the moment you turn your back, I’m going to run off with Tom again. How is that trusting me? I have dropped everything for you, several times, because I want to be with you, but I can’t seem to convince you I’m not going anywhere. And then you don’t believe me when I’m trying to tell you the woman you seem to trust above me is the one who kidnapped me and your son. So then I have to start wondering if I can trust you. And right now, I honestly don’t know if I can.”

  I feel my eyes close and my head fall back against the couch. “I don’t know how to fix this, Samantha,” I whisper, unable to hold back my worst fears. “You are beyond right to not trust me. I’ve done way too much to hurt you and I can’t seem to stop. I want you. I don’t want to lose you. Ever. And I know you deserve better treatment than what you’ve been getting from me lately; if you give me the chance, I can rectify that.”

  “How, Matt?” she asks wearily, rubbing her temples like she has a headache. “We’ve been through this how many times now? And every time, we end up right back here.”

  “Not this time,” I promise her, scooting closer to her. The fact that she doesn’t immediately back away gives me a bit more confidence to reach out for one of her hands. “One more chance, Sam. That’s all I ask. If I somehow fuck this up, then that’s it. But until you can say four words to me and mean them, I’m not going to stop trying to get you back.”

  She looks at me in confusion. “What words?” she asks suspiciously.

  I smile, rubbing my thumb against her knuckles. “Very simple, very small words,” I say. With my free hand, I count them out as I say them. “I. Don’t. Love. You.”

  Her entire body tenses and her eyes widen. I know what I’m asking her to confirm or deny, and I know there is a chance that this will backfire spectacularly on me, but I’m fairly confident of the outcome. “Matt…” she whispers.

  “If you really feel you and I shouldn’t be together for the rest of our lives, that is your out. But I will tell you now, Samantha, I have never loved you more than I love you right now, all because you’re giving me a chance to be in the same room with you so we can have a conversation. Regardless of that, if you say those words to me, I will back off and let you live your life however you wish to live it. If you still want some sort of relationship with me, even if it’s just in terms of our children, fine. If you decide it would be better to cut me out altogether… Well, I can’t deny that will probably damn near destroy me, but that’s your choice. Four words, Sam. That’s it.”

  I wait for her to speak. And wait. And wait. And wait some more. She’s staring at me with her mouth half open as though she’s trying to speak the words, but she can’t. And when she shakes her head, I know where I stand. “I can’t say that to you, Matt,” she whispers. “We’d both know it’s a damn lie.”

  “Thought so,” I say, trying to keep the cockiness to a minimum. The way she rolls her eyes tells me I didn’t manage it as well as I’d hoped. “Go on a date with me.”

  “What?” she asks after a moment, a grin on her lips.

  “A date,” I repeat. “You, me, dinner, a movie, dancing… Whatever you want. Let me take you out. I’d love to suggest a coffee date, but given your pregnancy with our daughter, that’s probably not the best idea. We haven’t really had much time to
ourselves with everything going on and Dr. Morris suggested we reconnect. What do you think?”

  Her mouth opens and closes a couple times, and eventually she rolls her eyes at me. “A date?” I nod. She sighs, thinking over my suggestion and I don’t know how to place the expression in her eyes. “Okay,” she says softly. “A date. One date. And I’ll have my pepper spray, so you’d better be on your best behavior.”

  I laugh out loud at her words and she giggles along with me. “I’ll keep that in mind,” I snicker. “Though I believe you threatened me with pepper spray before and never actually did it.”

  “That was before I actually knew what sort of trouble you are,” she grumbles, smiling.

  I can’t resist the urge to lean in and place a lingering kiss on her cheek, and I certainly don’t miss the sharp intake of breath she makes at the contact. “It’s getting late,” I tell her, pulling away when all I want to do is drag her upstairs. “I should get home.”

  The look of disappointment on her face makes my heart soar. “You’re leaving?”

  I nod. “That was the plan,” I murmur, bringing her fingers to my lips for no other reason than they are in the vicinity anyway.

  Reluctantly, it seems, she nods and we manage to stand. “Because I’m looking forward to it and don’t want to wait longer than I have to, what are you doing Saturday night?”

  She smiles as we walk towards the front door. “I think Claire and I were planning on sitting around in our pajamas eating ice cream and watching chick flicks all night. If you have other suggestions, I’m willing to hear them out…”

  “I’m sure I can come up with something to beat out ice cream and pajamas. Though,” I say, turning to her with a wicked grin, “if there is going to be a pillow fight, I might suggest we stay here; I wouldn’t want to take away from your fun.”

  She pushes me with her shoulder and I laugh, throwing my arm around her shoulder as we walk to the front door. “Pig,” she comments teasingly. I chuckle and lean against the door. “The pillow fight was last week actually. Sorry you missed it.”

  I roll my eyes. “I always miss the good stuff…” I complain without any real conviction to my tone, mostly because I love how she’s joking with me again. “So Saturday, then?”

  She nods, biting at her lip and hugging her arms around herself. “Saturday,” she repeats in a whisper.

  I step forward a little closer. “And tell Tyler that though I’ve been a horribly neglectful father to him these last few weeks, I intend to make that up to him as well.”

  “In those exact words?” she asks with a raised eyebrow.

  “Well, I’d appreciate it if you’d sugarcoat it slightly, but whatever you feel is necessary…”

  She smiles. “I’ll tell him,” she promises.

  “Thank you. Now I really do need to go. I’m sure I could stand here with you all night and procrastinate, but we both need to sleep off the turkey and pie. Wonderful job on the pie, by the way,” I praise.

  “I wish I could take the credit, but Claire and I totally forgot to by the pumpkin pie ingredients, so the one you ate today was store bought,” she admits.

  “I won’t tell anyone if you don’t,” I say, grinning.

