Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
FALLON
Stupid Love
Elizabeth picks up the next card from the deck and reads it out loud. “There’s nothing funny about…”
I’ve never played Cards Against Humanity , but the game is fucking hilarious. And a little raunchy, depending on the answer card you give.
Charlotte giggles as she sets her card on top of mine. Grant soon follows with his, but it takes Chris longer to decide.
“I don’t have anything good,” he says, dropping his card face down on the pile.
Elizabeth picks them up, and her cheeks turn beet-red as she silently reads them. “Three of you are going to hell.” She shakes her head in dismay and recites the prompt. “There’s nothing funny about…fiery poops…mouth herpes…half-assed foreplay—” She glares at Chris.
“That wasn’t mine,” he proclaims, looking accusatorily at Grant.
“What?” he says.
Elizabeth gives him a double finger to the eyes. “You and I are going to talk.”
“ Mom! ” Charlotte exclaims.
“And the winner?” Chris asks.
Elizabeth flips over the card for everyone to see and covers her mortified face.
Getting Mom pregnant.
The kids burst into loud laughter.
“Whose was that?”
I lift my hand. Elizabeth kicks me under the table and mouths, “You’re going to pay for that.”
“I hope so,” I mouth back.
In my peripheral, I can see Chris closely watching us. He hasn’t been as standoffish tonight, but he’s still been wary.
Charlotte pulls Grant up from his chair. “Can we light the firepit out back?”
“Go for it,” Elizabeth replies, putting all the cards back into the game box.
“Marshmallows?”
“Just bought a new bag. Third shelf in the pantry.”
Chris isn’t as enthusiastic as he trundles into the kitchen without a word.
“Thank you for reminding me how much I miss this.”
Elizabeth gives me her full attention. “What? Chaos and noise?”
“Family.”
Her expression sobers, and she leans over to cup my cheek. “Your brothers and sisters and the New York Four aren’t your only family. We’re your family, too, you know.”
Goddamn this wonderful woman.
“I know.”
“No matter what happens between us, that’s never going to change.”
I take her hand and place it directly over my heart. Elizabeth tames the darkness inside me and brings me a peace that I never had in my life.
“Mom, I can’t find the marshmallows! And what happened to the Diet Twist?”
Elizabeth’s head drops forward on a groan. “I swear, an elephant could be right in front of her, and she would claim not to see it.”
Tipping back the rest of my beer, I gather the leftover glasses scattered across the table and head into the kitchen just as Elizabeth disappears out the back door with Charlotte.
Chris is at the sink, rinsing bowls under the faucet. He glances up when I come in. There’s a hard set to his shoulders and a rigidness to his jaw when I approach.
“Want some help?”
“Sure. Bowls go on the top rack.”
He hands me a rinsed bowl, and I place it in the dishwasher. We work in silence, the rhythm of our movements the only sound.
After a few minutes, he lets out a sharp breath. “Look, I, uh…I want to say I’m sorry. For the other day. I was kind of a jerk.”
“You were, but you never have to apologize to me. I get it.”
Chris’s gaze, so much like Elizabeth’s, flicks my way. “You do?”
Leaning a hip against the counter, I stuff my hands in my jeans pockets.
“Yes, but I’m also not going to presume to know exactly how you feel.
My father died when I was at college, but we didn’t have the kind of relationship that you and Ry had.
There was no love there.” And that’s the biggest fucking understatement of the century.
May the evil bastard continue to burn in hell.
Chris frowns at my admission.
“And I know it’s got to be hard, seeing your mom with someone else.”
After adding a detergent pod into the dispenser, he presses a button to get the dishwasher going. “It’s not that. It’s just…he’s been gone for three years, but I’m not ready to let him go.”
Loss and love cohabitate in a ball of emotion at his raw honesty. I tap two fingers to Chris’s chest. “Just because you can’t see him doesn’t mean he’s not right here. And no one could ever replace your dad. Not me. Not anyone. Ry was one of a kind. The best man I’ve ever known.”
Chris’s fingers curl around the edge of the sink, his shoulders stiff again.
“I don’t expect anything from you. Nothing I do or say comes with strings attached. I’m here. For you, for your sister, for your brother, and for your mother. No questions asked.”
He stares out at the darkness through the window above the sink. “She sleeps on the couch because she has nightmares all the time. She wakes up crying. It freaks me out. I don’t know what to do.”
Hearing it cuts me wide open. Elizabeth’s life has been filled with too much pain. Everyone she loves keeps getting ripped away from her. So much loss for one person to bear, and it only proves how fucking strong she is.
Chris grabs the hand towel hanging over the bottom cabinet door and twists it. “I don’t care what Dad said or what he wants. If you’re going to break her heart again, then you need to leave her the hell alone and walk away. And if you make her cry, I’ll kick your ass.”
I suppress my smile. Even though he’s only a teenager, Chris stands his ground. Not many grown men do when they face me. Elizabeth always did. Still does. Chris is so much like her, but his protective heart is all Ry.
“I have loved your mother for a very long time. She’s it for me.”
His gaze snaps to me. “Have you told her that?”
“Not yet.”
“Then you’re stupid.”
This time, I do smile. “I’ve been called much worse.” I catch the soft cadence of Elizabeth’s laughter through the screen door, and an idea hits me. “Where’s your mom’s guitar?”
