32. Chapter 32
My hands fumble with the key as Tiff and Ella wait anxiously behind me. “Ugh,” I say, wiping my sweaty hands on my jeans. Pathetic. It’s just an apartment. It’s not life or death, but somehow it feels like it.
What if she thinks it's too small? What if the room isn't what Ella wants? What if this whole thing is too much, too fast, and I've completely fucked up the best thing that's ever happened to me?
They won’t. They’ll love it. I checked the place a hundred times in the past twenty-four hours—made sure every light worked, every surface was clean, every detail was perfect—but now that Tiff and Ella are actually here, I'm second-guessing everything.
“Jamie,” Tiff says softly, touching my arm. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” I clear my throat, turning the key. “Yeah, I just…I hope you like it.”
“I’m sure we’ll love it.”
I finally get the door open and step aside, letting them see it first.
Ella bolts past me, kicking off her shoes as she makes a beeline for the new beige couch Zach helped me pick out. He said it would be perfect for his place—the one he’s planning to let us rent next year once he’s drafted.
Not that Tiff knows that yet. She still thinks he’s undecided about the draft. But after a few beers with him and Reese, I found out the truth—they want to go out together, same year, same shot at the league.
Tiff moves more slowly, taking in the living room with its mostly secondhand furniture and the pink roses on the coffee table I bought this morning.
“Jamie, this is—” She turns in a circle, her eyes wide. “This is really yours?”
“Ours,” I correct quickly. “I mean, if you want it to be. Eventually. No pressure.”
She opens her mouth to respond, but Ella's voice cuts through from down the hall.
“MOMMY! DADDY! COME LOOK!”
That tightness in my chest is still there when she calls me that. Good. That means I haven’t gotten used to it.
Tiff follows me down the hall to the room that Zach and I made sure was as perfect as possible for Ella.
When we round the corner, Ella's standing in the doorway of her room, completely frozen. Her mouth is open in a perfect O of shock, her eyes wide, and she’s barely breathing. If I didn’t know what was causing my daughter to malfunction, I’d be concerned.
Tiff leans over to get a better view. “Oh, Jamie. Is this what you wanted to show me?”
I watch her take it in—the pale blue walls painted to match Ella's current room exactly, the silver snowflakes scattered across the walls in the same pattern, the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling, but it's the bed that makes Tiff's hand fly to her mouth.
The tower bed with its silver canopy and twinkling lights. The snowflake bedding. The stuffed animals carefully arranged on the pillows, including Mr. Squishy, who Ella let me borrow yesterday so I could bring him on a nice vacation here.
“Is this…is this for me?” Ella's voice is barely a whisper, like she's afraid if she speaks too loud, the magic will disappear.
I crouch down to her level, my heart hammering. “It is. I was hoping—maybe you and your mom might want to stay here sometimes. Like a sleepover.”
“A sleepover?” Her face lights up like the stars on her ceiling. “With you?”
“With me,” I confirm, and my voice cracks slightly. “Whenever you want. Whenever your mom says it's okay.”
Ella looks at Tiff, her eyes pleading. “Can we, Mommy? Please? Can we have a sleepover tonight?”
I stand slowly, turning to face Tiff. She's staring at the room with tears in her eyes, and one hand still covering her mouth. When she finally looks at me, the expression on her face makes my knees weak.
“Jamie, when did you… how did you…”
“Zach helped build everything,” I admit.
“Reese has a lot of connections, and his sister was getting rid of Maya’s tower bed, so they let me have it.
Maya also gave me advice on the books too.
” I gesture toward the bookshelf, which is already stocked with princess stories.
“I wanted Ella to have her own space here. Somewhere that felt like hers.”
“It's perfect,” Tiff whispers. “Jamie, this is—I can't believe you did all this.”
“Can we stay?” Ella tugs on my hand, bouncing on her toes. “Please? I want to sleep in my tower bed!”
I look at Tiff, everything I want to say stuck in my throat.
Please say yes. Please give me this chance. Please let me show you what it would be like to be together as a family.
“Just tonight,” Tiff says finally, her voice slightly shaky. “A sleepover. Then we'll need to head back to see Uncle Zach.”
The relief that floods through me is so intense I almost stagger. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She squeezes my hand before she whispers, “Some stuff happened with him today. I don’t want to leave him to rot in that big house on his own for too long.”
“Honey stuff?”
She nods.
“Right. I get it. We will take it slow,” I agree, even though every fiber of my being wants to tell her to move in right now, tonight, forever.
Tiff steps deeper into the room, her fingers trailing over the soft canopy fabric, the curve of the ladder, the worn spines of the books. She sits down on the edge of the bed and laughs when Ella bounces beside her, already clutching Mr. Squishy to her chest.
“She loves it,” Tiff says softly. “You did good, Jamie.”
I lean against the doorframe, trying not to let my grin get too stupid. “That’s all I wanted.”
“Where’s your room?” Ella asks, bouncing off the bed and heading to where I’m standing.
