24. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Hope sat on a picnic blanket spread out by a quiet pond.
It was her favorite patch of green space between the Proprietor’s Burying Ground and the larger expanse of gravestones in the South Cemetery.
In truth, there was no South Cemetery, it was just the name given to the collection of five public and private graveyards that abutted one another in this part of town.
Her fascination with such places led to many assumptions that she dabbled in the occult.
She’d been all too eager to prove to Brayden that they weren’t eerie or sad.
In fact, she often felt like they were brimming with life.
Brayden hadn’t been fond of that opinion when she shared it, but he’d come to see it her way.
The memory warmed Hope almost as much as the sunlight that crested the church steeple in the distance. It seemed like a lifetime ago, even though it was only this time last year that she invited Brayden to her favorite spot in town for a walk amongst the dead.
They first met at an author event at the largest indie bookstore in the area.
She’d been asked to do a reading from her first book.
Apparently, Brayden had been in the store at the time looking for a new novel to dig into.
He bought a copy of her book and made sure to introduce himself after her fans dispersed.
She remembered playing a little hard to get but reveling in the notes he tucked into the free library box near her house.
They were pen pals that way, swapping notes and books, for a few weeks before she finally agreed to meet him in person for a date.
The rest was an easy breeze into love. For her, it was simple to break the plans for celibacy she and Effie had laid out.
It felt too good to be in love with the sweet, sensitive man who took her to minigolf courses, playgrounds, bowling alleys, and graveyards for dates that were fun .
The reason it had taken so long, she thought, for her to tell him she loved him was because nothing felt too serious with Brayden.
It felt joyful and goofy and right. It’s not that the love wasn’t there, but there was no need to label it or think through all it meant.
That kind of levity felt foreign to Hope. She aimed for seriousness in her work, aimed for deep unrelenting truths. But Brayden warmed her, soothed her, showed her you could have the big, beautiful, serious things in life and not take them so seriously that you forgot to enjoy them.
Or at least, he had.
Hope squirmed in her seat. The grand declaration of her email emptied like an echo behind her.
The optimism it had carried deflated when she saw how much she’d hurt Brayden.
She worried she could never undo the pain she caused, the feeling she’d left him with—as if he was ever just a sperm donor and not the most important person in her life.
Hope wished so many things had gone differently, but now she could only try to move forward, one clunky step at a time. Starting today.
Effie told her that Brayden might show, but Hope wasn’t expecting anything. She wasn’t surprised he needed space, but she was determined to keep showing up.
Hope leaned back on her hands and stretched out her neck.
Tibby warned her that in the next few weeks she would really pop.
Hope didn’t believe she could pop any more than she had, her belly already giving the subtle impression that she’d shoved a basketball under her shirt, but apparently, there was more room to grow.
Sixteen weeks to be exact. So much time and not enough.
Not if she wanted things back to where they’d left off with Brayden before they got messy.
She desperately wanted to get there before the baby came.
Hope loosed a sigh that turned into a bit of a growl at herself and Chloe, who had to have known what she did by calling herself Brayden’s wife. Hope grabbed her sweater from the ground beside her, pressed her face into it, and screamed muffled bloody murder.
“You Thatchers have a lot in common.” Hope turned to see Brayden, hands shoved deep in his pockets, standing beside her. “Walked in on Effie screeching Taylor Swift to calm her nerves one time.”
Hope offered him a faint smile. “She must have been mortified.”
“To say the least.” He gestured to the sweater. “You okay?”
“Just hating myself a little today. Chloe too, but mostly me.”
Brayden didn’t respond but instead settled on the blanket, just out of reach. Hope’s breath hitched at the love she could still so clearly see in his eyes. How could she ever have thought he’d betray her? The question plagued her at night when she couldn’t fall asleep.
The sight of him had her feeling twisted up in knots. If she had handled things differently, he wouldn’t be untouchable with more space than she cared to acknowledge between them.
Hope’s cheeks flushed and she couldn’t stop the tears that escaped.
“I’m sorry.” She sucked in a breath. “I don’t know what to say .
. . I don’t.” Her sinuses blocked up and her eyes burned as they flooded.
“I can’t help it!” she whined, throwing her hands up in the air absolutely exasperated before gesturing to her swollen belly.
“Everything is so screwed up, and it’s my fault, and I want to go back in time and confront you about the Chloe thing and stop it all from going to hell. ”
Brayden crouched before her. “Unfortunately we don’t have a TimeWeb.”