“Back room at the end of the hall.” Dropping the hand towel next to the stove, he ties up the garbage bag and lifts it out of the can. “I’m, um…I’m racing at the Fields on Friday…if you want to come watch.”
Elizabeth’s heart isn’t the only one I need to be careful with. “I’ll be there.”
He gives me a curt nod and heads out the back door to empty the trash.
As I walk down the hall, I pause to look at all the framed photographs hanging on the walls.
So many beautiful moments captured, Ry in every one.
When I pass by an open bedroom door, I stop the urge to go inside when I smell Elizabeth’s jasmine perfume.
Not my place to intrude, no matter how curious I am.
At the end of the hall, I enter a room filled with musical instruments: acoustic and electric guitars in stands, a dual keyboard, drums, and a violin case propped in the corner. Grabbing one of the acoustics by the neck, I spot a pink guitar pick on a table and secure it between the strings.
Stepping out onto the veranda, I remain hidden in the shadows and take in the familial scene of Elizabeth and the kids roasting marshmallows around the firepit.
Somehow sensing me, Elizabeth looks in my direction, a gorgeous smile blooming across her face.
No matter how many times I’ve seen it the past couple of days, it always takes my damn breath away.
“I was about to come in and get you,” she says, blowing on her marshmallow when it catches on fire.
I hold up the guitar as I walk down the back steps. “Found something.”
She laughs like I’m joking. “I don’t think so.”
“Mom, play for us,” Chris says.
“I’d rather hear you play.”
Chris sits down in an Adirondack chair and gets comfortable. “I’m beat from cleaning the kitchen.”
Grant circles his arms around Charlotte when she drops down into his lap, her enthusiasm winning the battle of wills. “Mom, please. Pretty please. It’s been forever since you played.”
Outnumbered, Elizabeth unwillingly takes the guitar from me.
“They say it’s like riding a bike.”
“That’s not what they say,” she replies, looping the strap over her head and removing the pick.
It doesn’t escape my notice how her hands tremble when she strums a few chords and adjusts the tuning pegs. After a minute and a few deep breaths, she begins, falters, and begins again.
“Sorry. It’s been a long time.”
“Mom, you’ve got this.”
Elizabeth gives her daughter a tremulous smile.
Letting the guitar hang, she shakes out her hands, then repositions her fingers on the fretboard.
The notes are soft as she begins to play, melding into the night like a song carried by the breeze.
I don’t recognize the melody, but apparently Charlotte and Chris do as they quietly hum along.
And then Elizabeth closes her eyes, opens her mouth, and the most beautiful sound comes out as she sings.
I always wondered why she didn’t do more with her music.
She’s so talented, her musical ability a God-given gift.
She could have had record companies crawling through fire to get her to sign with their label.
But fame, money, the jet-setting lifestyle—those were never her thing.
She once told me in Barcelona that music was her connection with her dad.
It was as simple, and as sentimental, as that.
She opens those soulful light-green eyes, her gaze landing on me, and the world collapses around us until we’re the only two people in existence. As the final melody fades away, happiness splits her face, the magnificence of it detonating like a bomb inside my chest.
I cross the short distance to her. Surprise flashes in her eyes when I slide the strap on her shoulder to move the guitar out of the way.
Her breath hitches when I draw her in, and for a second, we stand suspended in the quiet hum of the night summer air.
Then I kiss her—slow, deep, and unshakably sure.
“Close your mouth, Chris. I’m going to be kissing your mom a lot.”
Elizabeth buries her face in my chest and dissolves into giggles.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, a sharp vibration against my thigh, and I pull it out with a glance. “It’s just Xander. Let me see what he wants.”
“Tell him hi,” Elizabeth says.
“Will do.”
The wood logs crackle, sending embers floating into the twilight air, their glow flickering before fading out. Walking to the other side of the firepit for a little privacy, I call him back. He picks up on the first ring.
“Found him.”
A ripple of tension scores through my body, my grip on the phone crushing. I exhale slowly through my nose, forcing my face into something unreadable when I notice Elizabeth watching. “You sure?”
“Yeah. It’s him.”
Fuck me.
“Send me the info.”
“Just did.”
I hang up and read his text message when it pops up on the screen.
Goddammit.
“Everything okay?” Elizabeth asks, but the tiny furrow between her brows says she caught my scowl.
I tuck the phone away like it hasn’t just derailed my entire night. “Everything’s good, but there’s something I need to take care of that can’t wait.”
Something. The word tastes too much like a lie.
“But it’s almost ten,” she says forlornly but doesn’t press. “I’ll walk you out.”
“Bye, Uncle Fallon!” Charlotte chirps.
“Night, Squirt.”
Elizabeth leads the way and ushers me through the house and out the front door to where I parked my motorcycle, its chrome wheels reflecting the yellow hue given off by the porch lights.
She hunts for something in my face that I can’t let her find. “Thank you for a wonderful day.”
“Anytime, Kitten.”
Taking my hand, she flips it over, then slips something cold and metallic into my palm. A house key. She just placed a piece of her world into my hands, and my fingers curl around it and hold tight, the symbolism of the small object monumental.
“Come back when you’re done,” she says softly.
“Always.”