Chapter Thirty
Oliver
Today was nothing I could have imagined.
Kimmie spoke.
My youngest daughter, who rarely chooses to sign, let alone speak, has been laughing, smiling, and emoting more than ever before. For the first time in her life, her twin isn’t the only one who can tell what she’s thinking.
I watch her by the fire now. A glowing pink haze highlights the freckles across her nose, the ones that match Cami’s identically, and my breath catches.
I can barely tell them apart like this.
“Are you crying, Oliver?” Lemon whispers. Leaves crunch behind me as she rounds the side of our tent. “Is that why you’re hiding?”
“I’m not hiding.”
“But you’re crying?”
“I’m gonna get you a little necklace that says, Brat.”
“Kinky.” She winks.
I tickle her to my lap, and we watch the kids together by the fire. The sparks flicker to the sky, and I watch those sail to the stars, too.
I wonder if Lauren can see this, all of this.
Can she hear that Kimmie talked?
But I realize now, as I look at the stars and the moon and the great expanse of everything around us, that she’s part of it all. She’s in the girls, every which way, and I’m believing more each day that she’s the angel who guided me to the answers I’ve been praying for.
To Lemon, bringing me back to life one adventure at a time.
“I used to be able to tell the twins apart easily,” I say. “But can you tell the difference when they smile like that? When it’s not just one set of eyes shining back?”
“No.” She grins. “I can’t.
“Yeah.” My heart swells. “They’re growing up quickly. Before I know it, they’ll be pissed at me every day of the week like Bryar or stuck so far in their headphones like Poppy that I’ll never get a moment in unless I flag them down.”
“You’ll definitely have to flag them down because I’m teaching those little ladies to rollerskate. It’s about time they had a way to ditch you properly when you start getting how you do.”
“Hey!”
“Maybe Bryar wouldn’t be so mad if you gave her freedom. Trust her once in a while.”
“I do trust her.”
“Yeah, and you sound like Papa again. You give her as much trust as you do the twins. She’s going to start high school in a few short months, and you better believe she’ll be faced with choices and situations outside of your control.
She’s a beautiful girl in a small town. She has every option ahead of her, whether you want it or not. She has your spirit.”
“But sleepaway cheer camp? After the sneaking out and terrorizing her last five nannies?”
“Give her respect, and she will learn how to give it back. You don’t understand girls at all.”
“Nope.” I cock my head at the four huddled around the fire. “But I sure do have a lot of them.”
She laughs at my joke.
Loves me, even when she says she’s mad.
And I want to apologize for not coming clean to her father. I had a chance to tell him how I feel, ask for his blessing… Hell, I should have begged him. Anything but what I did, which was nothing at all.
Like she’s unimportant.
Temporary…
“I’m sorry, Lem. I should have told your father we—”
Her phone buzzes, shattering the silence of the forest, and we break away.
Bryar twists her body and skips to the log when she sees us. “Come dance with us, Dad!”
“Yeah, Daddy. Come on!”
I glance at Lemon, scanning a text on her phone with a worried look on her face, but before I can address it, her eyes soften to mine.
“Go ahead, Daddy.” She winks, setting her phone on the log. “I have to pee. I’ll be right back.”
It’s when she disappears behind the trees that I see the screen she still leaves unlocked.
TINA:
I mean he’s one spicy silver fox, sure but you need to be single for this show. The end game is a couple falling in LOVE on the mountain.
TINA:
Are you sure you’re still up for this?
TINA:
Tell me by Tuesday night. They lock us into the contract if you don’t.
It’s been left on read. She’s seen this news.
And she did not reply.
The first message was sent on Saturday, and it’s Monday night.
“Dad! Come on.”
I leave the phone where I found it and dance with my girls.
Single, Tina said.
Love.
Is she still up for that?
And if she is, what are we?
“What’d I miss?” Lemon emerges from the bushes. “That’s where this is.” She plucks her phone from the log and shoves it into her pocket without another glance.
She doesn’t text Tina.
“Why should you care?” I find myself snapping beneath my breath. “You’ll be getting plenty of camping experiences soon, won’t you? This will just be one in a bracelet of many.”
I will be one of your flings, I say with my eyes.
Does she hear it?
Since seeing those texts, all I hear is I’m not a permanent person.
“What are you talking about, Oliver? We were just fine.”
But I’m angry because I want her, not because I don’t.
How do I say that after all I failed to profess to her father?
This is Lemon, crawling beneath my skin at every turn, digging and frolicking and blowing violently like a string-cut kite on the wind.
“Get a lock screen for your phone,” is all I manage.
I stomp to the bathhouse, my heart pounding so heavily in my chest, it might crack my ribs open and part with my body altogether. Right here in this goddamned forest where I only camp for the girls.
So they’ll have a piece of Lauren in these woods.
I can’t lose her, too.
“Oliver Love Nashville!” she snaps from behind me. “How dare you invade my privacy again and assume things? You stormed out of there like a child. Even the twins were baffled by your behavior.”
“Well, these are my feelings, Lem. You wanted me to learn to show them? Here they are.” I grind through my teeth.
“Fine. Do this, then.” She exhales. “Let it out. Say it all right here, so we can get on with it and figure this shit out.”
“This shit?” I balk. “This shit is my life. My family. My fucking daughters…don’t you see that? You aren’t just toying with my heart when you throw the cards in the air. You’re playing with theirs, too.”
She pulls back, brow pinched, as if I’ve just now opened her eyes to that fact.
Maybe it’s new to her, but it’s one of the hardest parts of letting myself love again.
Having children is constant fear.
“They love you, Sour Patch.” My breath comes out ragged. “I love you.”