Hope wept even harder, her words coming out strangled. “Stop quoting my book lore, it’s too—too much.”
Brayden moved behind her, making himself into a backrest for her to lean against, his strong legs on either side of her hips.
He pulled her back into his chest. Hope took a few deep, shuddering breaths as he brushed the hair from her dampened cheeks.
“You’re not supposed to be making me feel better right now.
I’m the one—”A new wave of sobs threatened to break through, and Hope could have cursed out her body for betraying her right now.
Pregnancy hormones were not to be trifled with.
“It’s okay,” he whispered, but she heard the lump that had worked its way into his throat. The last time they’d sat like this was the moment she should have told him about the baby. The moment she chose to say I love you instead.
Brayden’s pectorals tightened along with the air in her lungs as he reached a tentative hand over Hope’s side like he was deciding if it was safe to rest his hand on her stomach, to hug her like he always did when they sat this way.
She didn’t dare breathe or move his hand for him.
She’d already left him out of so many decisions, she wasn’t literally going to force his hand on this too.
Slowly, too slowly to suggest anything but fear, Brayden laid his arm around Hope’s middle, his hand landing softly on the stretched cotton of the Keene State T-shirt she wore. She had wanted to be stylish in her pregnancy but alas, tees and leggings were much simpler.
Brayden’s fingers curled over her belly, stroking it with a reverence that had her wanting to spin in his arms and steal a kiss beneath the maple trees.
She let herself rest on him, let herself believe that it would all be okay.
Hope tried desperately not to acknowledge the voice in her head that told her that every afternoon could have felt like this if she hadn’t been so goddamn scared.
Instead, she let the buzz of bugs in the tall grass and the errant chirps of songbirds remind her to be here now.
“You’re wearing my shirt,” Brayden observed.
“I’m sorry, it’s the only one I have that fits besides my Velaris one.”
“Don’t be sorry. I, uh . . . it’s good.” He cleared his throat, and Hope tried not to latch on to the need she felt behind his words.
“Brayden . . .” He tensed as a swift kick met his hand.
Hope flinched a little herself. It was a big one.
“Bug, settle down please.” She smoothed her hand over her stomach in comforting circles.
The kicking subsided, but Brayden had already jerked his hand away and shot to his feet.
Hope would have fallen over backward if he didn’t have the presence of mind to place a hand between her shoulder blades to steady her before he started shaking in what Hope feared was a fit of rage.
Hope spun around to face him. She hated herself even more for the warring emotions painted on his face. “Bug? ”
“It’s what I’ve been calling the baby . . .”
“I gathered that,” Brayden said through clenched teeth, but he sounded more sad than angry.
Hope got to her feet and met Brayden where he stood.
She placed her hands on his chest and took a deep breath with him.
“I’m so, so sorry.” She took his hand and guided it back to her belly where Bug did somersaults or maybe a full vault performance; it was difficult to discern, but it was definitely some kind of amniotic gymnastics.
Hope melted at the smile that it brought to Brayden’s face.
“Does that feel weird?”
“Very, but I think in a good way.”
Brayden swallowed hard, nodding his agreement. He kept his hand still, gaze fixed on the baby he wouldn’t truly see for a few more months. “Bug,” he said. “It’s weird but I like it.”
Hope laughed. He lifted his eyes to meet hers.
Hope reached for the nape of his neck and pulled him close.
She softly brushed her lips against his.
He broke free from the restraint he’d been showing and cupped her face in his hands.
He kissed her like he needed it, needed her.
Like he could live off her kisses alone.
For a few too-short moments it felt like everything was fixed.
Brayden broke from the kiss first. He ran tense fingers through his hair, while Hope waited for the shoe to drop. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that, not when—”
“Not when you didn’t come here to get back together.”
Brayden looked at his feet, not wanting to confirm her suspicions like it somehow made it hurt less.
“We could just choose to be happy instead,” Hope offered, and the idea seemed so simple that it might be the right one. “Start from here and choose each other. Choose our family.” Hope’s voice cracked, and she hated how much it made her sound like she was begging.
“I need you to tell me why you stayed away after Effie told you about Chloe. I need to understand.”
Fair . Hope owed him that much. She had planned to give him every sordid detail of the fears that drove her to madness when she first suggested they meet here.
She could do it.
She could ignore the fault line forming in her heart and tell him what he needed to know. She could do that for him, especially if she had any hope of ever winning him back.