Chapter 2
TWO
Beaumont looks exactly the way I left it.
The brick storefronts on Main Street haven’t changed.
The cracked sidewalk in front of the hardware store hasn’t changed.
The hand-painted sign above the Pizza Parlor has been peeling since I was a teenager, and it’s still peeling now.
The barbershop still has the striped pole that doesn’t spin anymore.
The dry cleaner still keeps its door propped open with a cinder block, even when it’s cold out.
All things I’ve tried to change with endless council meetings.
My concerns go in one ear and out the other.
They sit with leaders who the people of Beaumont continue to re-elect, yet the officials never follow through on their campaign promises.
Josie and I have offered to donate the initial fund to start a small business loan program. Rejected.
So, Josie and I buy properties when they fall into foreclosure or go up for sale, and we revitalize. We love Beaumont, and we want others to love it. We want families to raise their children here and be proud of where they live.
At the stoplight, I look at the park. There are people there, sitting on the benches and kids playing on the new equipment Josie and I paid to have replaced over the summer.
As soon as Noah and Peyton—Noah’s wife, mother of triplets, and warrior—told us they were coming back here to raise their kids, I wanted the park to be a safe and enjoyable place for them.
Sure, they have a backyard, but it’s important for them to be out in the community.
I drive past Whimsicality. Josie’s car isn’t there, which means she’s gone home for the day. She knows she doesn’t have to work and knows she can quit anytime she wants. I think part of her remembers a time when I wasn’t around, when she struggled because I wasn’t here to take care of her and Noah.
Whimsicality is something she did on her own, building it from nothing and turning it into Beaumont’s premier florist and café.
The weekly lunch rush is out the door and down the block, and with that comes Whimsicality delivery service.
At last tally, I believe Josie employs over fifty people, with a handful of them being from our elderly community.
The window display has changed since I left — dried lavender sprays in copper vases, staggered by height, the tallest one catching the last of the daylight through the glass.
She has an eye for this. For all I regret about not being here for her when she was pregnant with our son, I wonder if I had been here, would she have gotten a part-time job at a florist?
I don’t know if she would’ve or if we would’ve even been in Beaumont.
Had I known she was pregnant that night when I stood at her door and told her I couldn’t be with her anymore, I likely would’ve told her to pack her shit and come with me.
Leaving her was the biggest mistake of my life. It also wasn’t because it shaped who we are and showed us that we are grateful for our lives. Even our mistakes.
My frenemy Nick Ashford, town pediatrician, high school football coach, and the man who raised my son for the ten years I was gone.
He asked Josie to marry him, too, back before I got my shit together and asked her myself.
Frenemy is the kindest word I’ve got for him, and most days I mean the friend half.
Nick says it best, you can’t live with regrets.
I turn toward home and press the gas, pushing my truck to ten over the limit to get to my wife.
This tour was short, only a few months, and she chose to stay home.
With Paige in high school, we don’t like to interrupt her routine.
But now, being a grandma is top priority to her.
I don’t blame her. I miss the triplets and the only saving grace is, Harrison was with me, so he isn’t getting more time with them than I am.
I don’t blame my wife for staying home, but I missed the ever-loving shit out of her.
A smile spreads across my face when I pull in behind her car.
I check and see Paige’s at cheerleading practice.
This gives Josie and me some alone time before she gets home.
I grab my bag, leaving my suitcase for later, and sling it over my shoulder.
The strap digs into my skin, pressing down on knotted muscles.
I need a good soak in the tub with my wife, and a massage. Every part of my body aches.
As soon as I push the front door open, the scent of garlic, olive oil, rosemary, and .
. . gardenias hit me. Josie keeps fresh flowers on the windowsills.
She has for years. Every week, it’s something different, and I learn what the arrangement is because it’s important to her.
The gardenias are ivory which contrasts with their dark foliage.
They’re not my favorite, but I’d never tell her.
I lean against the archway, leading into the kitchen.
Her back is to me, giving me prime opportunity to admire her in her dark jeans, and cream-colored blouse.
