Chapter 41
chapter forty-one
Jude
Today's vocabulary word: energy
I knew I'd fucked up.
I'd known it the minute I walked away from Audrey in Phoenix and every single minute after that until I booked the flight to Boston.
There was no defending it either. I got lost in my head, in all the immovable pieces of my life. In Percy and Brenda, my mother and my work. Not to mention Audrey's fucking family and the shit they liked to stir up.
I couldn't believe it took me so long to figure out that I needed to be at this wedding with her. I spent the entire week with a tension headache and a knot in my stomach, and it wasn't until I let myself think about her for more than a second that I realized I'd fucked up.
Boarding that red-eye flight was the only solution, even if it did create a few problems. Greatest and highest being that I hadn't packed a decent suit for my week in Seattle.
I didn't have much use for anything like that when I spent most of my days between labs and conference rooms. But there was no way in hell I could show up to this wedding looking like I'd just finished tearing apart a transmission.
It took a few hours of running around Boston but I got myself in order before making the drive to Rhode Island. Mom called while I was on the road and she just about blew out the windows screaming with delight over my last-minute plan to attend the wedding with Audrey.
"It's nice to see that I did raise you right after all," she said. "I just hate that you two spend so much time apart. It can't be much fun."
She said fun in a waggled eyebrow way that I chose to ignore.
"Have you made any decisions about where you'll settle down together?" she asked. "It sounded to me like Audrey's pretty happy in Boston."
Every time I thought I'd reached the end of the lies, another gate opened up and a whole new road extended out into the horizon. A perpetuating pain I'd inflicted upon myself. "We're still figuring that out."
"I know couples today are very…innovative with their lifestyles," she said. "And you know I'll support you regardless, but I just want things to be easy for you. For once."
"I know, and it will be. Eventually." Another lie, probably.
She was quiet for a moment and I felt the energy shift. "Have you thought about growing your family at all? Giving Percy a brother or sister?"
A sound came out of me, something startled but also immediately defensive. "We're not having this conversation, Mom."
"I'm just wondering if Audrey's said anything about wanting children of her own."
This—and a few other things—was why I'd spent the week stuck in my own mental hamster wheel.
My kid consumed a solid seventy percent of my life right now, if not more.
It was different when he was with Brenda for the summer, but during the school year, Percy ran my life.
It was hard and exhausting, but I loved my son and the family we made together. I couldn't give him any less than that.
And I had no idea how to present any of that to Audrey. I didn't know how to carve out space for her in that world and I didn't trust that I could be everything she needed while also being everything Percy needed.
Even if I asked Audrey to move in with us tomorrow—which was far from the most ridiculous thing I'd considered in the past seven days—I didn't know if she wanted to be in a relationship with someone who had a young kid.
Maybe she'd foreclosed herself to all variety of parenting after the hell she'd been through.
Maybe it would screw with her mental health to put herself in any kind of adoptive mom role.
And none of that touched on the possibility that she wouldn't want anything to do with the present state of my custody issues.
All I knew was that it was messy on every side.
Another thing I knew was that I'd handled this all wrong. I had a lot of unfucking to do here, and not just from the last week.
"Let's keep the wedding on the agenda and save the future children item for another meeting," I said.
"I'm just hoping you don't have to travel too much while you're newlyweds," she said. "You've been apart so much while dating and engaged. I don't understand how you do it. I'd be so lonely."
I had to rub a hand over my chest to ease the ache there. "It's been tough," I said. Not a lie. "But we're working on it."
"Good. That's what I like to hear." Her sandals slapped on the Saltillo tile as she walked through the house. "Just so you know, my PET scan came back this morning. Clean as a whistle."
"Excellent news," I said. One more weight off my shoulders. "I guess you were right about the healing energy there in Sedona."
"That helps," she said, "but I think it's mostly sunshine and weed keepin' me going these days."
I didn't advertise this fact but Audrey was the only woman I'd ever dated, as far as strict definitions of dating went.
I'd spent the first semester of my university experience in shock after everything went to hell with us and I couldn't stomach the idea of being close to another person in any way, at all.
