29. Bridget
CHAPTER 29
Bridget
I set the dish on the warming plate on the dining room table as Ethan moves behind me and helps me take off my coat, hanging it in the closet by the door. He places my purse in one of the chairs, and it feels like he’s saving my seat.
“Where is everyone?” I ask as I look around. The house is cozy and inviting, and it’s obvious kids live here. Artwork is framed on every wall, and the girls’ school photos are hung in collages.
“Expecting a bigger fanfare for your arrival, my queen?” he teases in a mock bow.
“Jesus, stop that,” I laugh.
“Mom’s probably in the kitchen, and the girls are probably scattered in the basement or their rooms. I think Emma’s coming later, but the other four should be around here. Like I mentioned yesterday, Dad’s probably out on a call. We’ll see if he actually joins us.”
“OMG, is this her?” a feminine voice squeals.
I turn, and a petite blonde child with beautiful blue eyes peers up at me. “Hello.”
“Hi, I’m Erin. Oh my gosh, you’re pretty. Do you want to play My Little Pony with me and Evie? She’s five, and she’s super annoying.”
“Erin, be nice,” Ethan warns.
“But sometimes she can be super annoying! She wants to play it the wrong way, and she’s so bossy.”
Ethan kneels so he’s eye level with her. “Erin, we’ve talked about this. It’s not nice to call someone bossy just because they know what they want or because they disagree with you. How would you feel if someone did that to you?”
“I would be mad. I’m sorry.” She hangs her head as she speaks and pushes her toe into the carpet.
“It’s okay, squirt,” he says as he ruffles her hair. “How about you and Evie go play ponies in the basement? I want to introduce Bridget to your sisters and show her around the house first.”
“Okay. It was nice to meet you.” She smiles and throws her arms around my waist in a quick hug before running off.
Ethan grins at me. “She likes you. Not everyone gets an invite to the Pony Palace on the first meeting.”
His words are oddly comforting, and I smile in response as he leads me up the stairs and down a hallway before stopping in front of a room. He knocks on the door and waits. Two knocks sound faintly from inside, and he opens the door.
Inside, the blinds are open and every light in the room is on. A girl sits at a table near the window, hunched over, her fingers digging through a container of beads. This must be Lizzy.
“Hey, Lizzy girl. Can I introduce you to someone?” Ethan calls, his voice even, his volume low.
Lizzy nods quickly as she continues working, her focus unchanging.
Ethan guides me to the table and pulls out the chair for me on Lizzy’s right. He crosses behind her while trailing his hand along her shoulders as he settles into the chair on her left. “Lizzy, I brought Bridget here to meet you.” She nods as she continues working on her bracelet.
“Hi, Lizzy, I’ve heard so much about you.”
She reaches into her box of beads and pulls out a bracelet before balling it up in her fist and holding it out in front of me. I stare at her hand for several seconds, unsure what to do.
“She wants to give you something. Hold out your hand,” Ethan clarifies.
With my hand palm up, I extend it out just as her hand opens, and the bracelet falls into it. She points her finger to her chest and then reaches out to tap against mine. She then points at Ethan, and his smile is warm and bright when I look at him.
“She’s saying she made this for you and that she’s thankful from the bottom of her heart.”
“For what?” I ask, my attention directed at her.
Her eyes flick up and hold mine for a millisecond, and I’m struck by the beautiful blue hue before they look down at my hand, her finger urgently pointing to the bracelet. Holy shit, she looked at me. I glance over at Ethan, and he beams back at me.
“She likes you,” he encourages, fully understanding the importance of this moment.
Turning the bracelet over in my hand, I examine it closely. It’s beautiful. There are blues and purples, some glass are almost crystalline. And there are a series of numbers, each separated by a heart.
“This is gorgeous. What do the numbers mean?”
Lizzy points at Ethan and then me before clasping her hands together.
I read out the numbers. “Six, seventeen, fifteen.”
“That’s my birthday, the night we met, and your birthday,” Ethan explains.
Something warms in my chest, and I swear I can feel the cracks in my heart heal from the love in this room, from these two souls that see value in me.
“This is incredible,” I gush as I slip it on my wrist and look at Lizzy. “Thank you. I love it so much.”
She lays her forearm in front of me, her palm up as she continues arranging beads with her left hand.
I look at Ethan in confusion, but he’s already out of his seat and pulling something from her dresser. It resembles a sponge, and he reaches for Lizzy’s hand. “Here, I’ve got it. Give me your arm,” he gently commands, but she moves it from his reach, making several grunts as she thrusts it closer to me. He laughs and asks, “Are you sure?”