  “If you’re trying to get brownie points with me, I think that’ll work.”

  I laugh again, this time more quietly since we’ve somehow closed the distance between our bodies to within inches. “Happy Thanksgiving, Sam,” I whisper, bending just enough to press my lips to hers. She responds tentatively, moving her lips in tandem with mine and if we keep up like this, we’ll be sneaking up to the guestroom for a repeat performance of our last late night encounter in Claire’s house. Somehow I don’t think she would appreciate that too much… I pull away. “Goodnight.”

  Her eyes closed, she steps aside so I can open the door. “Goodnight,” she whispers.

  With utmost reluctance, I force myself off the front porch and keep walking to my car, even though I know she’s watching my every step.

  25

  I have no idea how long I lay awake in bed the night before thinking about everything that transpired yesterday. Right after Matthew left, I headed up to my room, thinking now that we’ve had that very long overdue conversation, I might actually get some decent rest. That wasn’t the case; I lay facing the bedroom window and watched the snow fall even harder than before. Eventually I could no longer resist the urge to send him a text to see if he got home all right. In hindsight, if I’d been thinking a little more clearly before he’d left, I probably should have demanded that he stay the night. Obviously in the end I didn’t and there were a couple reasons for that—if Matthew was staying in the same house, I’m not sure I would be able to resist anything further than the sweet kiss we had before he left; and today is my next pregnancy checkup. I debated mentioning it to him several times yesterday, and I expected him to mention it as well—throughout my pregnancy with Tyler, Matthew knew my doctor appointment schedule better than I did. I can’t imagine things would be any different this time around. But he didn’t mention it. And neither did I.

  In all honesty, I’m not looking forward to going to this appointment alone. Matthew never missed a single one before and I hate that he’s going to miss this one. It won’t be much longer until I’ll be at the point of my pregnancy when I went into labor with Tyler and as much as I want to believe this time will be different, I’m terrified it will happen again and this time we won’t be as lucky.

  Matthew responded to my text almost immediately to put me at ease that he got home safely. He also thanked me for our conversation, though I’m not entirely certain why. I wanted that talk as much as he did and to my slight surprise, I actually felt better afterwards than I thought I would. To say I was surprised when he told me he was seeing a therapist is an understatement. He always maintained therapy was for the weak and since he was anything but, he had no use for such things. Not that I ever thought he needed therapy, but given everything that’s happened, it’s probably a good idea for him. Though I can’t deny I’m a little disappointed that he’s talking to a stranger rather than me. I roll my eyes at myself, knowing at some point I need to let go of this whole selfish need for him to confide in me and only me. I understand why he’s talking to a therapist, and I’m beyond happy that he seems to be making some pretty decent progress.

  And I’m really thrilled he’s not actually seeing another woman. I think I would have snapped if he had been.

  As I get ready for my appointment and realize the weather isn’t clearing up the way I’d hoped it would before my drive to the doctor’s office, I feel like this is somehow yet another new start for us and this time, it might actually work out. He and I both know without doubt that I could never tell him I don’t love him, and while I realize he’s using that fact for manipulation in getting his way, I realize this is his way of reminding me that he knows I love him and that will never change. I just have to wonder what it took for him to get to the point that he actually truly believed that…

  And of course I’m wondering what he might have in mind for this date he proposed tomorrow night. Knowing him, we could be flying to Italy for dinner, Times Square to catch a show on Broadway, then somewhere on the west coast to see the sunset—or a different country altogether to see the sunrise, depending on his mood. He wants us to reconnect, which is what I’ve been trying to get us to do since we got back together, and apparently it’s taken a complete stranger to convince him. It’s a win, and one that I’m trying not to question much. This is what I wanted from him, after all, and complaining about his methods would be counterproductive and just plain ridiculous.

  I head downstairs in search of living beings, locating Danny and his kids in the living room, all four of them sitting on the floor with bowls of cereal and engrossed in some cartoon program. I’m surprised Tyler isn’t with them, but amused to see my lawyer brother-in-law on the floor in his pajamas and messy hair. I hear voices in the kitchen and head that way, stopping dead in m
y tracks. I feel like I’ve been thrown back in time several months to the morning following Matthew’s late night visit to my bedroom when we had a long overdue conversation about our feelings for each other, then made love. It was the night our daughter was conceived. Just like that morning, Claire and Matthew are leaning opposite one another against the kitchen counters, each of them holding a cup of coffee in their hand as though this had been planned for weeks. And Tyler has joined them, sitting on the counter beside his father nursing a glass of orange juice as though he’s trying to mimic Matthew in every way. I have to say, he’s doing a damn good job.

  “Matt,” I hear myself say.

  He spins around, a huge smile on his face. “Good morning, beautiful,” he says. “How’d you sleep?”

  I’m not sure I can formulate a response as I’m too busy thinking that the one thing I wanted this morning was for Matthew to be here and go with me to my doctor’s appointment. And here he is. But then again, neither of us mentioned the appointment yesterday—probably an oversight on my part, since I’m the one who so badly wants him there—so he could be here for any reason. He could be foraging for Thanksgiving leftovers or hoping to spend some time with Tyler or do something around the house that would only manage to injure Danny if attempted. “What are you doing here?” I ask in a whisper.

  His smile falters slightly and he shoots a glance to Claire who quickly excuses herself to join everyone in the living room. When she passes me, after helping Tyler off the counter and leading him out, I swear I hear her murmur something along the lines of “be nice” before she disappears. I ignore her and look back to Matthew, his expression suddenly uncertain. “I thought I’d come have breakfast with you and Tyler, and since I’m already here and the weather is only supposed to get worse,” he says softly, walking around the island counter and leaning against it right in front of me. “I thought, if it was okay with you of course, that I might drive you to your doctor’s appointment today…”