It didn’t get too rowdy, and you always felt safe when here. Plus, I got to be with people that I enjoyed being around, and that was all that mattered to me.
Nate slid an arm around me and kissed the top of my head. I frowned and looked up at him.
“What was that about?” I asked.
“You looked sad. I wanted to make you smile.”
That little clutch came back, and I pushed it away and did my best to ignore it. I could not fall for Nate. I couldn’t. Not the way I had before.
Before, it had been fast and hard and all-encompassing.
I had lost a part of myself because I hadn’t known who I was. Now, I had a firmer grasp on who I was and who I wanted to be. I didn’t know how Nate fit into that, or if he did at all. But that meant I had to remember exactly where I stood in my own reality before I let myself fall too quickly—or at all.
“I’m fine. I was thinking about the fact that my parents would never be caught dead here.”
Nate snorted. “Oh, hell no. Not even in the slightest. Although I’d like to see your mom try to sit down on a picnic blanket with one of those tight skirts she wears.”
I raised a brow. “Okay, gross. You noticed how tight my mother’s skirts are?”
He blushed and shook his head. “No, but it looks like she’s always standing too straight in those pencil skirts. Like it’s hard to move around. Very uptight with a stick up her ass.” He paused. “Sorry. I shouldn’t be so rude.”
“No, no. I agree with you. Mom always has a stick up her ass. And yes, she’d never demean herself by sitting down on a blanket with the common folk.”
“Okay, I’m sorry for bringing them up.”
I shook my head. “I’m the one who thought about them and first mentioned them. All you did was make a weird comment about my mother’s skirts.”
“Please, let’s never mention this again. Not if I want to sleep with you.”
I laughed. “Yes. If you ever want sex again, then you can’t talk about my mother.”
“That sounds like a deal to me.”
“What are you guys talking about?” Joshua asked, sliding between us. He took our hands, and I looked down at the boy. Once again, I felt a little tug.
I looked up at Nate, and he had an odd expression on his face that I knew likely mirrored mine.
If we hadn’t been pulled apart, would we have a boy around Joshua’s age? Would we have a child of our own who held our hands and called Nate Daddy?
There was no use dwelling on the past, not when it had stood in our way for so long already.
But it didn’t make it any easier to forget.
Nate cleared his throat, and his expression went back to the fun uncle, and not the one with memories that haunted us both. He was so much better at this than I was. I defaulted to icy bitch queen, but he went to the nice guy.
We were both good at hiding things. It was no wonder we had never known the truth of ourselves before now.
Nate grinned. “We were just thinking about how much funnel cake we’re going to eat.”
“I’ve never had a funnel cake. Is it good?” Joshua asked.
I pressed my lips together and raised a brow at Nate.
“I think it’s time we gorge ourselves on funnel cake.”
“I don’t know if Dakota will like that,” I sing-songed.
“What is Dakota not going to like?” the woman in question asked as she came up to my side and hooked her arm with mine.
“We’re discussing funnel cake.”
Dakota cringed. “Really, Nate?”
“Don’t blame Nate,” Macon put in. “I was going to get one for us anyway.”
“It’s so much grease and sugar,” Dakota said.
“Did you say sugar?” Joshua asked, bouncing on his toes. I laughed, then let go of his hand to run my fingers through his hair.
I shook my head. “We’ll make sure you get all the funnel cake and horrible junk food you could ever want. But you’re not allowed to puke.”
We stood in line, waiting to get into the venue, and Joshua looked up at me, his eyes wide.
“I’m going to puke? Cool.”
I rolled my eyes. “No. You’re not allowed to puke. We will be the fun aunts and uncles who give you junk food, but only on special occasions because your mother will disown us if we go too far. However, you’re not allowed to puke. I despise vomit.”
“Okay. I promise not to puke. In front of you.”
That made me laugh, and Nate grinned and gave the little boy a high-five. “Seriously, though, I puked in front of Myra once, and she threw up right next to me. Spewed everywhere.”
“Do not tell him that story,” I chided, and everybody laughed.
“Oh, but you need to tell us,” Prior said on a laugh.
“It was nothing. It was in college. Things happen. We are not telling everybody that story. I’m a sympathetic vomiter. Even talking about it…” I took a deep breath and swallowed the bile in my throat. “Okay, now I don’t want a funnel cake. Look at what you’ve done. You have ruined junk food for me.”
“Not all of it will be junk food,” Macon said, shaking his head. “I see a couple of food trucks down there that have been in the downtown area near my practice. That taco truck? It’s gourmet.”
“Ooh.” I eyed the vehicle.
“Oh, yes, there’s a bunch of fusion trucks around here,” Dakota added.
“Okay, so you guys get the funnel cake and we can gorge ourselves on gourmet,” Hazel said, looking down at her notes. Why she had a notebook—as did Paris—I’d never know.
“I think we need to get one of everything.” Cross rubbed his hands together.
“Yes, everybody’s going to have a bite of everything they want, but I promise, nobody’s going to puke.” Hazel met my gaze.
