by Jay McLean
Becca: I’m here, but I think you gave me the wrong address.
Josh: What are you looking at right now?
Becca: Nothing really. There’s a fence and some trees.
Josh: Is the fence green?
Becca: Yes.
Josh: Drive up the driveway and park at the bend of the arch just by the front door.
Becca: Is this someone’s house?
Josh: Just go. Tommy’s waiting, he’s excited to see you.
With that image in mind, I put the car back in gear, and steer into and up the long driveway, parking where Josh told me to. There are no other cars in sight, but I figure there might be a valet inside who’ll move it later.
Becca: Okay. I’m here. Do I just go inside? Is it fancy? I’m not dressed for fancy.
Josh: Just hurry up. We’re waiting, and I’m starving!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I calculate twelve steps to get to the front door of what looks (at least to me) to be a mansion. I push down on the handle slowly and peek inside. The place is empty. And I’m not talking empty of people, I’m talking empty.
No furniture, nothing on the walls, nothing.
Nothing but dozens of pictures littered on the floor.
I squint, trying to make them out, and gasp when I realize they’re pictures of Grams, of me, of Josh, and of Tommy. I step inside and pick one up, my heart racing, my hand going to my mouth. With shaky hands and tear-filled eyes, I pick up another, and then another, following the trail from the foyer, through the living room, into the kitchen and out the back patio where more pictures await. I breathe for what seems like the first time since I opened the door, letting the cold air hit my lungs, reminding me that I’m alive, though I’m pretty sure I left my heart beating somewhere by the front door. I glance down by my feet and take in the next image before picking it up. It’s of Grams and Tommy sitting on the steps leading to Josh’s apartment. He’s handing her flowers, clearly picked from her garden, and she’s smiling… the kind of smile that took hold of the atmosphere and made everything as bright and happy as she felt. I follow the photograph down the patio steps and into the soft dewy grass. I keep my head lowered, picking up every single picture and studying them a moment before going to the next. The further I move, the pictures begin to change. Josh and Tommy together. Me and Josh together. Me and Tommy together. Until I get to one of all three of us and I pick it up and stare at it the longest. It’s one Josh had taken on his phone from the sand-stealing night at the beach. The night of the first kiss, of the first shared feelings we’d kept secret, simmering just below the surface. Tommy looks so young. We all do. My gaze moves, searching for the next picture, but there isn’t one there, and when I see what’s in place of it, my breath catches, and everything stops.
Everything.
Josh and Tommy stand side by side, in matching gray suits… beneath the arbor Josh had made my grandmother for her sixty-fifth birthday. I swallow forcefully and let the tears fall as I look at the arbor, and at them, then at our parents standing beside them. Then something strange happens. Something I can’t explain. A force pushes me forward, like hands on my back, urging me toward them, and I move… one foot in front of the other, my hand still covering my mouth. I exhale a shaky breath and stop a few feet away, knowing, but not really believing that all this is happening and it’s happening to me. I’m a sobbing mess by the time Josh takes my left hand in his. “Hi,” he whispers.
“Love,” I whisper back, because it’s the only thing I can say, the only thing I feel.
He smiles, but beneath that, I can see the nerves, the fear, and I want to assure him that he has nothing to be fearful of, but he hasn’t yet asked and maybe I’m wrong… Maybe I’m jumping to conclusions. But then he pulls out a ring from the pocket of his slacks, a giant square emerald surrounded by diamonds. He clears his throat and takes a deep breath, his eyes glazed and his voice soft when he says, “Remember that night when I told you I wanted you back, and I asked you for a sign that you felt the same way?”
I nod quickly and wipe the tears from my eyes because I want to see everything. I want to see him.
“Do you remember kissing me?”
I nod again.
“I went out the next day and got you this ring because I knew…”
I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I can’t anything.
