Chapter 52
— Remmy —
Scout sat outside on the deck of his parents’ heritage mansion on the hill overlooking the lake, sipping beer and sharing a murmured conversation with his father. It warmed my entire chest to see him in his childhood environment, content and relaxed as if he didn’t have a thousand worries at the back of his mind.
We’d arrived into Gatlin Falls that afternoon, and after surprising Scout’s parents with our arrival, Scout had broken the news of his early retirement.
The pain on his mom and dad’s faces still made my chest ache. The news reduced them both to tears, and I stood on the outskirts of their family huddle, dashing my own tears away until his mom opened her arms to me.
Her hug was nothing compared to Rusty’s crushing embrace, like a father welcoming home both his children. It immediately felt like I belonged, and despite the slowly healing relationship I had with my own parents, Scout’s brought tears to my eyes.
“Thank you for bringing my son home. He doesn’t come back enough,” Laurel said, halving cherry tomatoes for our lunch beside me on the kitchen counter. “Unfortunately, it’s normally a big event that draws him back, never just a weekend with his mom and dad.” She smiled, though it didn’t reach her eyes.
“I’m glad we did, and I promise to make him come back more often when he has the time.” I washed another lettuce leaf and set it on the counter beside her. “You know, I used to come to Gatlin Falls when I was younger. My cousin is Mercedes.”
Laurel’s mouth hung ajar as she pieced together the connection. “Mercedes, as in Scout’s friend from high school?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh my gosh. How is she? I haven’t heard anything since she left. Rumors where Beckett got out—”
She quickly cut off, but I smiled sadly. “It’s okay. They weren’t rumors though. Beckett got released. Now they’re living on a ranch out in Montana and doing great. They got married back in spring. That’s where Scout and I officially met.”
“Ohhh.” Laurel laughed and nudged me with her elbow. “See, my sons don’t tell me these things. I either hear through the grapevine or I have to pry information out of them. Sometimes it’s like getting blood out of a stone, I tell ya.”
Laughing, because my brother was just as terrible with spilling the tea, I turned off the tap and shook out the last lettuce leaf. “Fun fact: We’d actually met a while before that. He barged into the bathroom at a restaurant we were both at—not together—while he was looking for Holly.”
Laurel gasped. “He didn’t.”
“Uh huh,” I said through a snicker. “He did. He and I had a standoff until he disappeared as fast as he’d arrived.”
“Oh, that rascal.” She chuckled. “My boys have definitely kept us on our toes over the years. We thought that would change once they became adults, but they’ve proved us wrong.”
I hummed, still smiling. “Scout is incredibly caring. He’s so much different behind closed doors than what he portrays to the world.”
“I’d say most of them have different public and private personas…” Laurel stated, referring to Scout’s teammates.
Silence settled over us while we prepared the salad, and part of me worried that I’d offended her unintentionally.
“You know,” she said, breaking the silence, “you’re the first woman that he’s brought home since high school. We know there have been a couple of others, but we never had the pleasure of meeting them in person.” Laurel’s warm smile erased my niggling worry.
As her compliment warmed my chest, I snickered a little. “Well, if I’m completely honest, I bullied him into it a little bit. Said if I was moving to San Antonio with him, then I wanted to visit Gatlin Falls again first.”
She laughed quietly and went back to chopping. “If I know my son—especially that one—he doesn’t do anything he doesn’t want to do.”
I watched Scout and his father stand and walk across the deck in unison. “He sure can be stubborn when he wants to be.”
“Who can be stubborn?” Scout asked, stepping into the house.
“You,” I sassed while Laurel kept preparing the salad with a happy smile on her face.
It was entirely evident that she didn’t care in what capacity Scout had come home—she just cared that he was home. Even for just a short visit.
Rusty laughed while Scout came up behind me and kissed my shoulder. “So you’ve been talking about me, huh?”
I bit down on a grin as my heart did a little somersault. “Of course we have.”
“All good things, I expect?”
“Always.”
Scout chuckled. “As long as you and Mom aren’t ganging up on me.”
“Oh, we would never ,” Laurel chimed in.
I caught her eye, and we shared a secret smile before Scout shifted and kissed her temple. “Looks good, Mom. I’m starving.”
He stole a halved cherry tomato from the salad bowl and got his hand playfully smacked by his mom. “You’re always starving. It’s like they don’t feed you in Portland.”
“They feed me just fine, I assure you. I just like your food better.” Scout unleashed the kind of grin no mother could stay mad at, then swaggered to the fridge for more pre-lunch snacks.
