Love Me Last

by Parker, Weston

  Hayden shrugged. “If she can’t come to the party, maybe we should bring the party to her,” he said. “You and me and Booker. Maybe Charlie, too? And whoever else you think she’d like to see.”

  “I don’t know if the hospital would let us do that,” I said.

  Hayden grinned. “Come on, there’s way too much food here for all of us,” he said. “I bet if we bring some of these treats over there, they’ll at least let us have a little time with her. We might as well try.”

  I ducked my head, surprised to feel tears in my eyes. Hayden couldn’t possibly know how much it meant to me to hear him suggest something like that. And suddenly, in that moment, I knew that I loved him.

  Wait, loved him? Did I really know him well enough to love him? But then again, who was to say how long you needed to know someone before you could love them? Anyway, now wasn’t the time for me to figure out any of that. Hayden was still staring at me expectantly.

  I allowed a slow smile to spread across my face. He looked so earnest. Like he really did want to be part of this. “All right,” I said, holding up my hands. “You’ve convinced me.”

  Hayden beamed at me. “Why don’t you go around and invite whoever you want to come with us, and I’ll put together some trays of treats?” he suggested.

  “That’s perfect,” I said.

  And so a little while later, we arrived at the hospital, party and all. At first, the nurses didn’t want to let us all troop into Mom’s room, even though I had kept it below the visitation limit and promised we wouldn’t be in there long. But finally, they relented when I explained why this was so important to me.

  I went in first, while everyone else waited quietly in the hallway. If Mom was sleeping, I didn’t want to surprise her.

  But when I got in there, she was awake, sitting up in bed with her arms folded across her chest as she looked out the window. Her gaze whipped around when she heard me enter, and she narrowed her eyes at me. “What are you doing here?” she asked. “Don’t you have a party to host?”

  I could hear the bitterness in her voice, but I knew not to let it get to me. She wasn’t mad at me. She was mad at the illness and the fact that she couldn’t be there at her favorite party of the year.

  “There are a couple people here who wanted to see you,” I said quietly.

  Mom made a face. “You didn’t need to drag everyone here to pity me,” she said.

  “I didn’t,” I said. “Actually, this wasn’t my idea at all.” I took a deep breath. “Hayden, the guy that I’m dating, wanted to meet you. And he was the one who suggested that if you couldn’t come to the party, we should bring the party to you,” I paused. “If you want everyone to leave, we will. But we packed a tray full of those spinach puffs you love, just for you.”

  Mom stared at me for a moment like she didn’t know what to say. She’d always been so proud, and this stay in the hospital had to be just about killing her. She didn’t want everyone from the winery to remember her like this. But at the same time, Charlie and some of the other people out in the hall had been her friends for her whole life. And then there were those spinach puffs when she’d been barely surviving on a terrible diet of nothing but hospital food.

  I saw her lips twitch with the hint of amusement. “Fine,” she finally said, making a grand, sweeping gesture towards the door. “Let everyone in. But only because you brought the spinach puffs.”

  Laughing, I went to the door, poking my head out. “Everyone, you can come in now,” I said.

  It was all so worth it, just to see Mom’s eyes light up when she saw everyone. I realized then just how much her self-imposed isolation was killing her. That, more than the cancer, was what had made the light disappear from her eyes. I vowed to push her a little more. I knew she could be ornery at times, but I also knew that her friends wanted to be there for her, if she would only let them.

  “Mom, this is Hayden, and his son Booker,” I said.

  Mom’s eyes swept critically over the two of them, and then she smiled. “It’s good to meet you,” she said. Then, she leaned towards Hayden. “I hear all this was your idea. So I guess you must be pretty all right. Even if you couldn’t handle the first date.”

  Hayden laughed and put an arm around my shoulders. “You sure did raise a firecracker,” he joked, and everyone laughed.

