At first, probably not while Dylan was home, but we were about to start our fifty-fifty custody, so there’d be entire weeks he could stay. But I no longer wanted to hide us from Dylan the way I’d been hell bent on doing before. I wanted Dylan to know that this man loved me and I loved him yet we all still loved Dylan.
If, at some point, Tegan and I did decide to move in together, we’d probably get a different place. My apartment was small, not roomy enough for three people, especially when one was a growing boy. Maybe we could rent a house closer to Zac. That way Dylan could go back and forth as he wanted like Zac suggested.
Then again, I was getting ahead of myself.
It wasn’t long before he peeled his shirt off me and we showed each other just how much we cared. He handled me gently sometimes and roughly others. The good kind of rough. The kind I wanted from him. He couldn’t hold me too tightly.
We’d been apart only weeks, but it had been an eye-opening few weeks.
When I put his T-shirt back on again, this time with panties, I almost didn’t make it back to bed before falling asleep, still with Tegan’s arm around me.
Morning came far too quickly for my liking. But the fact that Tegan was still beside me made it all worth it. And it wasn’t even early. We’d been up late and slept in until almost ten. It was Saturday. Neither of us had anywhere to be.
“Good morning.” His deep voice greeted me before I’d fully woken up and I loved every moment of it.
“Good morning.” I let a full-body stretch take me over.
“I’m hungry. We should get breakfast.”
“You think about food as soon as you wake up?” I asked him.
He chuckled softly. “I’ve been awake longer than you have.”
“And you’ve been watching me sleep like a creeper?”
“Something like that.” He pushed up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. I guessed we were getting up and having breakfast.
“I’m not sure what I have here.” I hadn’t really gone to the grocery store in a while. Probably will need to get on that.
“We’ll go out.”
“Can I hop into the shower super quick first? I won’t wash my hair. It’ll be the fastest shower ever.”
“Fine by me.” Then he groaned. “I have a text from Rhian inviting me to the pond today. But also warning me that you might be there. Will you be there?”
“I will be if you want me to be.”
He put his hands on his hips and looked confused. “Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I?”
I shrugged. “I didn’t know if we were telling people about us.”
“Us?” He still looked confused. Maybe he was confused in the morning but I didn’t think I was being confusing.
“About us being together again.”
Now his face contorted from confused to surprised. “Oh. We’re together?”
My heart almost stopped in my chest as I slowly looked up at him. Had I thought this was more than it was? No. He’d said he loved me. So I narrowed my eyes on him and said, “You’re fucking with me.”
He broke into a huge smile. “I am.” He chuckled. “Go shower. I am starving.”
Before heading off to clean myself, I checked my phone and responded to Laney’s waiting text that I would go to the pond today. She’d said please after all. Tegan’s loud laughter right after I’d sent the text startled me.
“Rhian says you are going to be there, so if I don’t want to come, she’ll understand.”
“Then she’ll be surprised, won’t she?”
“Yes. Yes she will.”
After tossing him his shirt, I took the quickest shower, twisted my hair into a bun, and threw on some jean shorts and a light blue T-shirt.
Tegan took me to the closest diner, which had the best breakfast around. I loved taking Dylan once in a while and breakfast was my favorite meal to go out for. I always ordered the same thing. Two eggs—scrambled, hash browns, two pieces of bacon, and English muffin. Tegan had an egg white omelet that looked to be packed with vegetables and wheat toast. It looked healthy but I would’ve put money on the fact that mine tasted better.
“How’s this going to work?” I asked on the way back to my apartment. We’d taken his car, so he was driving. It let my mind wander to the pond.
“What?”
“The pond today? Are we arriving separately? You want them to know we’re together, right?”
“’Course I want them all to know and we’re definitely not driving separately. That’d be ridiculous.” He pulled into a spot next to my car. “You go in and get that hot-as-hell blue polka dot bikini on. Pack your bag. Whatever. I’ll go home, shower, and get my stuff, then come back for you. Sound good?”
“Yes.” Then I kissed him for a good five minutes before he left.
I was ready and waiting outside for him when he came back. Even something as simple as going to the pond made me smile because it was with him.
We walked to the group’s normal spot, his hand firmly holding mine.
Dylan ran up to us first and I gave him a big hug. I missed the little guy whenever we weren’t together.
“Why is he holding your hand?” Dylan asked. My very observant five-year-old didn’t let anything get past him. “Is he like Laney now?”
I glanced up at Tegan who had humor playing on his face. Hey. Whatever it took for my kid to understand. “Yeah, Dylan. He’s like Laney. He’s my boyfriend. Do you know what that means?”
“Yup,” he said. “Like Daddy is to Laney.” Then he ran off as if I hadn’t just told him the biggest news of my life.
I chuckled as I stood back up and Tegan gave my hand a squeeze.
“See?” he said quietly against my ear. “His world didn’t fall. He likes me.”
“I like you,” I told him.
When we joined the rest of the group, at first no one noticed that Tegan and I had arrived together nor that we were holding hands. Even after they all greeted us.
The five-year-old noticed but the adults were oblivious.
