Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Lila had felt like she was on another planet ever since she and Nolan had gotten back from Bend.
It had been a two-day sex marathon punctuated by the occasional meal downstairs in the restaurant.
Like a goodbye or a promise, she wasn’t quite sure. But it had her feeling on edge, even as her own feelings, her own certainty felt like it was growing.
But when Nolan texted and said that he wanted her to go with him to meet his family...
That felt like it shifted some things.
Because that was serious.
She wanted to ask him what it meant, but she also didn’t think it was time for her to make this about her. It was more important that she just... show up and do whatever he needed her to do.
Most especially because it wasn’t about her. But that was a little bit difficult to process sometimes. Because it all felt like it might be.
Because her whole world felt like it might suddenly be about Nolan, which was a little bit disturbing considering everything else she had accomplished in the past few months.
But it felt like something. Something bigger than sex, something bigger than just a thing they were doing to pass the time, or a convenience because they both happened to be on the ranch and they had chemistry.
She felt like he probably felt the same thing, but she was also worried that he didn’t.
And that felt like the biggest risk. The scariest thing.
What if she said something and proved that all of that was an illusion of some kind?
And what would she even say?
The options felt scary.
And alternatives to the big scary thing felt like they were few.
So to try and get her mind off of it, she went through all the revenue that their new scheme had created, worked a little bit on their future plans, and did her best to wait out her feelings as well as trying to be sensitive to Nolan’s in the lead-up to the meeting.
When he came by her place to pick her up to drive over there, she reached across the center console of the truck and grabbed his hand.
He needed support, and she was going to give it.
And she wasn’t going to ask what it meant that he was bringing her.
Though, surely, if he was bringing her, introducing her to his family, it had to mean something.
Surely.
She was only human. She couldn’t help but try and figure out where she fit into all this.
His family lived two hours away. Maybe that was the most sobering thing.
That only a couple of hours had ever separated him from these people that he was related to. From the sister on his father’s side, to this. The mother that had left him.
They had always been close, and yet, they had left him, ignored him. Acted like he didn’t exist.
She knew that pain so well. It was everything that she had experienced with the man who was technically her father.
They had been so close. And it could have been different. Her mother’s life could have been different, their lives could have been different. Even if he had decided to give them a little bit of money, if he couldn’t give them warmth, they could have been different.
And Nolan’s life could have been so different. What would it have been like if both of them had less baggage? If both of them didn’t have so many walls up?
She tried to imagine it.
They were only five years apart. It felt like a lot because of how they had known each other, when they had known each other, but it was totally reasonable that if they hadn’t been sad, lonely children, their families wouldn’t have bonded together as they did, she and Nolan would have met later, and it wouldn’t have felt insurmountable or strange.
He wouldn’t have felt like he owed some kind of explanation to her older brothers, and she wouldn’t have spent years being feral to him in order to throw him off the scent of her attraction, but maybe they had needed those things too.
Because when she thought about not having that bond with him, it made her ache. Because it was special, that he had put her hair in a ponytail. It did matter that he was one of the people that had cared for her in a life where so few people had.
She wouldn’t have needed it to fall in love with him.
But it was a beautiful part of it.
Her mouth went fully dry as she thought those words for the first time.
And it was right as they turned down the paved drive that led toward the house that his half-sisters lived in.
She couldn’t be thinking that. She couldn’t let it overtake her. She couldn’t make this about her. Couldn’t make it about her feelings.
She couldn’t. She couldn’t.
Nolan was too important to her to mess this up, to do this wrong. Maybe she’d never gotten that pink bike, or the cake with lavender frosting. Maybe she’d never had a normal mother or new clothes.
But she’d had Nolan.
And she tried to swallow some of her anxiety on down, but her throat was just glued shut.
The house came into view, and then she didn’t have any air left in her lungs either.
It was more than just a big house. And she knew, because her biological father had lived in one, because Cody had it knocked down, and they had built other things in its place, but this, this was a mansion.