  We didn’t stay for long, but it was long enough for everyone to chat with Mom, and I could tell that she loved the attention. Finally, it was time to clear everyone out and let her get some rest. I gave Mom a hug, telling her I’d see her tomorrow, looking up just in time to catch the eye roll.

  “You know, I do just fine when you’re not here,” Mom said. But then she caught my arm. “If you happen to find any more of those spinach puffs left after the party, though, I wouldn’t mind another supply of those.”

  I laughed. “I’ll see what I can do,” I promised her.

  “It was nice meeting you,” she said to Hayden. She glanced at Booker. “I still don’t know how I feel about a kid who tells me I can call him ‘Booger’, but I’m happy the two of you are part of my daughter’s life.”

  I giggled at Hayden’s mortified expression. We said our goodbyes and headed out to Hayden’s car. He caught me after Booker climbed in the car and lightly kissed my cheek, holding me close for a moment. “Thanks for being my valentine,” he said.

  Grinning, I said, “Thank you. This was the perfect idea.”

  “I’m glad it all worked out,” Hayden said. He lingered there for a moment, brushing his fingers lightly along my cheekbone. “I’d ask you to come back to my place, but with Booker there…it just—” he trailed off.

  “I get it,” I said seriously. Booker was still young and impressionable, and Hayden wasn’t quite ready to cross that bridge just yet. Still, it felt like we had made so much progress in our relationship in the past couple of days. It was enough to make my head spin.

  Maybe a night apart was a good thing anyway. It would give me time to sort out how I felt about Hayden.

  Love?

  I stood up on my tiptoes so I could kiss him before I headed towards the company van that I had driven over in. Charlie was waiting there for me, tactfully looking away from us.

  “Maybe I can take you out on another date sometime,” Hayden asked teasingly.

  I laughed. “Maybe,” I agreed. “Call me.”

  “I will,” Hayden promised, giving me one last quick kiss. “See you soon.”

  “See you soon,” I agreed, trying not to think about how head over heels I was for him.

  Chapter 33

  Hayden

  After promising Booker that we would try to go back to the winery in the daytime ‘sometime soon,’ I shouldn’t have been surprised that the first question out of his mouth on Saturday morning was, “Can we go drive the golf cart today?”

  I grinned ruefully and shook my head. “Not today, Booger,” I said. “The weather’s not good. And anyway, there’s probably a ton of cleaning up that needs to happen today at the winery after last night. We’d be in everyone’s way.”

  Booker pouted for a moment. “Okay,” he finally sighed. “Do we get to see Mallory again soon, though? I like her. She’s fun, and she tells good jokes.”

  That made me smile. I still was a little worried that Booker might get too attached to Mallory. Who knew where our relationship would end up? But the more time I spent with Mallory, the more I was sure that I wanted to be with her. I liked the way she handled herself at the winery, I liked watching her with her mother the night before, and I liked spending time alone with her, just the two of us. Or the three of us—me, Mallory and Booker.

  “I have a feeling we’re going to see Mallory soon,” I told Booker, smiling at him. I still wasn’t ready to have a conversation with him about the idea that Mallory might become a big part of my life, and his by extension. I didn’t want to get too ahead of myself, but I liked the thought of spending more time together.

  And I thought it was pretty t
elling that Mallory had introduced us to her mom the night before. It would have been easy, since her mom couldn’t come to the Valentine’s Day party, to just put off that introduction. But I could tell how important it was to her when she introduced us. I couldn’t help but feel that she was all in as well.

  I liked that.

  And I liked the smile that Booker gave me when I told him that we would probably see more of Mallory. “Do you think we can bring her to the zoo sometime?” he asked.

  I blinked, surprised by the suggestion. It was such a family thing to do. But I shrugged. “I bet we could ask her,” I told Booker.

  “Cool,” Booker said. “Can we go skating today?”

  “Sure thing,” I said. “Why don’t I call Uncle Ace and see if he can meet us over there? But I want you to finish all your chores first.”

