Chapter 8 Man I Need #2
“Thank you,” Sydney calls after us.
“I’ve got your back,” I shout.
We step out of the loamy humidity of growing things, closing the door behind us as Gabriel and Sydney erupt in a heated conversation that I do my absolute best not to hear.
“You didn’t have to call them out like that,” I say.
Henry frowns. “Those two have been dancing around each other long enough. Grandad Miller has a saying: Fish or cut bait.”
I prop a hand on my hip. “Who waited for me for years?”
“We were kids. I knew the moment you came back to New York I’d make you mine. I had a plan, but I made a mistake sticking to it the way I did. If I had it to do over, I’d have kissed you breathless on your eighteenth birthday and dropped to one knee then and there.”
“And I’d have said yes.” I shake my head. “Sydney is scared of serious relationships, Henry. You can’t argue with a person’s fear.”
“Of course I can.” Henry brushes a stray piece of hair off my forehead.
“There’s rational fear: A person is afraid to reach into flames because it will burn them.
And there’s irrational fear: A person is afraid to be in a room with a fireplace.
The way to work past irrational fear is to name it and challenge it. ”
“That may be true, but it’s up to the person to decide when they’re ready to do the work.”
Henry’s mouth curves, his exasperation gone. “Hmmm.”
“What does that mean?”
He guides me across a stone walkway to a bench overlooking the sea. “It means”—he sits and tugs me to rest on his lap, propping my cane beside us—“that I’m thinking.”
I play with his silky hair. “Have we given up on a tryst?”
“Delayed it.”
I search his placid features. “You look very calm for a man who’s had his plans thwarted.”
“You’re here with me. What is there to be upset about?” He slides his palm up my back, his expression introspective. “I think I learned a lesson these last two days.”
“What lesson is that?” I lower my head to his shoulder and place my hand on his chest, the smooth fabric of his tux warm beneath my fingers.
He closes his hand over mine, holding me against him. “Sometimes the thing is not the thing.”
“Not following.”
“I wanted to be close to you.”
I nod.
“In my mind, I framed it as wanting to help you relax. What I really wanted was to understand what you needed. And here we are. Close, without the thing I planned for. When we talked about having kids, I wondered—”
I lift my head to look at his face and he self-corrects.
“I had concerns that you and I would change. I was trying to figure out how we could become parents and keep our relationship exactly the same. But we won’t.
We can’t. Our priorities would change. Our schedules.
The amount of time we were alone with each other would be drastically reduced.
Children would even alter our environment. ”
My heart settles somewhere near my feet, but I’d never try to convince him to change his mind. “That’s true. No child deserves to grow up feeling resented or like they’re a burden.”
“Your parents are garbage.” He scowls. “Are you sure I can’t kill them?”
My lips twitch, and I roll my eyes. “Oh, hush.”
He scans my face and drops the subject of my awful parents. “For the record, I wouldn’t resent a child we brought into the world. But I was looking at this the wrong way. The question isn’t ‘Can I prevent us from changing?’ It’s ‘Does change automatically mean worse?’”
I force myself to breathe. “It doesn’t.”
“Did you ever hear the stories about how much I initially resisted my father marrying for the second time?”
I frown lightly. “I don’t think I did.”
“I was around seven or eight years old. As far as I was concerned, our family was fine the way it was. We were three men on our own.” Amusement curls around his last sentence.
“The point is, I didn’t want some strange woman and her little girl in our lives.
They were going to destroy my routines. And, my God, did they ever. ”
I smile at the image of little Henry presented with a feral, preschool-aged Bronwyn for a sister.
“I didn’t remember what it was like to have a mother who worried over me or went out of her way to make sure I had what I needed.
I had Dad, and he was a great father. But receiving more love, different love, wasn’t a bad change.
It took getting used to, but my life was better.
I had to share my father with a woman and another child.
But he smiled more. The two of them didn’t push us away.
And Bronwyn.“ He breaks off with a huff of amusement.
“She was this little pink firebrand. Always loud and in trouble. Always looking up to me like I knew every answer. Always willing to put herself between me and anything or anyone she thought might hurt me. She was”—he shakes his head—“incomprehensible.”
I nod, almost afraid to hope where this conversation could lead. “I know.”
“She told me once that I had to be her big brother because I was tall, nice, and told her what to do. I said she was allowed to be my little sister, and she was annoying, but cute. She took cute and annoying as both a compliment and a requirement for the position. My life was good before the two of them. It was better after.”