The small tie in the back tells me she’s wearing an apron, and if I had to guess by the color, it’s the one that says, My Husband is Jealous of this Apron.
The saying is accurate.
She’s barefoot and her long, brunette hair is twisted up and held with a clip. My fingers itch to pull it out so I can run my hands through her silky strands.
She turns when she hears me. Doesn’t say anything. Crosses the kitchen.
I drop the bag in the doorway. Put both hands on her waist. Pull her in close.
Her chin tucks against my collarbone. Her arms come up around my back.
I press my mouth to the spot below her ear where I can feel her pulse under the skin.
Hold there. Breathe her in — gardenias, the cold October air still clinging to her hair from the walk to the car, and the rosemary from whatever’s on the stove.
“I’m glad you’re home, Rockstar,” she says. Her mouth moves against my neck when she talks.
My body responds instantly. “Show me how glad, Jojo.”
She pulls back just enough to look at me.
Her eyes are half-closed, her lips parted, and I watch her decide.
She takes my face in both hands and kisses me — slow, deliberate, the kind of kiss that has nothing to do with hello and everything to do with the time I’ve been gone.
I grip her waist tighter and walk her backward until her hips hit the counter.
She makes a sound against my mouth, low in her throat, and I feel it travel down my spine.
My hands slide from her waist to her hips, fingers hooking into her belt loops, pulling her flush against me.
She arches into it. Her fingers drag through my hair, nails scraping my scalp, and I groan into the kiss.
She breaks away, breathing hard, her forehead against mine. Her hands are still in my hair. Mine are still on her hips. The stove ticks behind her.
“Dinner first,” she says. Her voice is rougher than it was a minute ago.
“Dinner can wait.”
“It can’t. I’ve been cooking for two hours.” She pushes me back by the chest with both hands flat. Her cheeks are flushed. She turns back to the stove, picks up the wooden spoon, stirs once. Doesn’t look at me. “After.”
I stand where she left me for a few seconds, watching the back of her neck where the loose strands of hair are sticking to her skin.
“After,” I repeat.
“Stop looking at me like that or dinner is going to burn.”
I don’t stop looking at her. I won’t.
I follow her to the stove, keep my hand on the small of her back while she stirs, standing too close. She bumps me with her hip to move me out of the way. I don’t move. She bumps harder.
“You’re in my way.”
“I know.”
She glances at me over her shoulder. Blue eyes behind her reading glasses, which she wears for cooking now because the recipe cards are in her own handwriting and even she can’t read it anymore. The corner of her mouth pulls up.
“Liam . . .” she drags my name out, which only makes the bulge in my jeans a bigger issue. “Sit down.”
I don’t sit down. I lean against the counter beside her and watch her work. She grabs the wooden spoon from the crock by the sink and stirs twice, then tastes the sauce off the back of her hand. Her nose wrinkles. She reaches past me for the pepper grinder, and her forearm brushes mine.
She tucks a loose strand behind her ear with the back of her wrist because her fingers are wet.
She hums without realizing it while she stirs, one note repeated, off-key, the same every time.
She adjusts the flame without looking at the dial, her fingers finding the right position by feel, and her lips purse in concentration in that way I’ve never been able to look at without wanting to kiss her, which I do.
I place my lips on her neck and my arms around her waist. “I love you. I’m going to go take a shower.
” Josie gives my arm a squeeze and then I let go.
Before heading up to our room, I go back out to my truck and grab the rest of my things. Upstairs, I sort out my laundry, stack my suitcases by the bedroom so I can take them to the basement later, and jump into the shower.
A few years ago, we remodeled the bathroom and took over the guest bedroom that was attached to our bedroom.
We now have a larger walk-in closet, a bigger soaking tub, a hot sauna, and a fancy, dual shower-head shower.
Those things are marketed as “time and water-saving.” I wholly disagree.
If my wife is in the shower with me, it’s neither saving time nor water, and we’re really not showering.
I’m in and out in under ten minutes. The long soak can happen later, with candles, and my wife resting her back against my chest.
“Dinner,” Josie calls from downstairs.