I visibly shuddered. “Okay, that’s enough of that.” I turned to change the subject. “I’m sorry that Arden couldn’t come.” I glanced between the brothers.
“The last time we came here, the sun was a bit too much for her. It flared her lupus,” Nate explained. “She’s hanging out with Liam and his family today since a few of them aren’t feeling well.”
My brows rose. “What do you mean?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s morning sickness,” Cross said, grinning like a fool.
“Oh my gosh, how many of them are pregnant?” I asked.
“I’m not sure, but I think they’re enjoying themselves. Since we’re still waiting to hear about the adoption process for Liam and Arden, they have a lot of plans to go through. So, they’re just hanging out today, and we’ve got the rest of the Bradys here at the music festival.”
“Yay, I love that we’re all Bradys.” Joshua skipped with Macon as we passed the line, and I gave everyone a bright smile, trying to ignore the awkward tension.
The rest of them were Bradys. I wasn’t even an ex, technically. I hadn’t taken Nate’s last name.
And I wasn’t engaged or married to him now.
I wasn’t a Brady.
And I didn’t know if I wanted to be.
We made our way to an open section of the park where we could lay out our large blankets, claiming our territory. There was the main stage, but we didn’t need to get too close to be able to hear anything. Everyone else could get closer and be bunched together. We liked our space, and with the screens and speakers, you weren’t missing anything if you were a little farther away.
“Okay, I’m heading off to start the first food run.”
“I’m with you,” Nate added.
“We’ll all take turns, but we should have at least more than one person, given the amount of land,” Paris said, looking out at the rest of our area like a drill sergeant.
Cross smiled. “We’ve got it.”
“Oh yes, you do. Now, come and take these,” Hazel ordered. “I’ve made a list.”
I groaned. “Really? A list of the food we need?”
“A list of places to go. I already looked
up many of the trucks, so we should be able to get to them before it gets too busy. And this way, we at least get the food we want, and maybe find a few surprises along the way. Dakota, Macon, and Joshua can hang out here. I will bring food to them like they’re Roman gods.”
“I like the sound of that,” Dakota said, leaning against Macon as Joshua ran around the two of them, laughing.
“Okay then, troops. Let’s head out.”
Nate put his hand in mine, and we made our way to the funnel cake area.
“Really? We get stuck with the funnel cakes?”
“To start. At least so Joshua can taste it. We’re not going with dessert after everything. This is going to be fun. And probably gross.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
It was a bit crowded, so we were jostled a bit, but when someone ran right into me, their shoulder digging into mine, and their elbow piercing, I tripped and pressed into Nate, trying not to fall flat on my face.
He frowned and righted me since I had nearly fallen.
“Are you okay? What the hell?”
I rubbed my shoulder and my side, looking around. “I could have sworn that was Roland.” I shook my head. “It wasn’t. It can’t be. Why would he be here?”
“Are you sure it wasn’t your cousin? You said he was angry.”
I frowned, shaking my head again. “No. It wasn’t him. Just a man with dark hair. It surprised me, I guess, and I put Roland’s face on everybody I’m angry at lately.”
“I’m glad it’s not me these days,” Nate said dryly, and I knew he said it to cut the tension, but I was still worried.
I looked over my shoulder again, rubbing my side. “That did hurt.”
“Do you need to go to the med-tech tent to have it checked out? Or do you need to go home? Want me to look?”
“No, I’m fine. Nothing a funnel cake can’t fix.”
Nate searched my face and then pinched my chin before kissing me softly. “I’ll get you anything you want, Myra. All you need to do is ask.”
I swallowed hard and held back a smile.
That was the problem, wasn’t it? He would do anything I asked now.
But what if I didn’t know what I wanted?
We got our funnel cake and a couple of other things on the list to the point where our hands were full, and we were laughing. The food smelled amazing. Nothing was too junky here. Everything was perfect. We made our way back to the blankets at the same time as everybody else, and soon, we were tasting beer, eating tacos and teriyaki chicken on a stick, and inhaling funnel cakes and falafels and other random things we had picked up.
“I’m stuffed,” I said, leaning against Nate’s back. Everybody was sprawled on top of one another, looking like deities after a feast. Nate kissed my temple before eating another bite of a new funnel cake. I laughed, looking down at my hair, knowing I had powdered sugar everywhere.
“For the love of God, if ants find me and dig their way into my hair, I will never forgive you.”
“Now that’s an image that I’m never going to be able to get out of my mind,” Paris said dryly. She looked over at us and shook her head. “First of all, you two are too cute. Second, Nate, clean up your woman. Don’t throw sugar all over her.”
“Should I make a joke about how she’s already sweet enough?” he asked, and I groaned, closing my eyes.
“That was ridiculous.”
I saw the questioning glances, and I knew that nobody would ask outright.
Are they serious? What exactly is going on? Does she love him? Does he love her?
Those were all very good questions, ones that I was not going to address because I didn’t want to know the answers.
We needed to go slower than we had before. And that was the problem. There was always the before when it came to Nate and me.
I didn’t know if I could love him again. Or let myself acknowledge that I maybe already did.
