Chapter 26
Sydney
That’s the plan.
His words flash through my mind over and over again. I still can’t understand why Maverick has any interest in me. Why he’d want to share his life with me and become a father to my children? It just doesn’t make sense to me.
I yawn and stretch my arms over my head. I barely slept last night. I kept thinking about his comment and how when I peeked up at him, there was no hesitation. No second guessing.
He was serious when he said he plans to marry me.
“Hey, sweetheart.” Maverick wraps his arms around me from behind and presses a soft kiss to my neck. “Are you doing ok?”
He watches me carefully. I swear the man can see straight to my heart and knows what’s going through my mind every second of the day.
I take a deep breath and remind myself how Maverick keeps showing up.
He keeps putting in the work and is always present.
He’s been cutting back his hours more and more at the bar to make sure he’s home with us as much as he can be.
He can’t possibly do anything more to prove he’s here for the long run.
“I'm doing great. I'm living with the man I love and I heard one day we’ll be getting married.” I grin.
I need to stop punishing Maverick for the sins of Rob. I have to make an effort to remind myself Mav’s never done anything to make me doubt his commitment to me or my children. He’s in this because he wants to be, not because he feels like he has to be.
“And you’re not freaking out about that?” He quirks a brow.
“I'm not letting myself. You’re right. You’re not Rob and I need to stop waiting for you to screw up and disappoint me. You’ve proven you’re here for us and I need to stop thinking differently.”
“I love that idea,” he murmurs as he presses his lips against mine.
I instantly melt into his arms and toy with his hair. I don’t know what I did to deserve a man like this, but I'm never letting go of him. I’d be stupid to let Rob’s screwups affect any other relationships in my life.
When Maverick ends our kiss, he cradles my head against his chest and sways to music I can’t hear. I swear I’ve never seen him so at peace.
“I think we should head over to the house while Peck and Sophia are here. Do one final walkthrough before being done with the place. Then I have baseball practice this afternoon with Danny’s team.”
“Ok, let me just check with Peck before we leave.”
Stepping inside the home I raised my children in, I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. I'm going to miss this place. I loved this house when we were looking for a place to buy, but now I hate everything about it.
I dreamed of cuddling up on the couch with the fireplace warming the space, yet we never did that because Rob said the fireplace made our home too hot and he didn’t like the smell of burning wood.
I wanted to spend all day in the kitchen cooking various things and stocking the fridge of food for my family to eat.
Instead, Rob complained every time I cooked.
He said I didn’t know what I was doing and how I should stick to baking…
But how I should only do that at the store so I didn’t dirty the kitchen.
There are so many things in this house I dreamed of enjoying, but Rob ruined each and every one of them for me.
I move towards the kitchen and check every drawer and cabinet. I'm about to leave the kitchen when Maverick stops me.
“Check in the drawer under the oven. I forgot about that space when I left my old place to move into the house. I left behind some things I loved.”
“I don’t think I have any…” the words die on my tongue as I pull the drawer open and find Mom’s old cookie sheets. I didn’t know they were in here. I thought I had lost them.
Tears flood my eyes as I think about how upset I was when I couldn’t find these. Rob must’ve put them in here just to hurt me. He knew I was going crazy looking for them.
“Are you ok?” Maverick steps up behind me and hugs me to his chest.
“I thought these were gone. He must’ve hidden them here so I couldn’t find them. I never stored anything in here.”
“Well, now we know we have to check every inch of the house. Who knows what else he could’ve hidden.”
I hadn’t checked the cabinet above the fridge since I was never tall enough to reach it, but when Maverick opens it, I gasp. There are over a dozen items I’ve looked for over the years. Things that meant so much to me and I was crushed when I thought I had lost them.
“Why? Why would he do this to me?”
“He’s a jerk. He was willing to do almost anything to hurt you,” Maverick says softly.
Each time we find something, Maverick carefully packs it away in a box.
When the first box is filled, he takes it out to his truck and comes back in with another one.
I don’t miss the beep of his truck locking each time either.
He doesn’t trust Rob won't show up and neither do I.
At this point, I'm not sure anything Rob could do would surprise me.
There ends up being seven large boxes of my things hidden around the house. I don’t know how or why he did this, but I'm glad we were able to find it all.
Maverick loads up the last box as I take one last look around. I'm nervous about leaving anything behind, especially since so much of it was hidden.
The front door opens and I blink in surprise when Rob’s frame fills the doorway.
“What are you doing here? I have a week to move out.” I fold my arms over my chest and glare at him.
“Well, last I checked, I still own part of this house and next week, it will officially be mine,” he grumbles under his breath. “You can’t stop me from being here.”
“The judge said-”
“I don’t care what the judge said, Sydney! I don’t want this house. I want you to pay me for it.”
“No! I was given the choice to keep it or sell it to you. I don’t want it. I already have a new house. We’re happy there and we don’t want to live here anymore. We don’t want a reminder of you.”
“Are you kidding me!” He roars, knocking a lamp off the end table and onto the floor. It shatters into millions of small pieces and I blink back tears.
The lamp means nothing to me. It was something Rob liked and insisted we had. I'm not crying over it, not really.
