Chapter 29 #2
“Did you ever wonder if your parents truly knew what they were doing, or if they were just good at faking their way through it so that you’d feel safe and loved and everything a kid should feel?” I ask.
He lowers his burger, chewing slowly, eyes still locked on mine.
“I had a friend with the best parents when I was growing up,” I continue.
“My parents—they did their best, but their version of best was comparing me to my sisters like that would make me want to be more perfect instead of making me feel like I’d never be good enough to deserve their love.
My friend’s parents though—they were like you.
They let her run wild and explore things and flirt with trouble.
I never heard them yell at her, though, clearly, you never know what goes on behind closed doors.
But they’d do science experiments with us and talk to us like we were grown-ups, but not like, in an expectation that we behave like grown-ups kind of way. ”
“That sounds like my childhood,” he says.
“When she got married a few years ago, I saw her parents again, and they were the same as ever. I complimented them on how they were there for the day instead of the stress—weddings can be awful, you don’t even want to know what my sisters’ weddings were like—and I’ll never forget the way they looked at each other.
It was like, yes, we fooled her. And I realized that everything I loved about them growing up—they worked hard to make a good childhood for my friend, and they were afraid they hadn’t done a good enough job.
It wasn’t as easy as they made it look. But me and my friend—we just thought it was that easy. ”
He keeps staring at me.
“Have you ever asked your parents if it was easy?” I ask.
He shakes his head.
I shrug. “Then maybe you’re holding yourself to too high of a standard.”
He still doesn’t break eye contact with me while he takes another bite, and there’s something in his eyes that I can’t look away from.
Worry.
Insecurity.
Maybe even the weight of the entire world.
“You don’t have to be everything for everyone,” I say at the same time he says, “I was a shitty husband.”
“What?” I gape at him. “No.”
He sets his burger down and looks down at the table with a sigh. “I don’t—I don’t tell people that. But I was.”
“Olivia and Samantha told me you were amazing when Ava was sick.”
“I knew what to do. I know how to take care of people. But I—we got married because she was pregnant and she said it was the right thing to do, and I did love her, but I always thought—I always felt like she thought I trapped her. And now—now I feel like I’m raising Lav in ways she wouldn’t have liked. ”
He tugs at his collar, a deep blush spreading up his neck, his eyes darting everywhere but at me.
“She wouldn’t have wanted Lav to know she’s loved and safe?” I ask softly.
“No, she would’ve, but it—” He cuts himself off with a sigh as he pinches the bridge of his nose.
“Ava struggled hardcore with postpartum depression, but she also insisted we’d break Lav if she didn’t breastfeed and then if we didn’t make all of her food from scratch instead of giving her grocery store baby food.
Anytime I’d point out that I wasn’t breastfed, and I had store-bought baby food, I’d just—I’d feel like she—never mind. ”
“Like she what?” I press.
He rubs the back of his neck. “Like she agreed with her parents that I should’ve gone back to school to do something bigger than being an EMT.”
“Heath,” I whisper.
“And god forbid I miss the hamper once in a while, or that I was late getting home because of an accident at the end of a shift, or that my buddies drank the wrong kind of beer when they came over to watch a game with me. I just—I couldn’t ever do anything right.”
“Even when you were taking care of her when she was sick?”
He squeezes his eyes shut and swipes a hand down his face. “Never mind. Forget it. Shouldn’t speak ill of the dead and all that. And she’s still Lav’s mom.”
“But you get to have your needs met too,” I say. God knows I’ve learned that myself, being here at Makepeace.
He shakes his head. “I meet my needs.”
Oh, this man.
He truly is carrying the weight of the world.
“Is that why you don’t date?” I ask.
He snorts out a humorless laugh. “Some of it.”
“What’s the rest?”
He glances up at me, then back down at his burger. “If I can’t set the kind of example for Lav that my parents set for me, then I don’t want to let her see me with a woman at all.”
I take a bite of cheesecake and chew slowly while he pokes at his fries.
“So if you want to go home—” he starts, but I cut him off.
“Why would I want to go home instead of staying here with one of my favorite friends, letting him talk about what’s on his mind the way he’s let me talk out what’s been on my mind for the past month?”
He swipes his hand over his face again and doesn’t answer.
“Ah. The double standard you hold yourself to,” I murmur. “I see.”
“It’s not a double standard.”