Her head nods enthusiastically as her left hand continues sorting beads.
“Here.” He hands me the strange sponge, and I take it, unsure of what to do next. “It’s a surgical brush. It’s part of her sensory diet. When she gets overwhelmed emotionally, she likes physical touch to calm her down. It’s called brushing therapy.” He reaches across the table to offer me his arm. “You run the brush up and down her arm applying gentle pressure. Try it on me, and I’ll let you know if it’s too hard or soft.”
The brush feels light in my hand as I run it up and down the corded muscle of his forearm.
“You can push a little harder,” he coaxes as Lizzy grows impatient next to me, tapping her arm up and down as her leg bounces in a frantic rhythm. “You’ll get your turn,” he tells her as he runs his hand along her shoulder.
I run the brush up and down a little more as he gives me more direction. “That pressure is perfect. Now, you want to move it around in a random pattern, never rubbing one area too long. She likes it best when you change up the pattern.”
Taking a few more practice swipes on him, I grow confident in my strokes before I turn to Lizzy and move the sponge along her skin. As I apply light pressure to my swirls and strokes, her leg slowly calms its manic bouncing and a small noise escapes her throat.
“She likes it. You’re doing great,” Ethan praises as I continue my movements.
There’s a knock on the door, and Lizzy turns her head slightly before knocking twice on the table. My brows knit in question as I make eye contact with Ethan. “Two knocks mean ‘come in,’” he says right as a tiny child bounds into the room. Lizzy pulls her arms back, and I set the brush on the table, turning my attention to the ball of energy that must be Ethan’s youngest sister.
“Mom needs you in da kitchen, Finn.”
“Finn?” I mouth at him.
“Tell her I’ll be right there. Thanks, Evie.”
“Is dis your girlfriend?” she asks, carefully sounding out the word, the Rs coming out more like Ws.
His bright green eyes look at me, and I wonder if this is why he mentioned titles last night.
Before he can answer, I stand and go over to her. “I’m his girlfriend. You must be Evie.”
She beams. “Dat’s me.”
Before I can say another word, she tears out of the room, leaving the door open behind her, chanting, “Finn’s got a girlfriend, Finn’s got a girlfriend, Finn’s got a girlfriend!”
He stands and walks to the dresser, pulling out a small timer with what looks like a clock face. “Lizzy, I’m going to set a twenty-minute timer for you. When it goes off, clean up your beads, wash your hands, and come down for dinner, okay?”
She grunts and points to her right at a pair of headphones on her bed. Ethan hands them to her before placing his hand on my back as he escorts me out of the room.
“Evie has trouble with some of her consonant sounds, and when she was a toddler, Ethan came out as ‘Ee-fin.’ I didn’t want to correct her, so the nickname stuck,” he explains as we walk down the stairs.
“That’s adorable. You’re so good with all of them,” I say, sounding positive, but deep down, my gut is churning with anxiety.
He’s too good with them. He seems like he was born to be a father. How could he not want children of his own one day? What if he’s telling me he doesn’t want them because I don’t? I know he said he doesn’t want kids and he won’t change his mind, but what if it all was a lie?
At the bottom of the stairs, he grabs my hand, turning me toward him. “I can feel your anxiety. I know this is new to you, not having a big family or siblings of your own, and they can be a lot. But I promise you, while I love them so much, I don’t want any of my own.” He pulls me into him and rubs my back.
“Stop reading my mind,” I joke nervously.
“Did you notice I did the same with Lizzy? I’ve had a lot of practice reading thoughts,” he says. “You start blinking more rapidly when you’re having overwhelming thoughts. Your body also stiffens, and you’re more tense under my touch. But I’ve found that touching you calms you down,” he says, whispering the last part in my ear as he tilts my head, planting a soft kiss on my lips.
“Gross. No one wants to see you suck face, Ethan,” a voice calls out from the living room, and I pull back from him, my cheeks pink with embarrassment.
“Leave them alone, Ella,” Ashley calls out from the kitchen.
“Don’t encourage them, Mom,” Ella quips back.
“Yeah, definitely could do without this. No kids, I promise,” he mutters in my ear as he clasps my hand and leads me to the living room to introduce me to another sister.
“Bridget, this is Ella, my extremely opinionated teenage sister,” he says in a way only a brother can.
