Chapter 4 #3
“We’ll do it tonight.” I saw no reason to wait around. Everyone was gonna notice a difference in our behavior, and on that note… “I had an idea after the shower. I’m thinkin’ mostly about Mikey here—”
“I think he’s noticed.”
“Exactly—yeah, me too,” I went on. “So, I’m wondering if maybe we can sit down with him and Lily—Dylan and Hallie can be there too, of course—and we tell them it’s been a rough year.
The reason we’ve been working late so much is that we’ve been hoping to save up to buy a bigger house.
And along the way, you and I started fighting more.
We lost sight of what’s important or whatever, but now we’ve worked everything out—and would’ya look at that, we have a new house.
” I cleared my throat. “You’ll obviously fine-tune the approach and add some finesse to it, but that’s the gist.”
He nodded pensively and raked his teeth across his lip.
We were almost at the house, and Mikey should be home any moment.
Knowing Nate’s parents, they’d let Lily fall asleep at their house, and then they’d either drop her off later, or they’d take her to kindergarten in the morning.
At this point, everyone had spare clothes and some essentials at their house.
“I think it’s a great idea,” Nate admitted. “It would acknowledge their feelings if they’ve sensed a change between us, plus mark an end to the negativity without throwing them for a loop when we act all lovey-dovey again.”
I grinned, more relieved than I could say. “Are you gonna get lovey-dovey on me?”
“Oh, I’m gonna lovey-dovey you to death, honey.”
I chuckled and kissed his hand again. “I’m lookin’ forward to it. But, uh…I imagine we have a lot to work through, right? As grown-ups, we never get to go straight to paradise. We gotta talk endlessly first.”
He exhaled a laugh and leaned closer to hug my bicep.
“I mean… We’ll need to talk a whole bunch about your new partners—or future partners—and see where I might fit into the puzzle.
I haven’t even met them yet. But other than that…
? I don’t know.” He pressed a kiss to my shoulder.
“My problem was always going through life with a husband who sacrificed a big part of himself. I couldn’t do that. ”
I nodded with a dip of my chin.
“I still feel like an ass about that,” I admitted.
“How can someone be so scared of a fictional scenario? Once the situation with Jordan and James started developing, it was completely different. I could suddenly picture us, you know—two married couples—having fun together, building something meaningful, without breaking out in a cold sweat.”
“That’s how fears work, baby. They can be paralyzing. And I wish I could’ve approached things better—”
I shook my head, cutting him off, because I wasn’t letting him finish that nonsense. “You tried everything, Nathan. I’m not saying you handled every fight perfectly, but you tried every damn approach. And you never asked for too much. You asked for progress and baby steps, and I refused.”
I slowed down as I reached our neighborhood, and I released his hand to rub at my chest. All the unease from before threatened to return.
“Hey—” He snatched up my hand again and gathered it in both his. “We’re okay now. It’s always easy to look back and see what you should’ve done better. We should’ve bought Apple stock in the nineties too, but we’re not walking around bitter about that, are we?”
I snorted under my breath and side-eyed him.
He smiled and leaned back into his own seat. “You know what we should focus on? Someone’s birthday.”
He couldn’t fucking say that when I was in the middle of grumping my ass off.
I drove up the driveway and spied Hallie’s bike resting against the fence.
That was the only upside to this house. Hallie and Dylan were close enough to their school that they could ride their bikes without crossing any major roads. That would change once the new house was everyone’s home.
I killed the engine and glanced over at Nate.
“Now that we’re back together, I don’t have to worry about coming off as an insecure douchebag for the gift I chose for you,” he said.
What on earth?
“In my defense, I was an insecure douchebag when I picked it out,” he added.
“So, are you gonna tell me what it is, or are you just gonna be a tease about it?” I asked.
The lights faded above, blanketing us in darkness.
“Is your birthday suddenly on the fifth?” he retorted. “Of course I’m not gonna tell you. But I will say this. It’s a family-oriented gift—probably not one you give to your ex.”
Well, now I was fucking curious. Dammit.
“I’m taking Paws, by the way,” he said and climbed out of the car. “He and I need to spend some quality time together.”
In other words, I was taking the food and the litter box.
A moment later, we had everything—and were planning on ordering takeout, ’cause we were fucking starving—and the outdoor light flicked on before we’d reached the porch area. Instead, the front door swung open, and Hallie stood there.
We stopped short.
“Where have you two been all day?” she demanded, holding up a note.
“Working late? I don’t freaking think so.