I didn't recognize it as shock then but that was what happened.
Like that static-y silence after an explosion.
Eventually, I got back out there but in the douchiest way possible. I was that asshole who'd make it clear from the start that it was just sex. No sleepovers. No repeat visits. Definitely no follow-up messages asking if I wanted to hang out in a few weeks. Certainly no feelings.
That worked for me until I met Penny. I mean, it kept working for about ten months after meeting Penny but then my entire world flopped on its side.
Once Percy entered the picture, making time for casual sex dropped to the bottom of my priority list. It wasn't just the surprise fatherhood but the impact of losing Penny, Percy's injuries, my mom's diagnosis, Brenda's insistence on split custody—the hits came hard and fast.
And honestly, I was a little gun-shy. I'd used a condom with Penny. She'd said she was on the pill. I didn't want to roll the dice on another statistical improbability.
Which wasn't to say I was a monk but I didn't get much time for those kinds of recreational activities.
Another thing I didn't have time for? Going to weddings.
Most of my friends were gearheads or pilots, and they all seemed to elope or have small, backyard weddings.
Since I didn't date, this was basically my first formal wedding.
If we didn't count Audrey's.
I didn't know what I was in for but after going through four security checkpoints and then being led to a golf cart for a ten-minute drive through a literal cow pasture, I realized this wedding was going to be quite the initiation.
The guy driving the cart, the crew-cut, brick-wall sort, parked along the side of a narrow road and escorted me down a winding driveway toward a large, old Victorian home.
He handed me off to another security guard, one who looked me over before saying into his headset, "Inform the bride that her guest has arrived. "
"Oh, no, don't bother her," I said, waving him off. "No, not the bride. One of the bridesmaids. Audrey. Audrey's mine. I'm not here for the bride."
"Pardon me, sir, but we're all here for the bride." He went on staring at me, completely stone-faced. "Mrs. Ralston personally added you to the VIP list."
"Mrs. Ralston," I repeated. I glanced at the buzz of activity around me, rocking back on my heels when I spotted a massive portrait of a lovely dark-haired woman and the most decorated quarterback of this generation. "Yes. Mrs. Ralston. Of course."
Holy shit. I guess it was a good thing I'd snagged a new suit.
The security guard motioned to the stone path leading to the front steps of the Victorian. "Wait here."
Before I could even thank him, the woman from the photo spilled out of the doorway, three women scrambling behind her to hold the long train of her dress. "Well, hello there," she said, her hands on her hips. "You must be the fiancé."
"Oh my god, Emme, keep that to yourself.
" From somewhere behind the mass of white fluff, Audrey appeared.
She wore the same blue dress as the other bridesmaids, her hair gathered back in a pretty bun.
Her cheeks were pink and she kept her eyes low, but she bounded down those stairs and right into my arms. "You came," she said against my neck.
"You asked." I let myself breathe her in, to feel every spot where she pressed against me. "It just took me a few days to figure it out."
"Let's not do that anymore."
I dropped a kiss on her lips. "Agreed."
"This is really fucking adorable and all," one of the women shouted, "but we don't have time to redo your makeup."
"Or hair," another said.
"But we do have the steamer ready to go if those big paws of his wrinkle your dress," yet another maid called.
"Don't get me in trouble," Audrey whispered.
I shot a glance over her shoulder to the women watching from the porch. "Hey, so, you didn't tell me this was Ryan Ralston's wedding."
"It's not. It's Emme's wedding," she said. "He happens to be here too."
"A little warning would've been nice," I said, my lips on her cheek. "I've been to classified meetings with the federal government that had less security than this place."
She smoothed her hands down my lapels. "But you're here now."
I tucked a loose strand of hair over her ear. "Sorry it took so long."
She shrugged this off. I knew she would, even if I didn't deserve it. She just didn't know how to let herself be someone's problem. "It's okay but—" She tipped her head toward the bridal party. "I should probably get back."
"But first." Another kiss, light enough to keep all the makeup intact. "You look amazing. Do you know that?"
She shrugged, shook her head, glanced away. "I've worn this dress a few times now. It's fine. Nothing amazing."