30. Blake
Chapter 30
Blake
I was a coward.
Maybe we both were. The whispered confession I'd made in the fevered haze of exhaustion hung between us like a ghost neither of us wanted to acknowledge. I love you. Three words I'd breathed when I was half asleep, three words that had changed everything and nothing all at once.
We both knew we needed to talk about it, but neither of us seemed able to figure out how.
Part of me was starting to think this strange limbo we'd fallen into was safer. If we never addressed what I'd said, then Xander wouldn't have to tell me he didn't feel the same way, and everything wouldn't get infinitely worse than it already was.
I'd seen Xander in the kitchen at around 2:00am when I was making up a bottle for Amelia.
He'd offered to take over and let me get some sleep, and even though I was weirdly jealous of how awake he looked, I'd refused.
The careful politeness in his voice, the way he'd avoided my eyes—it all felt like confirmation that my confession had shifted something between us. Something I wasn't sure we could shift back.
I had never been a morning person.
In fact, Blake of a couple of weeks ago would have needed some kind of occult ritual for raising the dead to get out of bed at this time.
But it was easy when it came to my beautiful little niece, even if more than slightly exhausting.
I stumbled out of my bedroom at 7:00am after dealing with a diaper of demon-like proportions to the smell of bacon in the cottage.
Holding Amelia out at arm's length, I walked straight to Xander and exchanged the baby for the glorious giant cup of coffee that he was holding out for me.
"Rough night?"
"Rough morning. We have to be feeding this kid wrong because what just came out of her was the stuff of nightmares." I gulped down the hot coffee even as Xander protested that it was still hot. "It's okay, I lost all temperature-related feeling in my tongue years ago."
"Well, I've got breakfast just about ready, and I'll take the next baby duty shift so you can shower and do whatever you need to do."
"Thank you!" I gasped dramatically.
The exchange was so normal, so easy, that for a moment I could almost pretend those three words were still safely locked inside my chest. But then Xander's fingers brushed mine as he handed me the coffee, and the way he quickly pulled back told me he was thinking about it too.
A shower sounded amazing, and I was already staring at the bacon and eggs that Xander was piling on a plate for me and potentially drooling into my coffee. At least some things hadn't changed—he still knew exactly how I liked my breakfast.
My confession hung between us like a third person in the room. It was almost like we'd both retreated to our corners to think through the next steps. Delaney had texted me yesterday, asking how things were going and reminding me that honesty was usually the best policy. Easy for her to say—she hadn't blurted out her feelings in a moment of weakness and then spent days wondering if she'd ruined everything.
I got my shower, took time to dress in something comfy but that made me look good. When I came out of my room, I found Xander at the cleaned kitchen table, Amelia sitting beside him in the high chair and papers spread out across the table.
"Are you putting the baby to work already?" I asked, going to the table to see what he was doing. "She's only just started thinking about solid food. I'm not sure her union will approve of this."
Xander laughed, and for a moment it was the same easy laugh it had always been. "Definitely not. Nothing but being a kid for this one for the next eighteen years."
My chest tightened at the way he so easily talked about the future. A future we could have together. Even if the two of us didn't work out—even if my confession had scared him away—the reality was that Xander would always be a part of Amelia's life. He was Trace's brother, after all, and there was no way I wasn't going to have Amelia grow up without Delaney and her kids as part of her life. Not if I could help it.
But then my treacherous brain started to fill in the blanks of what Xander's life would be like if my confession drove him away. And I saw him living a comfortable life, in the big, beautiful house he was supposed to be building somewhere out here. He'd probably marry someone wonderful. Someone beautiful and capable who had their life completely together and who wouldn't whisper desperate confessions in the middle of the night. An image of Xander and Billie filled my mind, and I almost staggered away from the table in surprise at the shock of jealousy that ran through me at the thought.
"Hey, what's wrong?"
Xander was standing in front of me, looking down at me in concern. The same concern he'd shown before I'd made everything complicated with my confession.
"Nothing, I was just thinking, and my brain ran away with me for a minute." I shook it off.
Xander and I were trying something new. Something complicated but something amazing. At least, we had been before I'd gone and made it even more complicated.
Getting worked up about someone who was just a colleague, a new colleague at that, was trouble I didn't need running through my mind. I had enough problems without inviting more along for the ride.
Xander's hand cupped my cheek, and he tipped my head so I was looking at him.
"You can talk to me, you know."