“…I knew we’d eventually be here. I’ve been carrying it around with me ever since, waiting for the right time…”
I look over at my dad, a man who stepped up and took me in, no questions asked. Then I look over at Ella, a woman who loves me as her own. And then to Tommy… my best friend. “Now, Daddy?” he asks, pulling out a plastic, green ring from his pocket.
Josh’s eyes penetrate mine, searching, questioning, reminiscing. Then he smiles, allowing me to drown in the joy of our memories “Now, Buddy.”
In sync, they get down on one knee, each holding one of my hands.
I force time to stand still so my mind—my heart—can capture the moment.
Josh places the ring on the tip of my finger, and the words leave his mouth, each one spoken with purpose, with clarity, with confidence. “Coast with us, Emerald Eyes?”
Epilogue
—Becca—
The house with the green fence and the long arch driveway was ours. Josh said he’d been in town for a whole week prior to my awards night, dealing with realtors and finding us the perfect space. And it was perfect. A little on the big side, but Josh said it was the only house he could find that had everything he wanted: a basement apartment for my dad to stay in when he was home from work so he didn’t have to pay rent for his old house, a small cottage for his mom at the back of the property by the pond. Yes, a pond! He didn’t want to leave his mom alone in North Carolina, and having her with us meant she could be close to Tommy and help out when he was traveling—which he did a lot less of. He didn’t want me carrying the weight or the so-called burden of taking care of Tommy once I was done with classes and work, and he still wanted me to enjoy being a college student, drinking at the bar with my friends until the early hours of the morning. I appreciated that, as much as I appreciated him.
Tommy enrolled at the local elementary school and started attending actual classes with actual kids, meaning he had an actual routine to live by. It was hard on him at first, not being the center of attention, and mixing with kids his own age, but after a while, he settled in, and a few months later, Natalie and Justin bought their first house as newlyweds only four blocks away. They wanted to be close to Tommy, and Tommy—he couldn’t be happier.
Ella, though—she was going out of her mind with boredom. Even though she worked at Say Something, running the art therapy classes with me and managing the sales of my work through Views Of Emeralds, she still couldn’t find enough things to occupy her time. So one night, we sat down, just her and me while Tommy was spending the weekend with his mother, and decided to start the Walk For Chaz Charity, a sub-section of the Henry Warden Foundation. After a few glasses of what we declared “Jesus Juice,” we had a plan set out. So, every four months for the past two years, we collect donations from Josh’s sponsors and hand them out to the less fortunate. We have one branch here, one in North Carolina run by Josh’s aunt Kim—Josh’s old garage apartment being the headquarters. We decided to lease out Grams’s house and give the profits to her church. Josh and I found the perfect tenant. A seventeen-year-old single father who stepped up to take care of his daughter. Josh has never admitted it, and I’ll never ask, but I highly doubt our “tenant” has ever paid rent for that house. Still, the church seems to get a check once a month from Grams’s estate—an estate she left in Tommy’s name for when he turns twenty-one. We also have a branch in California, the heart of the skate scene, run by Nico’s crazy grandmother who, by the way, loves the “Jesus Juice” as much as my Grams did.
After a year of living in the house, Josh built an indoor skate park on our land, because… why not, right? And because he wasn’t tra
veling as much, he spent his days in there training while I was in class, and Tommy was at school.
College, classes, homework, tests, finals—all of it sucked. Bad. Especially since I had big plans after graduation and I kind of just wanted it to be over. It wasn’t only the year of travel and adventure that Josh, Chris, and I had mapped out—plans that included Tommy coming with us as much as possible—but there was also that small little detail called the wedding.
Josh and I married a week after I graduated—a small ceremony on an island in Hawaii where Chazarae had grown up. We invited our family and a few close friends that included Sandra and Pete and Josh’s teammates, plus Chris and Josh’s manager and of course, Blake and Chloe. Tommy invited Nessa, his “long time” girlfriend who was, by then, cancer free.
