Chapter 39
Gabe
Reid grabbed his coat and came running to where I stood at the door.
“We won’t be long,” I told Tori as he buttoned up his coat.
“Have fun,” she said, blowing us a kiss.
Three weeks had passed since DC, and we were falling into a comfortable routine, spending every night with each other either at her place or mine. Sleep overs as Reid called them, were our new norm, but I was ready to finalize us. To make it permanent.
Snow was falling in gentle flakes as Reid and I exited the car.
“Put your gloves on,” I told him, pulling his hat from my pocket and securing it on his head. “We’ll get hot chocolate when we’re done.”
“I love hot chocolate.”
“I know,” I said with a laugh. If it was one thing I’d discovered about my son, it was his affection for all things chocolate.
He ran ahead of me, leaving little boot tracks in the snow. When he found a patch of snow he deemed suitable, he dropped to his back and began making a snow angel. “Come on, Gabe.”
I dropped next to him and made my own, his laughter infectious. We moved from angels to snowmen until I could see he was getting too cold. Gathering him up, I held his hand while we walked to the closest coffee shop.
With two cups of hot chocolate in my hands, we found a seat.
“I need to ask you something,” I told him as we peeled our coats off. I reached over and took his hat off. His cheeks were red, so I rubbed my hands on them to warm them up.
“What?” he asked, wrapping his hands around his hot chocolate.
“Let that cool off before you try it.” I’d had them add whipped cream, but the cups had still been hot. “I want your permission.”
My insides tumbled as I remembered the last time I’d had this conversation, but with his grandfather.
“My permission?” he asked, the word coming out more like prission than permission.
“Yup.” He waited intently as I gathered my words. “I want to ask your mom to marry me.”
His eyes were like saucers, and he jumped up and down in his seat. Reaching over to calm him before he spilled his hot chocolate, I continued, “But I want your permission. It’s been just the two of you all this time, and I don’t want to do this without you. Can I ask your mother to be my wife?”
His smile was everything. “Yes.” He bounced more. “Does that mean you’ll really be my daddy?”
I gave him a questioning look. “I’m already your father, Reid. That hasn’t stopped since the moment I found out you were mine.”
I hadn’t bothered to talk to him about it again, even though Tori had seemed guilty about telling him before discussing it with me. It had been her right to have that conversation, not mine. But maybe I should have, because Reid seemed confused still.
“Do you know why I wasn’t part of your life until now?” I asked, the pain of the past returning.
He shook his head.
“Then it’s time you hear the truth, and we can have this conversation again when you get older, but you deserve to know the truth.” I gave him an abridged version of the events, keeping it at a level he could understand. When I finished, I sat back and waited.
His eyebrows puckered. “Your daddy’s not very nice,” he grumbled.
“No, he’s not.”
“Maybe he just needs a hug.”
I doubted a hug could cure my father of his disposition, but I wasn’t about to burst his bubble. “Maybe.” Tori seemed to think there was something worth redeeming in him, and I had agreed to give it a try.
He scrambled out of his seat and ran to mine, throwing his arms around me. “I’m glad you’re my daddy.”
Clinging to him, I murmured, “So am I, and I’ll spend every moment making up for the time we lost.”
“When you marry Mommy?” He squirmed from my hold and put his forehead to mine.
“Yes, but that needs to be a secret. Just you and me because I don’t want her to know yet.”
He made a gesture like a zipper closing his mouth, and I laughed, giving his hair a tussle. “Drink your hot chocolate, and we’ll get something special for Mommy for Christmas.”
When we finished, I threw the cups away while he waited at the door for me. “Come on, Daddy, let’s go get something pretty for Mommy.”
My heart stuttered, my feet almost tripping over themselves. The burning behind my eyes had me blinking the sensation away. I scooped him into my arms and walked us out of the shop. “I love you, buddy.”
His arms flew around my neck. “I love you, too, Daddy.” And the space in my heart that Tori hadn’t reached was healed with those five words.
We spent the next two hours shopping for Tori and her family.
I let Reid pick his own present out for Tori, a bracelet with three heart charms on it.
One for each of us he had told me as the salesclerk wrapped it and handed him the bag.
Every moment I spent with him left my heart fuller, and by the time we returned home, I felt like I was living a blessed life.
After years of thinking it a cursed one.
Tori was on the phone when we walked in. I hung our coats and walked over to her, wrapping my arms around her and bringing her back into my chest. Kissing her cheek, I pressed my nose to it. She squealed and wiggled out of my grasp.
