42. Chapter 42 #3
“Oh,” I said, hands dropping. “That’s a great idea.”
“You’ve got it under control. I believe in you,” she said as she left us alone again.
Finally, I got the diaper on right, everything where it should be, and breathed a sigh of relief. Cai clapped like I’d just performed a magic trick.
“Jakey did it!”
“Yeah.” I snorted a laugh. “Jakey did it.”
Once he was in his truck pajamas, he jumped into his bed, and I tucked the blanket around him, smoothing it over the trucks printed across the fabric. This little dude was so obsessed, it was adorable. He grabbed my wrist before I could pull away.
“Jakey,” he whispered. “Truck go vroom.”
“They do. They go very vroom.”
He blinked at me, a little slower than normal. “Why?”
I tried not to laugh. “Why do trucks go vroom? That’s a big question for bedtime, buddy.”
He waited, eyes wide, expecting the secrets of the universe.
“Well,” I said, “trucks go vroom because they have engines. Engines make noise when they work hard.”
He considered this deeply. Then shook his head.
“No,” he said. “Truck go vroom ’cause it happy.”
My heart twisted. “Yeah,” I whispered. “That’s a good reason too.”
I pushed my hand into his curls, brushing them gently off his forehead. Yawning so wide his whole face scrunched, he blinked up at me, heavy-lidded. “Jakey…”
“Yeah, little man?”
“My happy.”
My breath caught on an inhale at how innocent he was.
His tiny hand reached out, patting my cheek with all the coordination of a sleepy kitten. He missed the first time, got my jaw the second, then left his palm there, warm against my skin.
“Wuv you.” His little voice was slurred, but I’d heard him loud and clear.
It was barely a whisper, barely shaped into words that made sense, but it hit me like he’d shouted it. Like he’d climbed up onto my chest and pressed the whole weight of his tiny, trusting heart right against mine.
This little kid loved me.
And I wholeheartedly loved him back.
Truthfully, I hadn’t been prepared for this. I’d been prepared for bedtime stories and snuggles. But this sleepy toddler looked at me like I was someone worth loving. Someone he chose.
I swallowed hard, the feeling wrapping around my heart and squeezing tight.
“I love you too, buddy,” I managed, though my voice was a bit shaky.
He was already drifting, his hand slipping from my cheek, his breathing evening out. Completely unaware that he’d just rearranged the furniture in my chest. He’d just handed me something I didn’t even know I’d been starving for.
I sat there for a moment longer, staring at this tiny, messy, brilliant little person who had no idea how much space he’d taken up in my life. In me.
And for the first time, the responsibility of someone else didn’t scare me.
It felt like coming home.
The day caught up with me in rapid succession, all my emotions fighting for purchase all at once.
I left the door cracked for him, and my heart still somewhere back in his room, laying in the palm of his hand.
Seren was in the kitchen, leaning against the counter with a glass of water in her hand. The overhead light caught in her hair, giving her a golden glow, softening everything about her. She looked up when she heard me.
“Did he go down okay?”
I didn’t answer with words. I crossed the kitchen in three steps, cupped her jaw, and kissed her.
A tectonic plate moved under my ribs.
How do I even begin to explain what she does to me? What this feeling was brewing inside?
Every time I was near her, something in me settled and sparked at the same time. She was the only person who could make me feel calm and on fire in the same breath. It was as though my body recognized her before my brain did.
And then Cai.
Being around him felt like someone handed me a piece of my own heart I didn’t know was missing. The way he looked at her, the way she looked at him…it was joy. Pure, unfiltered joy. And I kept trying to soak it in, hoping that if I stayed close enough, maybe some of it would stick to me.
I’d spent my whole life on the outside of moments like that. Watching other people have families, something to go home to. I learned early not to expect it for myself, but right now, I was hopeful and aching for all of that with Seren.
The thought that I could lose them at any moment took over every nerve in my body. My knees buckled, and I sank down, ready to beg, ready to trade my soul for hers because I wanted them both for real. I needed them both to keep me.
“Jake?” Seren said, reaching for me. “What—”
“Can you do something for me?” I interrupted, fisting my hands into the flesh of her thighs and bunching her dress.
Her hands threaded into my hair, brushing through the strands, soothing my turbulent heart. But her eyes were worried and unsure. “What?”
“Just…please don’t give up on me, okay?” My voice broke, memories I’d forced down for years clawing their way back up. It was as though they’d been waiting for a moment of weakness to finally assault my mind.
“What? Why would I do that?” she asked quietly as her hands drifted to the back of my neck.
The emotion clogging my throat was so intense I wasn’t sure I could speak another word.
My lip trembled at the thought of baring something she wasn’t ready for yet.
But then she sank down in front of me, still holding my face, pulling me in for a soft kiss that imprinted right onto my soul. “Jake, what’s going on?”
I managed to swallow, but I didn’t lick my lips; I wanted the taste of her right there.
“He told me he loves me,” I whispered, looking straight into her eyes. “And I’m terrified.”
At first, her eyebrows pinched, but then they softened as realization dawned on who I was talking about. “Cai?” she asked, confirming.
I nodded, but the fear had taken root in my mind. Every time I thought I had something, it disappeared. Every place that started to feel like home never stayed mine for long.
There had been one place I stayed long enough to almost believe it might stick.
They let me stay up late, sit with them while they watched movies.
We made cookies together on Saturday mornings.
I never felt that I was just passing through.
They showed me how to fix a busted cabinet hinge and the chain on my bike that I rode to school.
I remembered standing there, holding that screwdriver in the kitchen, watching them, thinking this was what it was supposed to feel like.
Then one random Tuesday night, they sat me down and told me they couldn’t keep me.
My hand slid from her thigh to her waist as I pulled her onto my lap, needing to feel her there, solid, real, not something that would disappear the second I blinked.
“Do you want to talk about whatever’s going through your head right now?
” she asked, and I knew that I owed her something more so she’d understand why.
“I…” God, my heart was a wild thing. “I know what it’s like to almost have something.
I know what it’s like to almost be the person who people chose.
But this…I need to believe that when things get hard, when I inevitably do something wrong, you won’t want to leave.
And I know that’s irrational and pre-emptive, but—”
“Jake, I—”
“No, I know I’m not perfect.” I inhaled and made sure to hold her eyes as I said this. “So this is me telling you that I want in, Seren. No more holding back. I want in your and Cai’s life, officially. Take me as I am, but please don’t leave me in the dark.”
My fingers curled around her. Letting go wasn’t an option I could survive.
Because losing this—losing her, losing him, losing this fragile feeling that maybe, for the first time in my life, I had something that could actually be mine—felt like it would break something in me I wouldn’t know how to put back together.