The irony wasn't lost on me. He was offering to listen when I'd already said too much, when the words I'd spoken were the very thing creating this careful distance between us.
He looked so sincere, especially with the way that his dark hair was flopping down into his eyes, at the edge of needing a cut. I ran my fingers through it, and he closed his eyes, leaning into my touch. For a moment, it felt like before. Like maybe my confession hadn't ruined everything after all.
This was it. This was my moment.
I could bring it up, ask him what he thought about what I'd said, clear the air once and for all.
"I guess I'm just trying to figure out my place in whatever we're calling this thing we're doing."
Coward. I was such a coward.
"I think people call it..." he looked around like he was about to impart some kind of secret. "A relationship."
I shoved him playfully, and he laughed. But there was something careful in his eyes, like he was waiting for me to say more. Like he was waiting for me to bring up the elephant in the room.
"When did you turn into this happy, goofy guy?"
"I think the moment I realized I didn't have to be who I was always told to be."
That made me sad. Thinking of all the things that Xander missed out on... But it also made me wonder if my confession had made him feel like he had to be someone he wasn't again.
Like he had to navigate around my feelings instead of just being himself.
"What's the plan for today?" Xander asked.
"We have Susan visiting this afternoon at 2:30, but apart from that, I guess nothing."
"Do you mind if I spend this morning working? If I can get this ordering done, I'll have the last of what we need to stock the clinic. Billie starts work next week with Booker's physiotherapy, and I can time this to be delivered when she's around to help get the clinic stocked up and in some kind of workable state."
There was that name again.
Billie. The woman who made perfect sense with Xander, who wouldn't complicate things with messy midnight confessions.
"Yeah, that's fine. Amelia and I can go for a walk to get out of your hair for a bit."
"You don't need to do that."
"Honestly, I'd go stir crazy hanging around here with nothing to do. I might even be tempted to start cleaning," I shuddered dramatically. "Besides, maybe some fresh air will help me figure out how to be brave enough to have the conversation we've both been avoiding."
The words slipped out before I could stop them, too close to the truth for comfort. Xander's eyes sharpened, but before he could respond, I was already moving toward Amelia.
"Anyway, Toby needs a walk."
"And Toby would be?"
I smiled, miming locking my lips.
"Can't tell you all my secrets, Farrington."
Not all of them, anyway. Just the most important ones.
"I'm intrigued and slightly terrified," he joked.
"Come on, strawberry." I picked Amelia out of her high chair and started toward the bedroom to get her ready to go outside.
"We've got some evil plots to start hatching while no one is watching."
I heard Xander's laugh as I walked into the bedroom and couldn't help but smile. This wasn't the life I'd seen for myself, but I loved every little piece of it. Even the complicated, messy parts. Even the parts where I'd confessed my love to someone who might not be ready to hear it.
I started packing a bag with supplies, and at the last minute, I shoved my sketchbook and my pencil wrap in as well without trying to make it into a big deal in my head. Maybe if I couldn't find the words to talk about my confession, I could at least try to capture what this strange in-between feeling looked like on paper.
The morning was perfect. Spring had finally pushed out the last dregs of winter, and I walked along the dirt track that led away from the ranch, reveling in the gentle breeze against my face and the sun warming my shoulders. Amelia was strapped to my chest in the baby carrier we'd bought yesterday, looking around with wide, curious eyes doing the cute little babble of almost words that she'd started doing recently.
"You know what, strawberry?" I said to her as we walked. "I might have gone and made things even more complicated than they were to start with. Can you believe that’s even possible? I told Xander something I probably shouldn't have, and now I don't know how to take it back. Or if I even want to take it back."
She didn’t respond, of course she didn’t, but at least there wasn’t any judgment in her eyes, and she wasn’t pushing me to just talk about it like that was an easy thing to do.
Who knew babies were such good listeners?
All around us, nature was putting on a show. Wildflowers had erupted in patches of vibrant purple and yellow, painting the meadows in watercolor splashes. Birds called to each other from newly-leafed trees, their songs carrying on the crisp morning air that still held the last hint of winter's chill. The muddy patches along the trail were beginning to dry, leaving behind only the fresh, earthy scent that promised warmer days ahead.
I pointed out a red-winged blackbird to Amelia as it flashed past us. "See that, strawberry? By the time you're walking, this whole place will be alive with creatures for you to chase. And maybe by then, I'll have figured out how to be brave enough to talk about feelings like a grown-up."