“And I love you, but—”
“But nothing. You love us or you leave us, Lemon. There is no in between. Twist your adventures around my heart, but don’t you dare play with theirs.”
“So, what you’re saying is you don’t trust me?” Her nostrils flare, eyes narrowing to wear mine down.
She doesn’t know they’re already half defeated by the thought of her being gone.
“I’m not saying I don’t trust you.”
“But you are. Just like Bry and cheer camp. You don’t trust that she will behave herself there any more than you trust I’d make the right decision for our relationship if given the chance. You assume. And you’re always right when you’ve made up your mind. Just like him.”
“Don’t make this about your father, Lemon, please. This is about us.”
“And so is he,” she groans. “You want me to tell Tina I’m not going on that show so bad?
Tell Papa you love me. Tell him you fucked me right there in that river with the parasites and all.
Made me yours in mind, body, and soul, and then tell him you’d do it again, even if he said not to.
Even if his money never crossed your fingers. ”
I freeze, our eyes locked for what feels like eons, until they break with the silence.
“Right, then.” She pulls a hammock from her backpack and ties it between two trees by the tent. “I’ll be sleeping here tonight.” She climbs in and turns away. “Enjoy your tent.”
Tent is right.
Not just in the physical sense.
I tossed and turned in my sleeping bag for what felt like hours. My phone’s been dead for two, and I won’t get a chance to charge it in the car until tomorrow, so I can’t pass the time on that.
I fell asleep twice, but the first time I woke to a dream I was being chased, and all I could think was getting back to Lemon and the girls in one piece.
Sounds insane considering three weeks ago she was the promiscuous star of the tour bus and an ever-present splinter beneath my skin.
But she’s always been an adventure.
Funny she searches for them like she needs them to breathe, yet her entire existence is a wild storm to me.
The second time I woke, I dreamed of her again. But this one had me stroking my own damn cock in my sleep, and that brings me to the tent in my sweatpants.
I unzip the real tent and peek at her, asleep in the hammock with one leg dangling over the side.
Am I afraid to tell her father about us for fear of my job? For the sake of the girls?
Or is she right…am I afraid to trust?
The moon’s as wide awake as I am, lighting the gravel trail that connects the campsites. A walk might suit me, so I head down the path where sticks and pine needles crunch beneath my feet.
I’m lost in thoughts of the fight with Lemon, stuck in that spot in front of her father, screaming at myself to tell him I love her. If I could go back in time, and…
“Dad!”
“Bryar?”
“You’ll never guess who I ran into at the bathhouse.”
“What are you doing up this late?” I look around suspiciously. Or is that mistrust? The wind blows against my arms and forces my hair to stand on ends.
Lemon’s right.
“I was peeing. What are you doing on the trail that leads to the place where everyone pees, Dad? Can’t you give me a break for once?”
“Sorry, Bry. I didn’t mean to accuse you. I’m working on that.”
“Okay.” She scrunches her nose, joining me on my walk. “I know you and Lemon had a fight. Are you guys, like…a thing?”
My eyes drop to the ground, and she pats my arm. “Were you?”
“Ouch, Bry. Too soon.”
We walk to a bench and sit against the river breeze. This one was built by Troop 284. “Neat.” I point to the plaque. “Remember when you did Girl Scouts?”
“Brownies.” She squeezes my hand with a cheesy grin. “I hated every second of it, but…” She beams. “Mom was so proud, wasn’t she?”
God, the way I laughed at Lauren in the front row, snapping pictures of a tiny Bryar earning patches pinned to a vest that swallowed her whole. You couldn’t see her legs beneath the length of the pleated skirt.
“You were such a little kid.” My eyes water. “You’re a young woman, now.”
“Ew, stop.” She swats my arm and rests her head on my shoulder.
My baby girl, not too grown after all.
“Thanks for not freaking out when I mentioned Mom.” Bryar sighs. “It’s been a long time since I could talk about her freely. It feels less lonely this way.”
“I never meant to make you feel alone. You or your sisters.” I look my daughter in the eyes. They shine, just like her mother’s.
Lauren’s legacy—her past—lives on in our children.
But it’s time to look to the future, and when I do, the eyes I see are other-worldly violet.
“Lemon probably didn’t mean to make you feel alone, either,” Bryar says.
“With the hammock. She’s great, Dad,” she gushes.
“She helps me with stuff you just don’t get sometimes, and the twins…
Kimmie, Dad. I don’t know why you’re fighting, but I know she looks at you the way I hope I look at someone one day. ”
I could cry, but it’s not her blessing that’s got me choked up, it’s the wisdom. My baby girl is so much more than I give her credit for.
“I appreciate your vote of confidence, sweetheart, but it’s…complicated.”
“No, it’s not. I think she could be your one.”
“I had my one.” I throw a stone at the woods.
She grabs a stone of her own and chucks it the same direction, turning her not-so-tiny face to mine. “Who says you don’t get another?”
“That doesn’t even make sense, kiddo. It’s one.”
She laughs, nudging me so hard she almost shoves me off the bench. “Logic doesn’t matter when there’s magic, Dad.”
“Magic, huh?”
I’m glad she still believes in it.
“Remember what Mom used to say?” She wags her finger, looking so much like her mother, I almost see her there. “There’s no such thing as—”
“Coincidence,” I finish, meeting her eyes. “But it’s not that easy, Bry. She has to want to stay. What if she decides there’s something more out there?” I gesture to the open forest.
“Then I guess we’ll all be sad. I’ve been sad before, real sad. Haven’t you?”
Wow.
“In cheer, we call that a bail, stopping mid-trick to avoid injury.” She grins like the moon. “But wouldn’t it be sick if you stick the landing?”
I don’t know how long we sit in the dark, but when I crawl in my tent and my head hits the ground, I finally fall asleep.