“It’s just across the hall.” I scoop her up before she can leave and take the short couple of steps to my room.
When I open the door, I put Ella down and let her run to the queen bed with clean white sheets and a window overlooking the street.
“This room is smaller than mine,” she notes as Tiff picks up a framed photo on my nightstand. It’s the three of us from behind as we walk into the stadium.
“Where did you get this photo?” she asks, her thumb grazing the glass.
“Honey sent it to me,” I explain quietly. “After the game last week. She said I should celebrate how far I’ve come.”
“It’s beautiful.” A small smile graces her face as I pull her into a side hug.
“It’s also our first picture together as a family. Felt like it needed to be memorialized.”
Tiff sets the photo back on the nightstand and looks up at me with a soft smile. “You really thought of everything, didn’t you?”
I shrug, trying to play it off. “Just wanted it to feel like home.”
“It does.” Her voice is quiet and certain.
Tiff leans against me, her head resting beneath my chin as the credits for Iced Out play for the second time tonight.
I kiss her forehead, breathing her in as I stroke Ella’s hair.
Despite her enthusiasm to sleep in the tower bed, Ella ended up asleep on my chest half an hour ago, and I didn’t have the heart to move her.
This is it. This is what I want. Every night, every morning. Every damn minute of my day.
The TV plays the soundtrack in the background, but I barely hear it. All I can focus on is the steady rhythm of Tiff's breathing, the way her fingers trace idle circles over my arm.
“You know,” I murmur, my voice rougher than I mean it to be, “I used to think I’d ruined every good thing that had ever touched me.”
Her head shifts slightly, just enough for her to glance up at me, sleepy-eyed and questioning.
“But then you let me back in,” I say. “You and Ella. You made this—” I gesture around us, the blanket piled at our feet, the soft little snores coming from our kid—”feel like home.”
She smiles faintly, and before she can say anything, I tilt her chin up and kiss her. Slow. Careful. It's a kiss with a promise I've been holding since we reconnected.
When I pull back, my chest aches with how much I love her. How much I always have.
“Marry me,” I whisper. Maybe I shouldn't have said it, but I'm tired of holding it in any longer.
Her breath catches. “Jamie—”
“I know this is a lot,” I say quickly, the words tumbling out.
“I know it's fast and probably crazy, but Tiff, I don't want to waste any more time.
I've already missed four years with you.
I never got to help you through pregnancy.
I've missed three years of bedtimes and birthdays and every little moment in between with Ella.
I can't get that back, but I can be here for everything that comes next.”
“Jamie—”
“Let me finish.” I cup her face, rubbing my thumb against her cheek.
“You're the sweetest woman I've ever met.
You're an incredible mother. You're strong and brave, and you've done everything alone, and you shouldn't have had to. You deserved better than what I gave you—than what my family did to you.”
Her eyes are shining now, but she doesn't interrupt.
“I'm so in love with you,” I continue, my voice breaking as I try to keep it barely above a whisper.
I don't want to wake Ella. “You're the best thing that's ever happened to me, and not just because you gave me Ella. You make me want to be better. You make me want to deserve you. My life is so much better with the two of you in it. I don’t care if it’s next week or next year. I just… I want to know that someday, you’ll both be mine. For real. No more running, no more what-ifs. Just us.”
Tears are streaming down her face now, and I can barely see through my own. “Will you marry me?” The words come out raw and desperate, but I don’t care. They needed to be said.
For a moment, she just stares at me, her hands still covering her mouth, tears tracking down her cheeks. The silence stretches so long I start to panic, start to think I've fucked this up spectacularly, that it's too soon, too much, too—
“Yes.” The word is so quiet I almost miss it.
“What?”
“Yes,” she says again, louder this time, nodding frantically. “Yes, Jamie. Yes, I'll marry you.”
Tiff laughs through her tears, that soft, broken sound that’s always undone me. I pull her closer, careful not to jostle Ella, and she buries her face against my neck. Her shoulders shake, and I don’t know if it’s from crying or laughing, or both.
I hold them—my girls—and for the first time in years, no—in my fucking life—everything feels right.
Not borrowed.
Not temporary.
Just ours.
Ella stirs, letting out a sleepy hum, and Tiff reaches down to smooth her hair. I watch her do it, that gentle, motherly instinct that never stops, and I swear my heart could break from how much I love her.
She glances back up at me, eyes still shining. “You know,” she whispers, “you didn’t have to ask me tonight.”
“Yeah,” I murmur, brushing a kiss to her temple. “But I wanted to, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned…” My throat tightens. “You don’t wait to hold on to the good things. You fight for them.”
Her lips curve. “Then I guess it’s a good thing I’m done pushing you away.”
I smile against her mouth as I kiss her again, slower this time, deeper. The TV goes blank in the background, but neither of us move to turn it off. Ella’s hand is small and warm where it rests over mine, the three of us tangled together on this worn old couch that somehow feels like forever.
And for once, my future doesn’t scare me.
I know exactly where I’m going to be.
By Tiff’s side, raising our daughter.
How it always should’ve been.