Chapter 45 #2
After I'd managed to calm down, we worked together to prepare the tea, the familiar domestic ritual taking on new meaning now that I was fully participating instead of just observing.
Karen showed me where everything was kept, chattering softly about the different blends and their purposes, and I found myself memorizing every detail.
Because I wanted to, because this was my kitchen now too.
When we returned to the family room with the tea service, David was sitting on the couch with Mallory curled against his side, both of them looking up at us with identical expressions of contentment.
The sight made my chest tight with emotion for this man who'd stepped into our lives during our darkest moment and never wavered, never made us feel like burdens.
"Dad," I said as I set the tea tray on the coffee table. The word slipped out before I could stop it, and David's hand stilled where it had been stroking Mallory's hair.
His eyes found mine, wide with shock and something that looked like joy.
"I-I mean..." I added quickly, heat flooding my cheeks. "If that's okay."
"It's more than okay," he said, his voice thick with emotion. "It's everything."
Karen settled beside me on the loveseat, pressing a warm mug into my hands. The lavender scent rose with the steam, and I took a tentative sip. It tasted like comfort, like belonging, like six years of patient love finally accepted.
"So," David said after we'd all settled with our tea—and me with my mug of hot chocolate—his voice carefully casual in that way that meant he was about to ask something important.
His eyes found mine over Mallory's sleeping form.
"Mallory's finally back home full-time now.
What about you, Hailey? Are you ready to be home full-time too? "
The question hung in the air between us, loaded with six years of missed dinners and avoided conversations and careful distance. He was asking if I was ready to stop running, stop treating this place like a hotel I occasionally crashed at…and if I was now ready stop keeping them at arm's length.
I looked at Mallory, peacefully drowsing against his side, then at Karen beside me with her eyes bright with hope and barely contained emotion, then at David with his gentle smile and patient eyes.
The same eyes that had looked at me with unwavering love even when I'd done everything in my power to keep him at a distance.
"Yeah," I said, and the word came out thick with emotion. For the first time in six years, I meant it completely. "I'm ready to come home too, Dad. I-I want to be here."
Both their faces cracked into the most excited smiles I'd ever seen, and I felt like crying all over again. How had I gotten so lucky to be loved by people this patient?
I didn't know, but what I did know was that I was no longer going to take them for granted.
Later, after we'd helped Mallory up to her room and said our goodnights, I stood in the doorway of the bedroom that had always been designated as "mine" but had never felt like it because I'd been too busy looking for every opportunity not to stay here. Tonight, though, there was nowhere to run.
This was my room. In my home. With my family.
And as I settled under covers that smelled like lavender fabric softener, my mind drifted inevitably to someone else. The very person who'd forced me into realizing my own hypocrisy. My parents had been patient with me for six years, but… they weren't the only ones .
At that thought, a pair of baby-blue eyes flashed in my mind, and I swallowed.
The ache in my chest shifted, becoming sharper, more complicated.
I could lie to myself and say I'd gone all feral tonight because I'd simply wanted to help out a teammate, but it was far more than that.
It was the way my heart raced when he entered a room.
The way his smile—his real smile, made something in my chest expand until it hurt.
The way I missed those stupid nicknames he called me, his ridiculous flirting, even his stupid habit of pushing himself into my personal space.
It was the way I'd been watching him for years, even when he'd annoyed me to no end, because I simply hadn't been able to look away.
It was the way it hurt me to remember the sheer brokenness in his eyes as he'd told me to 'forget it', the way he didn't expect me to show up for him the same way he'd always done, for me.
It was in the undisputable fact that I didn't just not hate it when he'd kissed me, but for those few seconds, everything had felt right in a way that terrified me.
"Maybe if you stopped running for five seconds, you'd realize I'm not the one you're trying to push away."
He'd been right this whole time. I'd been running away from him because I was running away from myself , and what letting him in would mean for me.
But there really was nowhere to run anymore, and so, I decided.
That I was done running—from myself.
From Lively .
So, I was going to face him head-on.