Chapter 24 #2
She rocks forward, her chair creaking beneath her. “The thing is, we’re letting ourselves hope. And I’m...” She trails off, her hand shaking in mine. “I’m almost afraid of how much I want it.”
I tighten my hold on her hand to stop the trembling. This is what Jared was trying to tell me about Emily being anxious. Not just about my leaving or Auren’s sudden reappearance, but about how she bottles it up, putting on a brave face until the dam breaks, and it all comes flooding out.
“Do you have anything else you want to tell me?”
She stares at me in confusion. “No?”
I tilt my head toward the Homestead. “No?”
She peers through the brightly lit window for a moment in confusion before understanding dawns. “Oh! Do you mean about the Wrights inviting us to join their pack?”
“That’s the one.”
She turns back to me. “Jared and I are waiting to decide.”
“What’s holding you back?”
Now, it’s her turn to squeeze my hand. “It wouldn’t affect only us. You’re part of the discussion, too, Grady. You and Leif. We want to talk about it all together. There’s a lot to consider.”
I swallow hard. “I’ll admit, this is a lot, all at once.
The cabin. The pack invitation. This.” I gesture between us.
“Three weeks ago, I was sleeping on Kyle’s couch, at a loss for what to do with my life.
Now I’m sitting on this porch being told my...
” I shake my head. “Being told you might be pregnant, and somehow that’s the most natural next step in a sequence I didn’t realize we were following. ”
Emily is quiet for a long moment, while the boat engine growls to life in the distance.
“Maybe we only think it’s fast because we’ve finally stopped fighting it.
” She turns her head, and in the dim light, her gray eyes find mine.
“All of us are broken, Grady. I won’t deny that.
But we’ve been growing toward each other for months, and if we can all get out of our own heads about it, I think everything else will fall into place. ”
The truth of it settles into my bones. She’s right. I can trace the path backward through every decision, every conversation, every moment I chose to stay when leaving would have been easier.
This hasn’t been fast at all.
Emily glances toward the dock. “I should go before it gets any darker.”
I nod, but make no move to stand.
She rises to her feet and holds out a hand. “That’s not all I wanted to tell you. Walk with me to the path?”
With a deep breath, I place my palm in hers and let her pull me up. Side-by-side, we walk down the porch steps to the path below.
“I didn’t ask you out here just to tell you about the pregnancy.” Her breath fogs between us, pale in the darkness. “The bigger part is why I’m telling you.”
I wait.
“If this is real,” she continues, “if Jared and I are really expecting, I don’t want you to think of yourself as an outsider watching our family grow.
I don’t want you standing on the dock while we load a car seat into the boat, wondering if you should offer to help or if helping would make you the intrusive friend instead of...
” She pauses. Her jaw works. “Instead of what you are.”
We reach the gravel driveway to the garage, and her steps slow.
“I don’t picture you as an honorary uncle, Grady.
I don’t picture you as the family friend who shows up for holidays with a nice bottle of wine and leaves before the dishes are done.
” Her voice becomes rough. “I picture you helping raise our children. Alongside me, Jared, and Leif. Four parents who love them, each in different ways. You teaching them to love reading. You sitting at the kitchen table helping with homework while I work in the shed and Jared cooks dinner and Leif gets lunches ready for the next day.”
The vision is so specific, so concrete, that I can see it. A kitchen I’ve never been in. Children I’ve never met. A life laid out before me with the same careful detail Emily applies to a set of blueprints, every joint measured, every load calculated.
The cold air burns my lungs on each inhale, and my fingers go numb around the cane handle, but I can’t loosen my grip. Can’t trust my hands not to shake if I let go.
“No one has ever chosen me for myself.” Saying it aloud is like prying loose an old hurt that’s been lodged inside me for years.
“Not my family. Not anyone. I’ve always been the person who helps other people realize their dreams. The agent.
The editor. The guy who opens doors so someone else can walk through them.
Even when Dom talked about me joining the pack, it was all about what we could get from each other, which I’m sure wasn’t his intention. That’s just how his mind works, but...”
“It didn’t make you feel good about yourself.”
The tightness in my throat is physical, squeezing tighter with every breath. “No one has ever looked at me and said, ‘I want you as you are, not for what you can do, but because the person you are is the person I want raising my children.’”
Emily reaches out to touch my cheek, and I realize we’ve come to a stop where the path forks. “I’m not asking you to answer anything tonight. I just wanted you to understand what I’m offering. So when we do sit down with everyone else, you’ll be deciding with all the facts.”
She leans down, brushing her lips across mine. “Take all the time you need to think about it.”
Then she turns and walks down the path toward the waiting water taxi.
I stay on the path, not yet ready to return home alone. Because, for the first time, the future isn’t a life someone else has planned for me.
It’s one Emily’s inviting me to build with her.