You didn’t answer at your office, Dad,” she told Nate.
“Your voice message was switched to your off-hours message, and you…” She addressed me next.
“According to Uncle Theo, your work truck was parked at some random site in Mclean before you drove it to your house—which you never do. You always pick up your own truck at work. I checked the security app, and I know you were at the other house. You turned off the alarm. And now you’re here—you arrived together…
and…” She frowned. “Dad, you have Paws. Why do you have Paws?”
I blinked.
Nate was quicker to find his words than I was. “Sweetheart, are you trying to tell us you want to become a police officer?”
“She won’t be accepted at the academy.” The words just tumbled out of me. “She’s too smart.”
She rolled her eyes and folded her arms over her chest. “I’m being serious. Why did you arrive together?”
“Hold on now,” Nate cautioned. “Did something happen? I don’t have any missed messages from you.”
I didn’t either.
“Because I called you at work first,” Hallie responded. “You wrote on the note that you were gonna work late, so when you weren’t there, I got suspicious and…” She trailed off.
I cocked my head.
She lowered her voice and gave Nate a pointed look. “I can’t say the rest here.”
Why the fuck—ohh. Because I was the birthday boy tomorrow. She knew about the gift Nate was giving me, didn’t she? And maybe she didn’t think it was an appropriate gift to give an ex either…?
On the off chance that she was suspecting Nathan and I had reunited, that gift had to be something next level. Otherwise, it would be too farfetched to make assumptions based on Nate not being at his office when he’d said he would be there.
Let me put your mind at ease, baby girl.
“I don’t know what you want us to say,” I said, stepping toward her.
“That I forgot about returning the work truck because I was busy hunting Nate down? That I finally forced him to come out to the new house?” I came to a stop right in front of her and set down the litter box and the food bag.
“That we met up there and confessed how much we missed each other? Loved each other?”
She flushed. “Maybe not, but—”
“Because that’s exactly what happened.”
Her eyes had never found me faster, and her mouth popped open. “Wh-what?”
I grinned and swooped in to hug her. “Dad and I are back together. We’re working things out.”
Nate came up next to me and kissed the top of Hallie’s head. “We will explain everything once the young ones are asleep and we’ve located your big brother. Is he home?”
“Um, yeah. He’s upstairs.” Hallie inched back and peered up at me. “You’re not joking, are you?”
I smirked. “We would be absolute shit parents if we joked about that, baby.”
She let out a nervous laugh, and her eyes turned glassy.
My sweet girl. I squeezed her to me again, while Nathan smiled to himself and headed inside with Paws.
“Just remember that Dad’s a head doctor,” I murmured. “He’s gonna wanna talk about this as much as he did when we separated.”
She giggled tearfully and hugged me back. “I guess I’ll live.”
I pressed my lips to the top of her head.
I was just about to ask what she’d had for dinner when I heard a car pull up, so I looked over and saw Tam’s mom’s minivan. Mikey was home.
“We’re gonna talk to Mikey and Lily too,” I told Hallie. “Just a little something that will explain why Dad and I are gonna be in a better mood going forward. We’ll talk to you and Dylan first, though.”
“Okay.” She nodded, unable to shake the smile.
I knew the feeling.
“Hi, Dad! I’m home!” Mikey jumped out and waved to me. Boy looked sleepy—but in high spirits.
“I’m gonna check on Paws,” Hallie said and went inside.
I trailed back to the driveway.
“Sorry we’re a little late—again,” Kelly said with a tired grin. “It was near impossible to get the boys to turn off the computers.”
I chuckled, knowing full well how that was. “I don’t think we’ve ever dropped Tam off on time either. But I take it they’ve had a fun evening?” I held out an arm as Mikey hurried toward me. “Hey, buddy. Were you Minecraftin’ or Robloxin’ today?”
“We played Minecraft,” he yawned, handing over his backpack.
All right, then.
“They barely wanted to come down for dinner,” Kelly chuckled.
“It was yummy,” Mikey said firmly. “We had chicken and fried rice.”
“That sounds great.” I combed my fingers through his hair. He needed a haircut soon-ish. “Next game night at our place, then?”
He nodded quickly and yawned again.
“They were talking about next weekend, but I said I’d discuss it with you and Nathan first,” Kelly supplied.
“I’ll check the calendar on the fridge,” I replied. “Let’s get you ready for bed, sweetheart. Did you thank Mrs. Lee for everythin’?”
“Oh, he always does,” Kelly said. “He’s such a polite boy.”