Chapter 14 #2
“So,” Evan said casually, picking up his menu. “How was the honeymoon? Did you guys actually see anything, or did you just stare at each other in different locations?”
“Very funny,” Cal said, though he didn’t stop tracing circles on my neck. “We saw everything. The Castle. The Gardens. Silas tried to ask a bagpipe player if he took requests.”
“I did not,” I laughed, nudging Cal. “I asked him how he breathed for that long without passing out.”
“Same thing,” Cal grinned.
“It’s called enjoying life, Ev. You should try it,” Cal teased.
“I’ll enjoy life when I drop this title,” Evan muttered, waving a breadstick at us. “Seriously though. You look… good. Both of you. It’s weird not seeing Silas look like he’s doing math in his head constantly.”
I froze slightly, but Cal squeezed my neck.
“He’s taking a day off,” Cal said easily. “No math. Just vibes.”
“Well, keep it up,” Evan said, his tone turning sincere for a brief second. “Whatever you guys are doing… keep doing it. It works.”
He went back to his menu before the moment could get too heavy. “Now, I’m ordering three appetizers because I missed lunch, and since you two are glowing with the radiance of a thousand suns, Cal is paying.”
“Deal,” Cal said, laughing.
I watched them bicker over appetizers, feeling a warmth that had nothing to do with the heater. This was it. This was the family I chose. And for tonight, in this city, we were untouchable.
We had been awake for a while, tangled together under the heavy hotel duvet, just watching the light shift across the ceiling. Cal was tracing the line of my collarbone with his fingertip, his head resting on his arm.
“Where would we go?” Cal asked quietly, his voice raspy with morning sleep. “If we did it. If we retired to the trees. Where would you want to be?”
I thought about it. I thought about cities, about mountains, about beaches. But my mind only went to one place.
“We could live on my family’s land,” I said softly. “In North Carolina. It’s quiet. Miles of woods. We could build a house out there, far back from the road so no one sees. There’s plenty of room.”
Cal shifted, looking interested. “Isn’t your family… a lot?”
I chuckled. “Yeah. It’s chaotic. Between Mav’s younger kids running around and Scott’s two girls… there’s always noise at their houses. But it’s a good thing. It’s safe. It’s peace. It’s everything I wanted when I was a kid but it wasn’t.”
“What was your childhood home like?” Cal asked, tracing a vein in my arm.
“Old,” I said, smiling at the memory. “The farmhouse is old. Giant. Huge porch. It’s a time capsule. I don’t think my grandfather ever decorated it after my grandma passed before I was born. It just smells like dust and pine.”
Cal smiled, a soft, dreamy look entering his eyes. “We’d have a big porch, too. One we could sit out on every morning so I could kiss you on it. Our own little piece of heaven.”
I squeezed his hand. The image was so vivid, the two of us, older, beaten up by the ring, sitting on a porch swing while the mist rose off the grass. It felt like a promise.
Then, a thought I had never dared to entertain crept into my mind. I looked at Cal, at the gentle way he held my hand.
“Do you think you want kids?” I asked.
The question hung in the silver air.
Cal didn’t flinch. He looked down at me, and his grin widened, turning soft around the edges. “I think so. I think I’d be a good dad.”
I smiled at the idea. I could see it, Cal teaching a kid to throw a ball, Cal chasing a toddler through the tall grass, Cal loving a child the way he had never been loved.
But then the image shifted. I saw myself. I saw my father. I saw the legacy of addiction and anger and pressure.
“I’m scared I’d be a horrible dad,” I confessed, the whisper barely audible.
Cal’s expression turned fierce. He moved his hand from my arm to cup my face, forcing me to look at him.
“You wouldn’t,” Cal said firmly. “Because you want so badly to rewrite your dad’s mistakes. That makes you the best kind. You’d be an amazing dad, Si. Probably the most devoted dad in the world.”
He pressed a kiss to my forehead, sealing the words into my skin.
I breathed out, a weight lifting off my chest.
I reached for the camera on the nightstand. I needed to capture this. I needed proof that this moment, this conversation, this future we were building, was real.
Cal didn’t move as I lifted the camera. He just stayed there, propped up on one elbow, the sheet tangled around his waist, the morning light catching the gold in his hazel eyes. He looked at me with that same fierce, gentle love he had just used to promise me a family.
The mechanical whir filled the room.
I held the developing photo, but I didn’t need to wait for it to clear to know what I had captured. I was looking right at him.
He was smiling. Not the media smile. Not the fake smirk. It was a soft, terrifyingly open look of adoration. He looked at me like I was the only thing in the room. Like I was the beginning and the end of his day.
The realization hit me with the force of a piledriver.
He loves me.
It wasn’t a guess anymore. It wasn’t a hope. It was right there, written in the lazy curve of his mouth and the future he was building in his head. He loved me. He loved the broken parts of me, the legacy parts, the parts I tried to hide.
And I think, maybe, I loved him.
I wanted to say it. The words were right there, lodged in my throat like a stone. But I couldn’t. I was a coward. I was a Reed. We didn’t say things like that. We didn’t give people ammunition to hurt us.
I looked at him, and I felt a surge of panic. Is it enough? Is just feeling it enough? Is my broken, quiet love enough to keep someone like him?
I set the camera down on the nightstand, letting the photo fall face down. I didn’t need to look at it anymore. I had the real thing right here.
I moved, climbing on top of him, straddling his waist. Cal looked up at me, his eyes widening slightly, dark and full of wonder.
“Si?” he breathed.
I didn’t answer. I just leaned down and kissed him.
It wasn’t desperate. It wasn’t frantic. It wasn’t about sex.
It was a plea. It was a confession. It was every word I was too scared to say out loud poured into the way my lips moved against his.
I kissed him like I was trying to breathe his air, like I was trying to merge our souls so we could never be torn apart.
Please feel this, I prayed silently as his hands came up to grip my waist, anchoring me to him. Please know.
I pulled back just an inch, resting my forehead against his, our breathing syncing in the quiet room.
This man, I thought, my heart overflowing with a love so big it felt like it might crack my ribs. This man is going to be everything to me.
Or he is going to destroy me.