“Nice to meet you. Ooh, you do have great skin,” she blurts before turning on her big brother. “Look, bro, I’ll cockblock you all I want after you ran Chad off the other night.” She looks back at me and offers a quick “No offense.”
“None taken. Sorry about Chad, but based on the name alone, I’d say he did you a favor.”
Ethan lets out a laugh that rolls through his body, like a ripple spreading across a calm lake.
“I like her.” She grins at me. “I take back the cockblock, but if you’re gonna make out, don’t do it around me,” she adds, making a gagging face.
“Ella, can you let Erin and Evie know that we’re going to eat soon and to start cleaning up?” Ashley calls.
“Ugh, they’re not going to listen to me, but I’ll try,” she agrees as she stomps off toward the basement muttering, “This will be minutes of my life that I’ll never get back.”
“Ethan, come here!” Ashley exclaims from the dining room, and we walk over as she points to our casserole on the table. “Is this what I think it is?”
“It is.” I can feel Ethan’s gaze as he wraps his arm around me and pulls me against him. “Bridget helped me make it,” he tells her as he kisses the side of my head.
I blush as my eyes connect with Ashley’s.
“Ethan makes the best sweet potato casserole.” Ashley has tears in her eyes. “He hasn’t made it since he graduated from high school, and then my mom passed last year and I figured the dish died with her. No one makes it better than him, aside from my mom, and only the two of them know the secret recipe. The girls and I have never been able to replicate it. And he’s refused to make it since she’s been gone. I wasn’t sure if he would ever make it again.”
I turn to stare at him. He did this for me. He put aside his grief and shared a sacred ritual with me. One he never intended to repeat. One he only shared with his family. “But that card didn’t have a star on it. You said the ones with stars had secret ingredients.” I turn to examine his face, confusion marring my features. He shrugs nonchalantly, stuffing his hands in his pockets like it’s not a big deal. But it’s a huge fucking deal. It’s everything. “Thank you.”
I throw myself into his arms, not caring who’s watching. This man has let me all the way in, given me every piece of himself. I’m not sure what I did to deserve it, but I’ll do everything in my power to return that love and trust.
“I love you,” he says as he presses a kiss atop my head, his arms wrapping around me.
“I love you too,” I reply, looking up into his deep green eyes.
I hear a door open and shut from somewhere in the direction of the kitchen. “Ethan! You made it!” a deep voice booms.
The blood freezes in my body. No, it can’t be.
I know that voice.
I turn in Ethan’s arms as I come face to face with his father.
Ashley starts with introductions. “Hank, this is…”
“Bridge.” An uncomfortable silence permeates the air.
Ethan stiffens behind me as he growls an almost inaudible “Mine.” In any other situation, I would laugh at the absurdity of it, but at this moment, all humor has left me as I stare into the blue eyes of the man who took my virginity and broke my heart.
The reason I moved schools.
The reason I don’t date.
The reason I don’t trust men.
Ethan’s arms tighten around my waist. He knows I’m going to run. His ability to read my intentions now feels like a lead weight holding me down. “It was him?” I can feel his hot breath against my ear. “My father?” His voice cracks, and I can hear the hurt, feel it to the depths of my soul.
“Henry.” His name is a full sentence on my tongue. A lifetime of running. Of brokenness. Of hiding emotions.
“Fuck, no one’s called me that since high school.” He laughs, the sound foreign in my ears as my heart hammers in my chest. “I go by Hank now. What are you doing here?” His eyes flick down to Ethan’s arms around my waist, and I see the realization hit him.
“Have you two already met?” Ashley asks, confusion all over her face as her eyes dart between me and Henry.
“You could say that,” Ethan mutters behind me.
“Oh shit!” My hands fly to my mouth as it suddenly hits me who Ethan is. I was so blinded by seeing my cheating ex. Floored that he’s the father of the man I love. And now devastated at the realization that Ethan is the product of the affair that destroyed me.
Bile rises in my throat as I attempt to pry myself out of Ethan’s embrace. I can’t be here. “I need some air. Excuse me,” I choke out as I grab my purse from the chair and stumble toward the door. Throwing it open, I sprint outside, not caring that I left my jacket. My entire world is crashing around me, like an avalanche burying everything in its path.
Faintly, I can hear someone, probably Ethan, shouting my name. My feet can’t move fast enough as I run down the sidewalk while digging in my purse for my phone. I need to get away from here. From him, from them, from everyone. Away from the man I am hopelessly and foolishly in love with—my ex’s son.