“No matter what you do with your dating life, you’re giving Lav a wonderful childhood within the circumstances life handed you.
She knows she’s loved. She has space to explore her imagination and the world.
She’s learning how to raise a pet and do the dishes.
She has experience embracing new people in her life and then saying goodbye to them when they move on. ”
“She makes it easy,” he says.
“No, she doesn’t. She’s a six-year-old girl with zero fear and a huge imagination and a streak of mischief too. Yes, parts of her are easy, but don’t lie to yourself and say it’s all easy.”
He tugs his collar.
“Whether you date or not, your daughter will grow up. Whether you date or not, she’ll have good memories of childhood.
Whether you date or not, she’ll understand one day exactly how much you sacrificed and how hard you worked to give her your best every day.
If you don’t want to date me, that’s fine.
I’m a lot too, and I like me this way. But I wouldn’t be your friend if I didn’t point out that you get to try things that might make you happy. ”
“And we’re back to I was a shitty husband.”
“Or maybe you and Ava were mismatched, but you still tried to do all of the right things for her too. Maybe you weren’t the right people for each other and circumstances and expectations made decisions for you.
Maybe it sucks that life robbed you of the chance to find out if you could’ve been happier, but you can’t change it. You can’t bring her back and find out.”
He's eyeing me warily.
I need to stop talking.
Stop lecturing him.
But for all that he’s put up with from me—from me punching him when we met to letting me climb him when the mice came running to being my partner in crime with too much wine to letting me yell at him when he found me naked in the cellar—I deserve to be honest with him.
And I hope he knows that I’m coming from a place of care.
That’s what Mabel and Ginny and Pip and Olivia and Samantha and Dori and Elizabeth—and Heath too—have done for me since I’ve been here.
They’ve taught me without a single lecture or sigh or eye roll that I get to be who I am, and that I don’t have to be perfect.
I lick my lips and go on. “Maybe all we can ever do is our best, and maybe our best isn’t great some days, and maybe you’ve never let someone else carry the load for you on those days when your best is just sitting on the couch, watching baseball and eating cereal for every meal.
You get to be human too, Heath. The good and bad and up and down and messy parts too.
I always thought I had to be perfect because of how my parents raised me. What’s your excuse?”
He swipes a hand over his mouth.
“I’m not saying this because I want you to date me.
” I roll my eyes at myself. “I mean, yes, I like you. If you asked me out on a date, I’d say yes.
But as your friend, as someone who’s benefited from everyone here demonstrating that for me day in and day out this past month, I think you need to hear it. No matter what happens with us.”
“Goddammit, Cricket,” he mutters.
I start. “What?”
“I would make a scene if I kissed you the way I want to right now.”
My nipples pebble, and wet heat floods between my thighs. “No.”
“Yes.”
“Oh my god. You really do like being scolded.”
“I—yes. Clearly I have issues.”
I smile at him and drop my voice. “Maybe we make a private scene soon?”
He glances at his half-eaten burger, then at my cheesecake and brussels sprouts. “Eat. So we can leave.”
“Right. Quit talking, Cricket,” I say.
He reaches across the table to grip my wrist. “Because you need fuel to survive what I intend to do to you tonight. Not because I don’t want you to talk. And not because you’ve said anything wrong. I wanted—I wanted to talk to you because I like your opinions and takes on things.”
“You do know who you’re talking to right now, don’t you?”
“I’m talking to a friend I trust to tell me the hard things.”
“I don’t tell everyone the hard things.”
“I appreciate that you tell me.”
I smile so hard my eyes water as I spoon another bite of cheesecake. “I appreciate you.”
“Same.” His gaze dips to my lips. “For so many reasons.”
I finish my dinner in record time.
He pays the bill.
And then we’re hustling out of the restaurant.
But when he pulls his truck out of the parking lot, he doesn’t turn toward home. Instead, he takes us up a winding road, his hand on my thigh, all of his concentration on the road.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“It’s a surprise.”
“I love surprises.”
He shifts a glance at me, his expression softening. “You love everything.”
Oh, god.
Does he think he’s just one more thing that I love the way I love everything? That I meant I love sex when I said I love you?
Is that better or worse than him thinking I meant I love him?
“Your brain’s smoking,” he murmurs.
“I don’t love going viral.”
“That’s a given.”
“But there’s a lot to love about life if you let yourself see it.”