I'm crying over the man in front of me. The man who at one point in my life I thought would be my forever.
I'm crying for the young girl who settled down with him because she didn’t feel like she had another choice.
I'm mourning the life I once was forced to live and realizing my life now is so much better.
I have Maverick to thank for all of that.
“I’ve cleaned out all of our stuff. I even found a bunch of stuff I thought I had lost hidden away in cabinets and spots I never used.”
I keep my tone even, not giving him the satisfaction of knowing he did something to upset me, but also making sure he knows I'm aware of what he was doing. A smug smirk spreads over his face and I want to scream. Why stay married to me if I was so awful he felt the need to make my life worse?
“I was going to clean out the fridge and the groceries from the cabinets, then clean up the place a little more, but I think I'm just leaving. You can deal with the rest. I won't be coming back here.”
I pull my key out of my pocket and gently place it on the end table the shattered lamp used to live on. I take two steps towards the door before Rob grabs me and slams me up against the wall.
A loud gasp falls from my lips and my eyes widen as I take in the crazy man in front of me. Rob was a terrible husband and father, but he never laid a hand on any of us. I swallow hard and keep my chin held high. I won't give him the satisfaction of thinking he can scare me or shake me in any way.
“I'm going to make you pay for this! For everything! You ruined my life when you got pregnant with Danny! You should’ve aborted the pregnancy or put him up for adoption like I wanted you to!” He pulls his hand back and I squeeze my eyes shut, waiting for him to hit me.
A moment later, his body is pulled away from mine. I open my eyes just in time to see Maverick punch him in the face and wrestle him to the ground. He has Rob’s arms pinned on either side of his head.
“Let go of me!” Rob roars. “I'm going to sue you for this. I won't stop until I put you in jail and take the kids away from Sydney!”
“Why! You don’t even want them!” I scream, wishing Rob would just disappear from this world. No one wants him here. All he does is cause pain and disappointment.
“Because you want them,” he hisses as his eyes narrow on me.
There’s so much hatred staring back at me.
“I never wanted you or them. I only slept with you as a dare from the football team. No one thought I could get innocent little Sydney Pecker to mess around. I might’ve won the bet, but it was the worst decision of my life.
I got stuck with you and those kids because of a bet.
How does that feel to know I never wanted to touch you? ”
“Honestly, it makes the world feel like a better place,” Colt murmurs as he steps through the front door with Peck on his heels. “Just knowing the scum of the earth never wanted a sweet innocent woman like Sydney feels… right.”
Maverick helps Colt roll Rob onto his stomach and secure his wrists in handcuffs behind his back. Peck comes straight to me and wraps me in a warm embrace.
“Don’t listen to a word he said, Syd. He’s trying to hurt you and the only way he knows to do that is to attack you.” Peck holds me even tighter. I think he’s afraid I'm going to break, but he doesn’t get it.
In a way, it’s nice knowing he never wanted me. It somehow feels better to know his love didn’t turn to hate over the years. Our marriage didn’t work because he never wanted it to. We weren’t in love because our relationship wasn’t built on anything except lies and deceit.
Somehow, knowing this, makes me love Maverick more. It makes me want to take the leap and get married to him as soon as possible. For the first time in my life, I understand what it means to be loved by a real man. I can trust his love will last because what I had with Rob wasn’t love.
Love didn’t fail me, Rob did.
“Why am I being arrested?” Rob roars as Colt practically lifts him off of the floor like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum.
“For breaking and entering. For attacking your ex-wife. For being an all-around piece of crap? I’m sure I could find some more excuses, but I don’t really need them.” Colt lifts his shoulder in a half shrug and pushes Rob towards the door.
“This isn’t over, Sydney! I will ruin your life, just like you ruined mine!”
“Aw, see, now I can add threatening someone to the list of things you’ve done. Would you like to do anything else? I'm sure Judge Jefferson will love to hear all of this! He already told me to keep an eye on you because he didn’t trust you one bit.”
“I’ll make you regret this!”
“Dude, I'm already regretting getting close to you. When was the last time you brushed your teeth?” Colt fake gags. “I swear I’ve never smelled anything worse in my life. I’ve had rotting roadkill explode from the sun baking it all day long and it smelled better than your breath.”
Rob’s face morphs into rage and he thrashes against Colt’s hold, but Colt doesn’t care one bit.
“Are you ok if I help Colt?” Peck squats down until we’re eye level.
“Yes. Thank you.”
“Any time, Syd.” He presses a soft kiss to my forehead before jogging to catch up with Colt.
“Are you ok?” Maverick swoops in and takes my face in his hands. He’s searching my eyes, trying to figure out what I need and where my head is at.
I'm sure he’s terrified I'm going to pull away even more now, but he couldn’t be more wrong.
“I love you,” I blurt out before I can stop myself.
“I love you too,” he whispers, his brows drawing together. I think he’s waiting for me to break up with him or tell him I can’t do this anymore, but I won't. I'm done punishing Maverick.
“I want to marry you as soon as possible.” I barely get the words out before a sob shakes my body.
Maverick tugs me into his arms and buries his face in the crook of my neck. He holds me for what feels like hours before he pulls back and meets my gaze.
“We can get married whenever you want.”