Surprisingly, his grazing didn’t dampen his appetite for lunch; he eagerly tucked into the main meal when we sat around the large dining table.
The conversation flowed easily, especially during the recounts of Scout’s childhood with five boisterous brothers. And while the conversation did stray from that path, I couldn’t help but feel certain subjects were purposely avoided:
The accident Scout was involved in.
My past.
And his early retirement.
~
Our feet swung out of sync over the end of the dock as we looked out over Gatlin Lake later that afternoon. The nostalgia took me back two decades to me and Merce doing exactly this as young teenagers during summer break.
“I never thanked you,” came Scout’s murmur out of nowhere, pulling me from my memories.
A pucker formed between my eyebrows. “For what?”
“For stopping my panic attack the day I was told about my job. From the moment Linney alluded to me being retired early, all I wanted to do was vomit. If you hadn’t been at home, I would have.”
A fracture of sorrow cracked through my heart. “You know you don’t need to thank me. We’re helping each other, remember? It’s what we do.”
Despite his sunglasses shielding his eyes, I noted his brows pulling downward. “Seems to be all you lately, honey.”
I took his hand and squeezed. “That’s because I’ve had therapy for literal years for my addiction. You haven’t. The first time is when all the shit gets brought up and processed. Subsequent sessions are maintenance. For me, they’re quicker and more straightforward because I just need Benita to get my ass back on track. Trust me, when I first started therapy with her, it was rough for both of us. It seemed like I’d never be able to function normally again, but you can’t see the progress when you’re the one going through it. Seems like you’re getting nowhere, then bam, out of nowhere, things don’t seem as bleak. Like the devil doesn’t seem to have the grip he used to. That’s when you start to realize just how far you’ve come from the beginning.”
“Fuck I love you,” he breathed out in a rush.
I snickered. “I love you too.”
“You’re so damn good at putting shit into perspective. I have to admit I’d be utterly lost without you, honey.”
“You wouldn’t. You’d just be more of a pain in the ass for Linney.”
Scout barked a laugh. “That’s true. She’s a godsend.”
I liked Linney. She was one of those girls who could handle bunches of men with a single glare. From what I’d seen of her, she didn’t take shit from a soul, Scout included.
I hummed as my thoughts turned to our future. “Have you made a solid decision about San Antonio?”
“Yeah, I have. I talked it through with Dad, and I’d be a fool to turn it down.”
My heart skipped a beat as I processed the realization that I’d be moving cities sometime in the near future. “I tend to agree.”
Scout’s voice tightened with trepidation. “So, if I moved, you’d come with me? For real?”
“For real,” I promised without hesitation, smiling gently at his genuine concern. “Either that or I stay in Portland and disappear for a while, then we’ll miraculously be brought together again.”
He scoffed. “Yeah, no thanks.”
“You’d have my content to keep you happy,” I teased.
A smirk touched his lips. “I like to have my cake and eat it too. As in, me moving without you is not fucking happening.”
Snickering, I leaned back on my arms and kicked my legs back and forth. The sun warmed my skin as I closed my eyes and turned my face skyward, wondering what a life in San Antonio would look like for us. We’d come so far from that night in Portland when Scout barged into the women’s bathroom and looked me up and down with heat in his eyes that made my spine straighten. And so much further since the night of Beckett and Merce’s wedding, when we were both varying shades of broken, plus at different stages of denial and healing.
Scout had proved time and time again that there were good men out there. Ones who would fight for their diamond in the rough no matter the circumstances. And thank fuck for that.
He’d shown me that a relationship wasn’t just about reaching new nail cycle goals. It was pushing and pulling, loving and fighting, confronting and talking. But above it all, it was honesty and endurance with one hell of an open mind. Both ways. That went for both of us.
“So, we’re doing it then?” Scout’s optimistic tone broke me from my thoughts.
I rolled my head his way to find him angling toward me. “Moving to San Antonio?”
Another hint of a smile touched his mouth. “Yeah.”
“I think we’d be fucking stupid not to.”
Scout laughed and reached for my face. He cupped it in his large warm hand, drawing me closer.
“So, all in, no regrets?”
“All in, no regrets,” I confirmed, then smiled against his lips as they met mine.
With an inhale through his nose, Scout threw his leg over my thighs and straddled me, kissing me from above while holding my face hostage. I kissed him back as the sun beat down, the lake lapped at the dock poles beneath us, and our entire future settled into place before us.