He pulls off the main road, going deeper into the forest on a dirt road barely wide enough for his truck, and I stop talking.
If I were driving this road, I’d need all of my concentration.
Especially as I realize we’re climbing.
I see an occasional drop-off on my side of the truck as we climb.
Before long, he turns into a wider clearing, and I lose my breath.
The whole valley has opened up in front of us.
He kills the engine, and I sit gaping at the scenery.
We can see the ocean from here. The rolling hills dotted with fields and buildings.
“It’s beautiful,” I whisper.
He doesn’t answer, and when I glance at him, he’s watching me. “It is,” he agrees softly in a way that tells me he’s not talking about the scenery.
I blush through the deepest layers of my skin.
My muscles might be blushing too. Some of my organs.
He smiles softly, then pops his door open and climbs out. A moment later, he’s opening my door for me too.
And then we’re out in the evening sunshine, fresh air and the scent of pine trees around us, all alone.
Looking at nature’s beauty.
He hooks an arm around my waist, and we lean against the truck, just watching the world below, until he nuzzles my hair with his nose.
And then I’m twisting into him, kissing him like I’ll die if I don’t.
He slides a hand under my shirt.
I slide my hands under his shirt.
He presses his erection into my belly.
I kiss him harder and deeper, and he responds with a low groan in his throat that I can feel in mine too.
Be brave, Cricket. Be brave.
Yes.
Brave.
“Are we alone?” I gasp as everything between my thighs swells and pulses in anticipation.
He bites my neck. “Yes.”
“For miles and miles?” God, I need to rub my nipples. Or him. He needs to rub my aching nipples.
“Close enough.”
“Hikers?”
“Maybe.”
Maybe.
Do I risk it?
Can I be brave?
“I want—I want to have sex with you here. Now. Out—outside.”
He lifts his head and looks at me, his eyelids low, eyes dark and glittering in the sunshine. “You’re sure?”
When he looks at me like that— “Yes.”
“I have to take your pants off.”
Those words make my clit tingle. “Yes.”
“You’re so fucking brave, Cricket.”
It’s the praise I didn’t know I needed.
The last bit of encouragement.
I rip my button open and unzip my pants, then shove them to my feet, kick my shoes off, and step out of them.
Bare-assed.
Standing on gravel in my socks.
He twists us so he’s pinning me to the side of the truck.
I grab the condom that I know is in his back pocket, then make quick work of unbuttoning and unzipping his pants too while he kisses me hard and fast and deep and possessively.
He grabs me beneath one thigh and hitches it up while I roll the condom down his length.
Cool air rushes against my pussy.
We’re outside.
I’m naked.
Exposed.
And Heath’s driving his hard length deep inside me.
“Oh, god, yes,” I gasp.
I wrap my other leg around his hips and tilt my pelvis into his with every thrust of his cock.
My head falls back.
“So—fucking—gorgeous,” he rasps.
“You feel—so good,” I pant.
“My brave girl.”
“My knight.”
He flashes a grin, and then he’s kissing me as he fucks me against the truck until everything inside me bursts free.
My legs straighten, and I bite his shoulder to keep from screaming in the wilderness while my insides shake and quake and pulse around his rock-hard cock.
“Fuck, Cricket,” he groans as I feel the beat of his release too. “So—fucking—good.”
“I love you,” I gasp.
Again.
Shit.
He pins me harder against the truck while we come, his lips on my neck, my jaw, my lips—
Stopping me from talking?
Or saying with his body what his tongue can’t?
Voices drift behind us.
Heath’s head snaps up.
I squeak softly.
He pulls out of my body so fast that I feel like he’s taken part of me with him, and then he’s shoving me into the truck, tossing my clothes and shoes in after me.
He’s buttoning his pants as he climbs in.
I’m still catching my breath, but I look at him, and he looks at me, and he looks down at my still-bare crotch, and I do too.
We lock eyes again.
And then we fall into each other, laughing until we’re both crying while Heath tries to cover my pussy with my pants and I try to stop laughing enough to kiss him.
It’s not just the sex. Not just the proximity. Not just the timing.
I love him.
I do.
I love him like I’ve never loved anyone.
And that’s both the best and worst thing that could’ve possibly happened to me here.
If he could ever love me back—then we’d live happily ever after.
But if he can’t—
Well.
Thankfully, that’s not a today problem.