I found a spot under a sprawling oak tree at the edge of one of Booker's fields. The branches cast dappled shadows on the ground, and wildflowers dotted the grass around us. I spread out the blanket I'd packed and carefully settled Amelia with a teething ring and some colorful blocks.
She grabbed a yellow block and stared at it curiously as she babbled away like she was having a full conversation with it, and I couldn't help but smile. How had this tiny person become the center of my world so quickly?
"You know, Amelia, I never thought I'd be good at this," I told her, watching as she grabbed at a stuffed rabbit I'd placed on the blanket. "In fact, I was sure I'd be terrible. And maybe I'm terrible at the relationship part too. Maybe I shouldn't have told him I loved him before I was sure he felt the same way."
She blew a spit bubble in response, which I took as either encouragement or gentle judgment.
"Delaney thinks I should just bring it up again. Ask him what he's thinking. But what if what he's thinking is that I'm moving too fast? What if I scared him off?"
I reached for my sketchbook, flipping it open to a fresh page. My pencil hovered over the paper, and for a second, the familiar anxiety crept in. But today it was mixed with something else—the weight of my confession, the uncertainty of where Xander and I stood.
Without thinking, I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, a nervous gesture I'd had since childhood.
My fingers trembled slightly, not just from artistic anxiety but from the emotional turmoil that had been churning inside me for days.
But then Amelia laughed—a bright, bubbly sound that seemed to burst out of her like sunshine—and I found my hand moving without conscious thought.
The first stroke was tentative.
The second, more sure.
By the third, I'd forgotten to be afraid.
I sketched the scene around us, but my mind kept drifting to that night. The way Xander had held me when I was exhausted and overwhelmed. The way those three words had slipped out like they'd been waiting their whole lives to be spoken.
The way he'd gone very still afterward, and I'd wondered if he'd heard me or if I'd just imagined saying them out loud.
I drew the tree above us, with its ancient trunk and sprawling branches.
I drew the wildflowers dancing in the breeze and the distant fence line that marked the edge of the ranch.
But my pencil kept returning to the figures I'd sketched in the center—Amelia and me, two people trying to figure out where they belonged.
And then, without letting myself overthink it, I added a third figure. Xander, standing slightly apart from us, his expression uncertain. In the sketch, there was space between us—not the comfortable closeness we'd had before, but the careful distance that had appeared since my confession.
I stared at the drawing, my heart pounding.
It wasn't what I'd intended to create, but it captured exactly how I'd been feeling. Like we were all connected but somehow separated by the weight of unspoken words.
"What do you think, little one?" I asked Amelia, who had fallen asleep, her tiny chest rising and falling with each breath. "Too honest?"
She didn't answer, of course.
But as I looked at the sketch, something settled inside me.
Maybe drawing it out was the first step toward finding the courage to talk about it.
I turned to a fresh page and tried to sketch what I hoped we could become.
The three of us together, no careful distance, no unspoken tension.
Just a family who had figured out how to be honest with each other.
The sun had risen higher in the sky since I'd first started sketching, warming the air around us. I checked on Amelia, making sure she was still comfortable in the dappled shade, then closed my sketchbook.
"I think we might be in trouble, kiddo," I whispered to her. "I’m not sure I know how to do all this without him now."
I glanced at my watch and realized we'd been out longer than I'd intended. It was already past noon, and Susan would be arriving in just a couple of hours. I needed to get back, get Amelia fed and changed, and make sure everything was perfect for the visit.
More importantly, I needed to find the courage to have the conversation that had been three days in the making.
I packed up our things, carefully tucking my sketchbook back into the diaper bag. Amelia woke as I lifted her, fussing a little, but she settled when I held her close, humming softly as I headed back toward the cottage.
As we approached, I saw Xander on the porch, shading his eyes with one hand as he looked out toward us. When he spotted us, his face broke into a smile, but I could see the careful quality to it now. The way he was holding back, just like I was.
My heart did that strange flip it seemed to do whenever he looked at me, but now it was tinged with uncertainty. Did he smile at me like that because he loved me too, or because he was trying to figure out how to let me down easy?
"We need to talk," I whispered, giving myself a pep-talk as I walked toward him. "We need to talk about what I said, and I need to be brave enough to hear his answer, whatever it is."
And for the first time in days, I thought maybe I could find that courage.
Maybe I had to.