“Uh, guys,” I said, to bring all of their attention to me. Once I had it, I lifted our conjoined hands for them to see and waited.
“So that’s where you’ve been,” Rhian said as if it had just dawned on her. “I don’t want to think about why you weren’t answering my texts.”
“That’s right.” He pointed at her. “You don’t.”
They all acknowledged our little announcement, then went back to what they’d been doing again as if this wasn’t the biggest news of my life. Or at least of my life lately. Dylan had been the biggest news of my life.
I shrugged it off, though, because they probably assumed we’d work it out. And we had. So for them, it was probably a bit less newsworthy. Besides, I didn’t want to celebrate or anything weird. I just wanted them to know.
“But actually,” Zac said loudly after I grabbed a bottle of water from Tegan’s cooler. “There’s a reason we wanted to get together today and not just because the summer is ending and the little man is starting school soon.” Laney slid up beside him and I could’ve predicted this in middle school. “I asked Laney to marry me last night and she reluctantly agreed.”
I let a huge smile cross my face. This was where they’d been headed since Laney came home last year. I’d wanted this for them and the fact that after four years they found their way to each other made my heart fill with happiness.
“Stop it.” She slapped his arm. “I did not reluctantly say yes and you didn’t ask me.”
“Who did?” Rhian asked as she snuggled into Porter. Something about a wedding announcement made you want to be with the one you loved.
I already was. Tegan had come up behind me and settled a hand low on my stomach as he pulled me back against his chest.
“You pussied out and had someone else ask your girl to marry you?” Porter said. I glanced at Dylan and he hadn’t seemed to have heard. “That’s weird, bro.”
Zac lifted his middle finger up to h
is friend. I knew that wasn’t what Laney meant. Zac wouldn’t have done that.
Laney pulled Zac’s arm down. “Dylan asked me,” she told us. My heart melted. I didn’t think I could say no to a man that had his kid ask me that question. “He asked me if I wanted to marry his dad and I can’t really say no to either of them.”
“Dylan,” I called when everyone else was congratulating Zac and Laney. Rhian was squealing at the idea that the three of us were going to plan a wedding together. The fact that she included me in that plan meant that she’d gotten past our little tiff. I squatted down to get to Dylan’s eye level. “Did you ask Laney to marry your dad?”
He nodded emphatically. “It was awesome. Dad told me exactly what to do and when to do it and I did. She said yes. Dad says that means they’re going to get married and Laney is going to be my stepmom.”
“That’s all true and I bet you were the cutest when you did, too.”
“I was adorable.” That right there was all Zac. I chuckled and ruffled his hair before letting him get back to building his sandcastle.
Rhian still had Laney’s attention when Porter slid in beside me.
“You know you almost got me killed?” he asked.
Both Tegan and I laughed. “Yeah, sorry about that. Didn’t really mean to bring you into it.”
“That’s OK.” He shrugged. “Sounds like she deserved it but if you tell her I said that, I’ll deny it.”
“Get out of here.” I gave him a push. He only moved because he let me move him.
Finally, I was able to get to Laney and give her a big hug while telling her congratulations.
“I’m so glad you two worked it out,” she whispered into my ear when I hugged her.
“Me, too,” I said back before turning to Zac.
“I can’t believe you convinced any girl to marry you,” I said with my hands on my hips.
“Oh please. You’re just surprised it’s only one girl,” he countered.
Something tickled at the backs of my eyes. This right here, all of us together, used to only be a dream. Once I took the pregnancy test and told Zac, I thought there’d be no chance of Laney being part of our lives again. So, I said to him, “Only girl that matters.”
He shook his head. “That’s not exactly true.” And I knew what he meant. I mattered to him as much as Laney only in a completely different way. We were family. No matter what happened.
To keep from burst into tears, I reached up and gave Zac a big hug.
“Is he worth it?” Zac asked as I hugged him.
“I think so. Definitely.”
“I do too,” he agreed. “But Porter and I will still kill him and hide the body if we have to.”
A loud laugh bubbled up from my chest as I released him. “I hope it doesn’t come to that.”
“Better not,” he said. “I won’t miss another opportunity.”
I shook my head then went back to find Tegan’s arms.
We spent the entire afternoon at the pond. Just the seven of us and it was the most natural thing in the world. I knew without a doubt that we’d be doing this every chance we got. Didn’t matter how the makeup of our group changed, how many kids were added because there was no doubt Dylan wouldn’t be the only one from our three couples.
This was my family. My son was the luckiest kid in the world to have so many people who weren’t required to love him care so deeply.
I was the luckiest woman in the world to have made a mistake that affected my best friend and have her forgive me. To have found Tegan, my prince, after the world seemed to only be full of toads.
And for all of us to be right where we belonged.
About the Author
Heather YoungNichols is a multi-published YA and contemporary romance author and a native of the great and often very cold state of Michigan. She is better known at home and to her friends as the Snarker-in-Chief, a job she excels at beyond anything she could have imagined. She loves many things, but especially cold coffee, hot books, and baseball. But not necessarily in that order.
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Hard to Say Yes (The Fallout Series Book 3) Page 19