Well and truly. It spoke of a privilege that had never been extended to Nolan.
It loudly shouted exactly what his mom had been running to, and why she had been running away from him. And she wondered if Nolan felt it with just as much impact as she did.
Nolan sucked in a sharp breath, and turned the engine off as he put the truck in park.
“Do you want me to walk up with you?”
He shook his head. “No. I’m good.”
That stung a little bit. So, he wasn’t introducing her to his family. He had just brought her along for moral support in the car. More secrets.
Which should be fine, because she had wanted it all to be secret anyway, and it wasn’t like he was breaking any rules that they had established.
But on the heels of realizing that she loved him, it was kind of painful.
“Good luck,” she said.
Because she wasn’t going to make this about her, goddamn it.
She folded her hands in her lap, and stared straight ahead, watching Nolan go to the door.
He rang the doorbell, and stood there, hands clasped in front of him.
And stood there. And stood there.
Minutes ticked by, and nobody came to the door. And Nolan just stood there, shoulders rigid, cowboy hat firmly in place, pride wreathed around him in a remarkable, unbreakable force.
He didn’t bow his head, not once, not even as time stretched.
He waited, until waiting was foolish.
Waited until his shoulders sloped, just slightly. And her heart felt like it was going to break into pieces.
He turned away from the door slowly, and walked back to the truck. He opened up the door and got inside. Closed it in total silence.
She had about two hundred things she wanted to say. She wanted to ask what had happened, but she knew he had no answer. She wanted to rail against the injustice of it, but she knew there was no point. If he wasn’t doing that, then she needed to keep her peace. She needed to let him have that pride.
That unbreakable, unbendable pride that she had a feeling had powered Nolan on through everything for as long as she had known him, and that knowing him felt so real and important now.
Maybe things would have been different if their lives had been different. Maybe they would be able to confess their feelings with a lot more ease, maybe there wouldn’t be quite so much baggage.
But if they hadn’t spent all those years carrying all this baggage, maybe neither of them would be as strong.
Maybe her feelings wouldn’t be half so certain.
Half so precious.
This was the wrong time to say that. The exact wrong time to talk about the fact that their struggles might just be what made them.
So she didn’t.
She said nothing, in fact. She only reached across the center console of the truck to hold his hand again.
And when he sucked in a sharp breath that sounded like it might just be the edge of a sob, she didn’t look.
She just held his hand. Because it felt right. Because it felt important.
And when he turned his truck off the main road, onto a winding mountain trail that was carved into the side of a mountain, she didn’t say anything.
He drove all the way to the top, and pulled to the edge of the lookout.
Without saying a word, Nolan got out of the truck, and stood there, staring off at the view.
She shook her head, trying to clear out all the uncertainty. She had to do something. His family had abandoned him, but he had her. They had each other, that was what really mattered, and she had to be there for him.
She unbuckled and got out of the truck, scrambling to the edge of the lookout with him. There weren’t words for this. For the pain he was experiencing. Well, there weren’t any pretty ones. Lila hadn’t been raised to be sensitive. But she knew how to speak her mind.
“That was fucked,” she said.
He shook his head, and lowered it. “I knew there was a chance. But just... When she answered the email, it seemed like she wanted to meet me.” He sighed. “All I can figure now is she wanted to send a message? I guess you have me come all that fucking way and... and what?”
“You would think that if they didn’t want you in their lives, they wouldn’t give you their address.”
“It’s something I probably could have found on my own,” he said.
“But maybe that’s the point. To just let me know that I don’t have any power.
To reinforce the fact that they’re the family, and if they choose to just not be home, there’s not anything I can do about it.
” He swallowed hard. “I don’t understand why I wasn’t enough.
Why I’m still not. Maybe they think I want money or some shit, but I don’t need it.
I made all that money. I made myself self-sufficient.
I don’t need it, I don’t need them, I just...
They’re my family, and I had some wrongheaded belief that would matter.
I told myself that I was prepared to be rejected, but I wasn’t.
Because I just didn’t think they would.”