“Your nose is cold,” she complained. “Sorry, Mom. Gabe and Reid just walked in.”
“Tell her I said hello,” I added, hearing Reid shout, “Hi, Grandma,” from where he had taken a spot on the couch with his tablet.
“Gabe says hi and so does Reid.” She was quiet for a moment, then said, “Grandma says hi back to both of you.”
Quiet again as I poured myself a glass of water.
“Okay, I’ll ask and text you if she does. Love you, Mom. Can’t wait to see you and Dad.”
She hung up and gave Reid a big hug over the back of the couch. I couldn’t help taking in the view, and she snapped her head around. “Stop looking at my butt.”
“But it’s such a nice butt.”
Her cheeks bloomed with the blush I loved to see in them. “So what did you guys do?”
“Just some shopping and some guy time,” I told her as she walked into the kitchen, leaning her hip on the counter.
“And if I ask Reid what you bought?”
“My mouth has a zipper, Mommy,” he piped up from the couch.
The corner of her mouth rose. “Not even a hint?”
“Nope. My mouth has a zipper, too,” I said, caging her in. “Although you can try to unzip it.”
“I bet I can,” she teased, wrapping her hand around my head and bringing my lips to hers. Kisses from Tori were like precious jewels that I wanted to hoard.
“Reid and I had a talk,” I said, nipping her lip.
“About?”
“Us. Our past.”
Her eyes scrunched, concern lining them.
“Don’t worry. It was the abridged version, but he knows the truth now and why I wasn’t there before. Why you looked so sad. His words, not mine.” I swept my thumb down her jaw and over her chin. When he’d told me, the guilt had returned. Every reminder of how I’d hurt her brought it hammering back.
“I’m not sad anymore,” she told me, giving me one of her smiles that made everything okay. “I’m proud of you. That was hard to do.”
“But necessary.”
“Necessary.”
This time I initiated the kiss, stopping it only when it threatened to have me lifting her onto the counter and doing inappropriate things to her. Things I would do once Reid was in bed.
“What did your mom want you to ask?” It took her a moment to catch her breath as lust danced in her irises. I leaned in and whispered, “I’ll finish that later.”
Her shiver was intoxicating.
“She wants Liv to join us.”
I snorted before I caught myself. “Liv doesn’t do family events or holidays.”
“That’s what I told her, but she pointed out that you didn’t either and maybe it was time to give Liv a chance to have a nice Christmas.”
I tried not to roll my eyes. Liv’s idea of celebrating a holiday was getting her nails done and drinking. Then again, mine had been a bottle of scotch and sitting in the dark with my ghosts, so maybe Tori’s mother was right. A little of the Hent family might be good for her.
“I’ll ask her, but don’t get offended if she says no.”
She shrugged. “Eh, I’ll wear her down.”
“You have two days, and I have no doubt you’ll try your best.” Giving her a peck, I freed her from my grasp. “I was thinking of making gnocchi for dinner. Sound good?”
“That sounds delicious. Oh, by the way,” she motioned me to her bedroom and pointed to the bed, “that came for Reid today.”
I looked over at the box on the bed, nervous stings pelting my skin. I didn’t have to get closer to know it was from my father. Tori had texted him my agreement to the gift, but I wasn’t sure I was ready for it.
Her hand caressed my back, and I glanced over at her.
“Second chances, right?” she said, reaching up and kissing my cheek.
“Right.”
I wasn’t so sure that was the right term for what I was giving my father, but it was up to him to prove he deserved my time. This was a start. He’d said he would send something, and he had. He had met the first test; the future would show me if he would meet any more.
Snow was falling, making for a white Christmas Eve that would turn into a white Christmas.
Reid and his cousin were in the kitchen making cookies for Santa with their grandmother, while Tori was in the basement with Cash, Brandi, Cindy, and her boyfriend Noah.
And Liv, who after some coaxing from Tori, had agreed to join us.
Although the plethora of complaints she’d spouted on the way there had left me tempted to send her home.
Logs snapped in the fireplace, the only sound as I sat in the living room with Tori’s father, waiting for him to speak. I stared out the window, watching the snow accumulate on the deck.
“So, the last time I gave you my approval, you broke my daughter’s heart,” he finally said, and I could hear the hesitation. I’d expected resistance given my track record.
“And I can’t take that back. All I can do is make up for it.” I turned to him. “Which I’ve been doing and will continue to do. I promised you I wouldn’t hurt her again, and I won’t. She and Reid are my life now, and nothing will make me give them up this time.”