I’d never really thought about my wedding day. Not in detail. Dawn, my therapist, who I still see, along with Lexy, my voice therapist, suggested that maybe I didn’t give myself the false hope because I didn’t believe I’d be around to see it. Maybe they were right. No, I’m sure they were.
The day went by so fast I barely remember it, but I do remember one thing—Josh and Tommy waiting for me at the end of the aisle—an aisle made of sand and rose petals. They wore identical outfits, identical smiles, and identical hopes for our future.
It was fitting, right? That we’d spent years apart, searching for the coast… and ended up marrying on one.
* * *
Traveling with five guys plus Tommy was not as fun as it sounded. Swear, by the end of the first trip, I was able to differentiate the smell of each individual’s fart. Dudes are gross. Seriously. But that’s the only real complaint I had about that entire year. I got to see so much of the world, got to experience so many different places and people and food… oh my God, the food! I think, by the time the year was over, even the guys began to appreciate the things they’d been taking for granted. They saw things through my lens, so to speak. And that first year with my husband, my husband, my husband—sorry, I just like saying my husband—brought us even closer. We learned things about ourselves, about each other, about us. Josh was wrong when he said that he loved me once, and that he’d make me love him twice, because during that time together, I fell in love with him over and over.
In all ways.
For always.
I guess maybe that’s why I chose to stop taking the birth control pills as soon as we got home from our last major trip. In my heart, I knew that even though being Josh Warden’s wife felt like a fantasy, and being Tommy’s step mom was a dream, I wanted more. And I knew that if I’d find myself falling because of my wants, they’d be there to pick me up, to help me walk. To help me soar. To help me coast.
Six months after that decision, I waited impatiently at the airport for him to arrive home from a short trip to Denver and drove him straight to the rooftop of Say Something. I didn’t have to tell him, didn’t even have to lift my hands. He already knew. Because he knows me. He sees me.
* * *
I clasp my necklace with my sweaty palm, allowing the five rings—the two Josh had given me, plus my engagement, my wedding, and the plastic ring from Tommy—to dig into my hand. I focus on that pain, and that pain alone, and try to ignore the one between my legs.
“You’re doing so good, baby,” Josh says, kissing my sweaty forehead and trying to remove his hand from my death grip.
“Kick off the stirrups if you need to, Becca,” my midwife, Dianna, says, “and when I tell you to, you’re going to need to push.”
“Kick, push,” Josh murmurs, smiling against my cheek.
The pain triples, and I squeeze Josh’s hand harder. “Okay, push, Becca!” Dianna yells.
Tears fill my eyes, but I do as she says. I kick, and push, and on my third attempt, the pain disappears as if it was never there. Josh breathes out, his lips to mine, “Olive Juice, baby. So much.”
Delirious and confused, I look between my legs at the tiny human we’d created. “Is it okay?” I sign to Josh, trying to catch my breath.
“She…” Dianna—familiar with ASL—says, smiling up at me.
A moment later, the room fills with tiny, innocent cries that have Josh moving toward our daughter. “She’s perfect,” he says. “Baby, she’s so perfect.”
I reach out for them, my tears flowing fast and free, and by the time I have my baby girl in my arms, I’m consumed with relief, with overwhelming elation, and with unconditional love for her and her daddy. I place my finger in her tiny hands and she grasps on to it like it’s been done so many times before.
She’s so tiny, so pure, and so beyond perfection I find it hard to breathe.
“She’s got your nose,” Josh whispers.
“Let me know when you’re ready,” Dianna says. “Tommy’s waiting just outside.”
I didn’t make a birth plan, knowing that it was unlikely we’d actually stick to it. The one and only thing I wanted was for Tommy to be with us as soon as possible. I wanted him to be the first to see her, to hold her, to love her.
I hope he loves her.
I hope he doesn’t feel like he’s going to be replaced by her.
I hope he knows that I love him as my own.
“I’m ready now,” I sign.
Dianna nods and makes her way to the door. “You can come in, sweetheart,” she whispers.