I squeeze his hand.
“I’ve always known I’d love a child, but, I didn’t know if I’d still love who I was,” he says.
Whoa. “That’s valid, Henry.”
He bobs his chin in a jerky motion. “I can become hyper focused on work or hobbies and on you. I can be rigid, and I like my life that way. I get overstimulated by certain sensory input. I’ve built my life around what I already know works for me.
I’d have to find new ways to cope with these things in relation to parenting.
And I’d have to want to do it,” he continues, “because a child would deserve that.”
I swallow past the lump in my throat. “I’m so sorry I didn’t think of it that way.”
“Don’t be sorry.” He searches my eyes. “Everyone makes adjustments when they become a parent. The difference is that I’m extremely self-aware of the systems I’ve developed for my life. And I had to decide if I was not just willing to adjust those systems, but eager to change them.”
My breath catches. I don’t move a muscle, afraid I’ll accidentally tip the moment one way or another.
“Today,” he says, “we caught my parents sneaking kisses in closets like teenagers. My sister and her husband carve out time for each other because the world doesn’t hand it to you once you have a family.
And then we saw my brother and Sydney letting fear control them.
” He exhales slowly. “I don’t want fear deciding for me, Franki. ”
He shifts, tugging me tighter to his chest. “You and I adapt and plan. We talk things through. When we screw up, we recalibrate and try again. Parenting wouldn’t change that.”
I swallow. “That’s what I believe.”
He straightens and brushes his thumb over my bottom lip. “I want us to try for a baby. If I have to stay at a job I hate, it just means I’ll have one more person at home to make the rest of it worthwhile.”
The sob I had no intention of letting free rips out of me, and I throw my arms around him, burying my face against his neck.
He rubs my back. “Are these happy tears or sad ones?” he asks carefully.
“Happy,” I say, my voice muffled against his collar.
“I’m running out of clean handkerchiefs,” he muses.
I straighten and cup his face, meeting his eyes. “I’m glad you spent time thinking and didn’t rush it.” I’d wanted him to be all in at the first hint of my interest, but it’s so much better this way.
His brow furrows lightly. “I didn’t want to give you an answer I wasn’t sure was one hundred percent true.”
“I know.” I kiss him once, sweet and sure. “And I love you.”
Voices sound behind us, then a handful of chattering wedding guests turn the corner on the stone path, interrupting our tiny slice of privacy. Henry settles his hands on my waist.
“Is it almost time to go back?” I ask.
Henry glances at his watch. “Yes.”
“It was a beautiful ceremony.”
He nods, his chin resting against my temple. “It wasn’t about a party or impressing people any more than ours was.”
He and I have both attended huge society events where the guest list was about networking and social grandstanding. Those weren’t about supporting a couple’s love or commitment.
“Weddings should be about love and support,” he says simply.
“You do realize most people would be shocked to learn you’re a secret romantic.”
“I make no secret of my priorities.”
I straighten his bow tie, amused affection in my voice. “But you do it with that expression on your face.”
“Acknowledged.” He pauses. “You know what all this means?”
I sigh, warm and relaxed against my sweet Henry. “What does this mean?”
“Lotta hot sex in our near future.” He traces a single finger down my neck and over the upper swell of my breast.
I laugh and lower my voice so no one else can hear. “We already have a lot of sex.”
“Yes, but now it’ll be functional, not just recreational,” he answers sagely.
I blink. “And you think that makes it hot?”
“There’s such a thing as a breeding kink. It’s well within normal parameters of human sexuality,” he says.
I sputter in laughter as warmth floods through me. “It makes sense, I guess.”
He gives a matter-of-fact nod. “When the thought of planting a baby in you gave me some very specific fantasies, I looked it up to see if I was alone. Turns out, I’m not. There are literal romance novels written with it in them.”
“Really?”
His mouth presses against my neck. “Mm-hmm. Though to be fair, I can’t promise I’d be able to deliver some of those lines with a straight face. If you ever hear the phrase ‘baby gravy’ pass my lips, you have permission to stomp on my instep.”
“Eww.” Also funny. But so gross.
“Yes.” He lifts his chin to give me access to smooth his collar. “It’s time to return to the festivities. Do I pass inspection?”
“You’re perfect. How about me?”
His gaze trails over me like a physical caress, then he smooths a strand of hair back into my updo. “You’re wearing happiness. It’s my favorite color.”