  Booker nodded enthusiastically. “Okay! I’m going to start with the sock sorting in the laundry room,” he said, racing off to do just that. I grinned after him.

  For so long, it had been just the two of us, just Booker and I. But the more I thought about outings with Mallory and all the other ways she might fit into our lives, the more it felt right.

  I thought about inviting her to skate with us that afternoon but finally decided against it. Last night had been the three of us, and I wanted our next date to be just Mallory and me. Maybe I’d take her out to dinner again. Or maybe something cheesy—like bowling.

  That thought stopped me in my tracks. I had never really been the dating type before. I mean, dinner, sure. Or drinks. But even that was rare for me. Before I had Booker, I used to just pick women up at bars or wherever, usually when I was out with Ace, and take them home. Even if it wasn’t just a one-night thing and we met up again, we dispensed with the ‘date’ part of the night and just skipped straight to the end of it, either at my place or hers.

  Maybe the real difference here was maturity. I wasn’t in my twenties anymore, and I wanted something more. I knew what it was like to have a family—with Booker. I was settled. I didn’t need flings.

  But I knew that wasn’t the whole of it. There was just something about Mallory that made me want to be with her, really be with her. Something that made me want to give her everything she deserved. She wasn’t the kind of woman that you just took home once and never called again. She wasn’t the kind of woman that I had been looking for before. She was different. She and I could be good for each other, I had the feeling. She could help me give Booker a more balanced life. She made me want to focus on my work in a way that I never had before, to show up on time and everything. And I knew that I helped her to relax and let loose a little.

  Things could be good. I had feelings for her, I realized. I didn’t want to never see her again once I stopped working at the winery. So somehow, I needed to figure out a way to tell her just what she meant to me.

  Without scaring her off.

  Just because I was comfortable with having a family now, it didn’t mean I had always been. Before I had Booker, I had been one of the most commitment-shy people I knew. But things changed once you had a kid.

  Still, I knew that Mallory and I might not be on the same page. Especially since in all honesty, we didn’t really know one another very well just yet. This was still so very new. In fact, there was a part of me that was sure I couldn’t possibly feel as deeply for her as I thought I did. Except for one thing—I was sure I really did feel that way.

  I was falling for her, and I didn’t want to think about spending the rest of my life without her in it. It was that simple.

  That afternoon we met Ace at the ice rink. “How was the party?” Ace asked as we watched Booker go through some of his normal warm-up skating drills.

  “It was really fun, actually,” I said, smiling. “Booker had a good time meeting kids of some of the other employees of the winery, and I don’t know, it was kind of nice seeing Mallory around her employees when she wasn’t actively working. And I guess now that the books are all straightened out—even though most of them didn’t know there was an issue in the first place—it just feels like everyone at the winery has breathed a collective sigh of relief. Or maybe she breathed one big enough for all of them.”

  “Yeah. That’s probably about it. Good,” Ace said. He glanced over at me before tactfully asking. “So, now that you’re done working for the winery, are you going to keep seeing Mallory?”

  “I think so,” I told him. I shrugged, “I think she and I are on the same page, but I guess we’ll find out.”

  “What page is that?” Ace asked.

  “Well, she’s met Booker,” I said slowly, trying to decide just how much to tell him. Would he think I was crazy if I admitted that I had feelings for her already? He was the one who had tried to set me up with Mallory in the first place. But once I had started at the winery, he had cautioned me not to start dating her. He didn’t think it would be very professional, and he was worried that if I wasn’t able to sort out the problem with the books, then our relationship would suffer from Mallory’s frustration.

  But now, there was no more worry about any of that. The books were fixed, and I didn’t work for the winery anymore.

  “Actually,” I added, “we met her Mom last night, too.”

  “She came to the party?” Ace asked in surprise. “I thought you said she was in the hospital.”

