Chapter 34 #2
He can tell I didn't know that and that the notes are personal.
I'm not upset that she's sharing them. If she's sharing them with him, that means she's thinking about me, but God, I wish it were me she was talking to, not him.
I wish I were the one hearing her thoughts about the words I pour onto paper at three in the morning when sleep won't come.
"I know you leave the packages on her windowsill.
" His voice is quieter, recognizing the wound his flippant comment just made.
It's not his fault that the only woman I've ever loved is pushing me away but still opens her window to take what I leave there.
"Sometimes she tells me about the notes.
.." He shrugs. "But not always. When she doesn't tell me about them, I assume she doesn't want to talk about what they say. "
The admission gives me confirmation that my words are reaching her, that they matter enough to keep private sometimes. That maybe, in those moments she chooses not to share, she's holding something of mine close to her chest.
"Help me get my girl back," I say, my voice fracturing on the last word.
"Why do you think I'm here?" His response comes without hesitation, but there's something raw underneath the certainty.
He steps closer, close enough that I can see the circles that have formed under his eyes.
He's losing sleep too. "She became the sister I didn't know I was missing these past few months.
" His voice drops, weighted with something more profound than mere affection—he loves her.
I can't blame him. She's hard not to love.
The way she hums while making coffee, how she picks up after us just to check our trash for items to put in her junk journal, and the Sunday dinners she started making at the ranch.
Having her at the ranch made the place feel more like a home than it had in years.
"I love her like family," he continues, his jaw tight. "She's carrying your baby, which makes her family." He turns toward the street, and I know it's to hide the intensity of emotions threatening to crack his composure. "She is family."
The silence stretches between us, heavy with everything we're not saying. This is new territory for us. The scent of apple pie floats through the air with the breeze, and when he finally looks back at me, his eyes are glossy with unshed tears.
"So yeah," he says, his voice rougher now, "I'm here. And I'm not leaving until we bring her home."
Sure, Trigg and I talk, but never like this.
This level of depth is new for us. We're revealing ourselves, brick by careful brick, showing what we want to see rising from the ashes of our fathers' mistakes.
All week, I've been focused on my regrets, the mistakes I made that drove her away not once but twice.
I've struggled with the word and its weight, especially as I confront the stark truth: I wounded someone whose love runs deeper than my own veins, someone I would die to protect yet somehow still managed to destroy.
The cruelest irony is that I can't say I'd wish it away.
How do you mourn choices that felt like salvation in the moment?
How do you regret the very decisions that kept you breathing when drowning felt inevitable?
How do I regret the choices that led me to my brother?
Were it not for my missteps, the man standing next to me might still be a stranger, and I may never have gotten this chance to heal a decades-old family divide that has festered like an untreated wound.
"I'm glad you're here," I say, even though when he showed up on my doorstep, I wasn't.
Do I have regrets? Yes. But what's worse than my regrets is knowing I'd probably make them again, knowing that love sometimes means choosing the wrong thing for the right reasons.
But finding Trigg and blazing a new trail for our family's legacy has opened my eyes to another thought.
To be human is to be flawed. Breaking a cycle isn't about perfection but rather being brave enough to face the wreckage and sift through the ashes of your mistakes.
It means having the humility to say I was wrong and the strength to try again, even when failure feels like certainty .
He snorts, his amusement a welcomed contrast to the heaviness of our conversation. "Yeah, well, your welcome was about as warm as a January funeral. Good thing I'm stubborn as hell." The corner of his mouth quirks up. "Must run in the family."
Despite everything, the weight crushing my chest, the fear clawing at my throat, I feel my mouth twitch. It's the first smile I've managed in days.
"I'll get my keys."
Standing here with him, feeling the weight of shared understanding, I realize that redemption isn't about erasing the past. It's about refusing to let it write the ending.
It's about having the audacity to believe that broken things can be made whole again, that love is stronger than the mistakes that nearly killed it.
I smile, and this time, it reaches my eyes. Time to prove how strong our love really is. She said I didn't give her a reason to stay. Time to show her I am the reason.
As soon as I returned from having a beer with Trigg and picking up Laney's body butter, my dad sent me to the backyard to set up the table.
The nights have just started to cool down as summer comes to an end, and he had me bring out the gas fire pit that runs down the center of the table for ambiance.
Aside from setting up the table, putting out the plates and napkins, and filling the drink cooler with beverages, there wasn't too much that needed to be done.
My father has always taken pride in keeping a well-manicured lawn, with every hedge trimmed just so, and Edison bulbs strung across the patio to create a cozy atmosphere.
The only thing that's changed since I left is that he does all the heavy lifting himself, whereas I used to be the one helping to keep the yard immaculate.
"London, can you run inside and grab the condiment tray from the refrigerator," my dad asks as he walks out the back door with a tray of buns .
"Yeah, anything else?" I ask, running back inside so I can rush back out.
I've been on pins and needles ever since I got home, my anxiety practically eating me from the inside out.
I'm so damn nervous about this conversation, but I know it needs to happen.
I take all of ten seconds to collect the condiments before returning to the backyard, anxious to see Laney.
I'm just setting the carrier down on the table when the hairs on the back of my neck perk up, my body feeling her before I see her, and my heart instantly starts racing. I release a long, steady breath, attempting to calm my nerves, before straightening to greet them.
My hand grips the back of the chair I'm standing closest to when I see her.
It's only been a few days since I've seen her, but it feels like a lifetime.
Fuck I've missed her. She's wearing a new sundress—or at least I think it's new.
It could just be the hue the setting sun casts, or maybe it's the glow of pregnancy changing her skin and the way the breeze catches its hem, but it's different.
She's different. Her hair still falls in soft waves past her shoulders, the same thick mess of blonde that I've spent countless hours with my fingers tangled in, but it's the way she tucks a strand behind her ear that has my chest constricting with the memory of the last time I made that same gesture on the floor of what is supposed to be our new home.
This isn't the Laney who used to sneak out at midnight and curl up next to me on a blanket in the backyard.
This isn't the girl who collected my clothes to keep me close.
This is the Laney who's been finding reasons to shut me out.
But God, she is still devastating, still the same woman who makes me forget my own name with a sideways glance.
Walking beside her with a six-pack of beer is Trigg, and flanking her on her right with a bowl of salad, her mom, who'd been saying something in her ear as they walked down the back porch steps, keeping her from looking my way until now, until she's feet away, the distance between us half of what it was.
Her brown eyes connect with mine, and even at this distance, I can see the way the pie dish trembles slightly in her hands, so slight I might have missed it had I blinked.
That has to mean she's nervous too. That means something, right?
I can't be sure. What I am sure of is that this tension between us somehow feels sharper in the clear air with nowhere to hide.
She's ten feet away now, close enough that I can see the way she is biting her lower lip, the same tell she's had since we were kids, the one that meant she was working up the courage to say something that scared her.
"Hey," I say when she reaches the table, walking straight for me with the pie dish clutched in her hands.
"Hey," she says with equal measure of unease.
A heartbeat of silence stretches between us as we drink each other in for the first time in days, the space crackling with electricity, all our unsaid words, everything we've broken.
"Let me take that," I say, grabbing the pie dish from her hands and placing it carefully on the table between the mason jar candles and the plate settings.
When I turn back, the breeze shifts, carrying the scent of shea butter to my nose.
"You used the butter?" I say, grasping for something—anything—to break the tension between us.
"I did. Thank you for getting it for me..." She twists her hands nervously at her front, fingers knotting together. "And for all the other stuff."
Behind us, the sound of my father's laughter drifts over from the grill where he's talking to Anastasia.