Or remember that I always had.
And that was the problem. I had never truly fallen out of love with Nate.
I hadn’t let myself say the words, but they had always been there in the back of my mind. Waiting. Lurking. Whenever I went on a date with someone else or caught my reflection in the mirror, thinking of something happy about my future, Nate was there.
And now, he was here, wrapped around me, his family surrounding us as we listened to music and enjoyed ourselves.
There was no going back from this. If I broke again, I would have to walk away. And I didn’t know if I was strong enough to do that.
It might be smarter for us to walk away now, to go back to only being friends or at least trying to be—with nothing else in between.
Or perhaps it’d be better if I just walked away entirely. Cut ties. No one would be hurt.
I didn’t know the right answers. All I knew was that if Nate left again, or pushed me away, I wasn’t sure I’d be strong enough to pick up the pieces.
And the worst part was, I didn’t know if I had picked them up from before when he shattered me the first time.
Chapter 16
Nate
* * *
I was falling in love with my ex-wife. And why did that sound like I was living in a country song?
Maybe because I was living a country song.
I couldn’t fall for Myra. Not this fast. Not this hard. Not again.
But here we were, weeks into being together. Weeks into staying with each other nearly every night and day. Weeks into me bringing Daisy over to her house so I could work in her living room while she was in her studio, so we could be close. Weeks into her coming to sketch while Daisy crawled all over her, and I worked on my latest project.
All those weeks, and we had fallen right back into one another. It should’ve been a problem. It was a problem. But I didn’t want it to be one. I didn’t want to fall as hard as I was. But here I was, and there was no going back—a phrase I told myself often. Because I was falling for my ex-wife. For Myra. And I didn’t think she would ever be able to fall for me again.
Despite the fact that she spent so much time with me. Or that we were becoming friends again and being better about who we were, I didn’t think she could truly forgive me for what I did. I might not have made the photos. I might not have forced her hand. But I had broken her trust and her heart and hadn’t believed her.
And I didn’t know how to change that.
“Hey there,” Myra said as she walked into the house, and dropped to her knees.
In a perfect world, she’d be falling to her knees for something a little more fun. Instead, she grinned and hugged Daisy to her. The puppy wiggled her little butt and lapped at Myra’s chin, while the woman I loved laughed back and pushed our dog down ever so slightly.
And I had just called Daisy, our dog. I hadn’t meant to, even in my head, and I would do my best not to say that out loud. Myra would end up running faster than ever before if I said something along those lines aloud.
I needed to be better. I had to stop focusing on what we used to have and what we could have and focus on what we did have. But that wasn’t going to be easy.
“Hello there. I’m here, too,” I said, mock-pouting.
“I’m sorry.” Myra laughed. “It’s so good to see you, Nate. Now, I need to go back to loving this puppy with all of my heart. Who’s my precious baby?” Myra said before getting a chew toy and playing with Daisy around the living room.
“You know you’re getting a little ridiculous with my dog.”
“I can’t help it. She loves me more.”
I love you, too.
Jesus Christ, I needed to not think those words. Because if I did, I would end up saying them out loud. And Myra would run faster than a coyote chasing a roadrunner.
“So, I ordered in. I hope that’s okay.”
Myra looked up and smiled. “It’s fine. Long project today?”
I nodded, rubbing the back of my neck. “Yes, it’s bugging me because I don’t think it’s what I need to write.
I think it’s just me.”
“Headaches?” she asked, standing up to come up to me. She put her hands on my chest, kissed me softly, and then stared into my eyes. I knew she was searching for pain markers. And she would probably find them. She frowned again and then reached up to rub my temples. I practically moved into her like a cat wanting to be petted, but I held back any purring or groaning.
Barely.
“I could’ve cooked for you,” she said, and I shook my head, pushing her hair behind her ear.
“No, you didn’t need to. I ordered from our favorite fusion place. So, we’re about to get bulgogi and teriyaki and love it.”
“You know that’s our favorite place because we like the sushi,” she said dryly.
“True, but I can’t do delivered sushi. I know it can be amazing, but it’s weird for me.”
She snorted. “Yes, it’s much better than gas station sushi, but I am particular, as well. Why don’t you sit down? I’ll rub your neck while you play with Daisy.”
“You know, that sounds quite nice.”
“Good, because…get on the floor.”
I raised a brow. “Ordering me around?”
“Always. You know that Daisy’s not allowed on the furniture until she’s a year old, and since you’re going to cuddle her, you need to be on the floor, too.”
“I still don’t understand why she can’t be up there, but Macon told me not to, and therefore, here we are.”
“You are always going to listen to what the vet tells us about your precious baby girl.”
I kissed her hard and then sank to the floor, nipping at her hip as I did.
She moaned but narrowed her eyes at me. “Behave.”
“What if I don’t want to?” I asked and winked.
Daisy, excited that I was sitting with her, barked, wiggled her butt, and then brought me her favorite stuffed cow, Moo Moo. “Thank you,” I said, and Daisy plopped onto my lap and promptly fell asleep.
From Our First: A Promise Me Novel Page 15