  “She is,” I confirmed. “The doctors wouldn’t let her out to go to the party, and it was apparently a really big deal for her. And for Mallory, too. So I suggested that we bring the party to her. Some of the other folks at the winery, plus Mallory of course, and Booker and I, headed over to the hospital with some of the treats from the party. Mallory’s mom loved it, you could tell. And so did Mallory.”

  Ace gave a low whistle. “Holy cow. You’re falling for her,” he said.

  I chuckled. I should have known I couldn’t keep anything like this from him. My brother knew me better than anyone else on this planet. I grinned at him. “That obvious?” I joked.

  He shook his head. “Wow,” he said. “I never thought I’d see the day, honestly.” He paused. “Have you talked to her about it? Just to make sure that the two of you really are on the same page? I mean, meeting her mom is a pretty big deal, but I don’t want you to get burned if it turns out that she’s not, I don’t know.”

  “We haven’t talked about it,” I sighed. “There’s part of me that wonders if I really do care about her like that or if it’s just that she’s the first person that I’ve really given a chance. You know, that first date went so poorly. If I hadn’t gone to work for the winery, I never would have gotten to this point with Mallory. We never would have seen one another again. So there’s a part of me that wonders if maybe the only reason things are going so well for us is that I let things happen. Because I gave them a chance.”

  “That’s fair,” Ace said. He paused, looking thoughtful. “But on the other hand, and you know I don’t believe in fate or anything, but maybe there’s something more to it than that. I mean, what are the chances, really, that I would set you up on a date with someone, only to have you find out the very next day that you’re actually supposed to start working for her? And not only did that first date go horribly, but she didn’t want to hire you either. But there was something that just kept drawing the two of you back together. Some sort of charisma or connection or attraction. I don’t know.”

  I snorted, grinning over at him. “Sounds like a load of hippie-dippy bullshit if you ask me,” I said, even though I liked the idea of it. I didn’t want to say that Mallory and I were meant to be together, not any more than Ace did. But hadn’t I felt, so many times, that there was no way I could keep my hands off of her? Maybe he was right, and there was some sort of attraction that drew us together. I wasn’t sure what to call it, but it was definitely there, as far as I was concerned.

  “What about Booker?” Ace asked suddenly, turning to face me.

  “What about him?” I asked, surprised to hear him ask that in su
ch a protective voice.

  “What have you told him about you and Mallory?” Ace clarified. “I think it’s great that you want her to be involved in your lives, but at the end of the day, you have to remember that if you’re dating someone, she’s going to be in Booker’s life just as much as she’s in yours.”

  “I know,” I said, trying not to feel defensive. I knew that Ace was just trying to help, but did he really think I would forget about how much Booker’s life could be affected by this? “I told him that I thought we’d be seeing Mallory a lot more, but that’s it,” I continued. “I didn’t like the thought of him getting too attached to her before I knew where this relationship was going, but it seems like things are moving forward and that we’re on the same page.”

  “I hate to say it, but it sounds like you probably need to check on that with Mallory before you go any further,” Ace said. “Like you said, having Booker get attached to her just to find out that things aren’t going to work out between you two could really hurt him. He’s still young, and I’m not sure he would understand.”

  I nodded slowly. I knew that I needed to talk to Mallory. I just had to figure out when. And how to say what I was feeling. I just hoped she was feeling the same way.

  Chapter 34

  Mallory

  On Sunday morning, Mom was finally discharged from the hospital, and I was tasked with bringing her home and getting her settled back in. On the one hand, it was nice to finally get her out of the hospital. I hated the smell of antiseptic, and I hated the worry that dogged me while we were there. Even though Mom’s condition had stabilized since she had first been admitted, I couldn’t help remembering just why we were there at the hospital with every breath that I took.

  And Mom, of course, didn’t sugarcoat the truth. Nor did she really have any hope that she was going to beat her illness. I had hoped that maybe seeing everyone from the winery might lift her spirits for a bit, make her start thinking about living her life for just a little while longer.