I sit up in the bed when Tommy peers in the room. “Is it ready?” he asks.
“You got a little sister, bud,” Josh tells him, while I wave for him to join us.
Tommy grins wide, a nervous giggle bubbling out of him. “Can I hold her?”
“You have to be really careful,” Josh says, making a spot on the bed for him.
Tommy sits, his legs crossed and his arms ready for me to place her gently there. “She’s so little and cute,” he whispers, looking up at me. Josh navigates Tommy’s hands so he’s holding the back of her head in place.
“She likes you,” I sign to Tommy.
Tommy giggles again. “She has to like me, I’m her big brother.” He looks down at her. “Did you hear that, Chazarae?” he says, knowing our plans to name her after Grams if she was a girl. “I’m Tommy. I’m your big brother. And I’m going to take care of you, and love you, and be there for you always. And I’m never going to let anybody or anything ever hurt you. Ever.” He rocks her slowly from side to side, his boyish voice filling the air. “Somewhere, over the rainbow…”
For the first time, Baby Chazarae’s eyes open, seeming to lock on Tommy’s. Tommy stops singing and smiles down at her. “She has your eyes, Becs.”
I smile and kiss her tiny button nose. Then I look up at Josh, who sniffs once and rubs his eyes. “Thank you,” he says, his hand taking mine. “Thank you for giving me you, for giving me our daughter. You’re going to be an amazing mother, Becs. I don’t ever want you to doubt that.”
Tommy looks up now, his eyes narrowed at me. “Why would you doubt that?” he asks me. “You’ve been my mother for years…” He glances at Josh, a mixture of confusion and innocence. “Right, Dad?”
“That’s right, bud,” Josh answers, his voice soft.
And as I look down at our daughter in the arms of her big brother, any ounce of doubt, of fear, leave me in a rush and I know that they’re right. I can feel it.
A mother’s intuition.
“Can you get my purse?” I sign to Josh. “And Dad… can you get him?”
After Josh pokes his head out the door, Dad enters the room, his eyes trailing my body making sure I’m okay. When he sees Tommy and baby Chaz next to me, a slow smile forms, a build-up of emotions. “You okay, sweetheart?” he asks.
I nod, my eyelids heavy.
Josh returns with my purse and I reach inside for my wallet, for the piece of worn paper that’d been neglected for years. I unfold it, not wanting it to rip, and I scan The List—the list of fears. I let the memories flood me, each conquered fear… each captured moment. But none of them compare to this one.
Not even
close.
I look up at my dad and remember the promise I’d made him make… that he’d be with me when I crossed off each fear. Then I pick up the pen from the side table and pause a moment, re-reading the only item left unmarked.
Go back to the house of nightmares and face my demons.
Slowly, I move the pen from left to right, each letter, then word, marked for eternity. Tommy’s voice continues to fill the room, his words a perfect melody for his perfect baby sister.
“You went home?” Dad asks.
I shake my head.
Josh whispers, sitting down next to me, “Then, how? Why?”
I offer him a smile, along with my tears, and then my lips move, my heavy breath creating the whispered words, “Because I no longer fear it.”
THE END
Other Books by Jay McLean
More Than Series
More Than This (Bk 1)
More Than Her (Bk 2)
More Than Him (Bk 3)
More Than Forever (Bk 4)
More Than Enough (Bk 5)
The Road Series
Where the Road Takes Me
Kick Push
Combative Trilogy
Combative
Redemptive
Destructive (Coming Soon)
Boy Toy Chronicles
Volume One
About Jay McLean
Jay McLean is an international best-selling author and full-time reader, writer of New Adult Romance, and most of all, procrastinator. When she’s not doing any of those things, she can be found running after her two little boys, playing house and binge watching Netflix.
She writes what she loves to read, which are books that can make her laugh, make her hurt and make her feel.
Jay lives in the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia, in a forever half-done home where music is loud and laughter is louder.