by Street, K.
“Molly?”
“Yeah?”
“Take the risk. My brother is worth it. And be prepared to fight for him. He’s going to have a hard time trusting you … just don’t give up on him.”
I angled my head in her direction and made her a promise. “I won’t.”
“Good. Now, let’s get back in there before Easton sends out a search party. You know, he made me swear I would be nice to you.”
“Really?”
Saylor rolled her eyes. “He can be so dramatic.”
We both stood, and in a move that shocked the hell out of me, she linked her arm through mine as we strode to the door.
“There you are,” Caroline exclaimed as we walked inside the kitchen. She put her arm around me. “Gram is insisting on knowing the gender of her next great-grandbaby. She’s already found the pencil.”
“Ha!” Saylor teased her mother. “Don’t pretend you don’t want to know just as badly as she does.”
My steps faltered. “Wait. You weren’t kidding. The pencil test? It’s really a thing?”
“Lord, yes. And it’s pretty accurate. At least, according to my mother. She’s old, so we humor her.”
“I heard that, Caroline Elizabeth.” Gram glared at her daughter from the head of the table as the three of us entered the dining room. “Don’t you sass me, young lady. I’m still your mother.”
Caroline kissed Gram on top of her head. “I’m only teasing, Mama.”
“Uh-huh.” The older woman rolled her eyes at her daughter. “Molly, have a seat and lay your arm out on the table with your palm facing up.”
I obeyed Easton’s grandmother’s instructions and waited while she threaded a needle and then stabbed the pointy end down into the pencil’s eraser.
Just then, Jase and Brent walked into the room. Easton trailed behind them with Knox clinging on to him, piggyback-style.
Easton suspiciously eyed his grandmother. “Gram, what’re you doing?”
Knox wiggled. “I wanna see.”
East slid Knox off his back and set him on his feet.
Gram lifted her gaze. “What does it look like?”
“Some Harry Potter wizard shit,” Easton said.
“Oh”—Knox’s hand flew to his mouth—“Uncle East say a bad word.”
“Language!” Caroline, Saylor, and Brent shouted in unison.
Easton held his hands up in surrender. “Sorry. Jeez.”
“I’m doing the pencil test.” Gram narrowed her eyes at Easton. “Y’all hush now. All your hot air is going to create a crosswind.”
“Wait. The pencil test. That’s a thing?”
Laughing, I looked up at him. “That’s what I said.”
“I can sit with you?” Knox patted my belly.
I glanced down at the little boy. His chocolate-brown irises with their golden flecks made my heart melt. I hesitated for only a second before I opened my arms and turned my hands, so my palms were up. When he reached for me, I lifted him into my lap. Once he was situated, I held on to him so he didn’t tip forward due to lack of room, and then I placed my arm back on the table.
Easton stood behind my chair. Brent’s arms were wrapped around Caroline’s waist from behind, and Jase and Saylor mimicked her parents’ stance.
“All right. Be still and watch.” Gram held on to the thread and touched the sharpened tip of the pencil lead to my wrist, slowly lifting upward. After a second or two, the pencil began to move side to side across my wrist.
“Well?” several of us asked at once.
“It’s a girl,” Gram proudly declared. A second later, pride was replaced with contemplation. “Or was it side to side means it’s a boy, and up and down over the wrist means it’s a girl?”
“Gram,” Saylor whined, “that is so unfair.”
Gram shrugged. “It’s been so long; I can’t remember. Look it up on the Google.”
Knox put his arm out. “Do me, Gram. Do me.”
Chuckles filled the air.
I glanced around the room, at all the people in it. There was laughter in their eyes and smiles on their faces. The love surrounding them was nearly tangible, and instead of it making me uncomfortable, I found myself wanting to bask in its warmth and soak it all in.
Twenty-One
Easton
Earlier
I rapped twice on my dad’s home office door.
“Come in,” he hollered from the other side.
I opened the door and then closed it behind me. “Am I interrupting anything?”
“Not at all.” He stood and closed the distance between us. Pulling me into a hug, he clapped me twice on the back before letting go. “Happy birthday, son.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
“Have a seat.” He gestured to the brown leather sofa across the room. “Can I pour you a drink?”
“No, thanks. I’m good.” I took a seat on one end of the couch, and he sat on the other, each of our bodies slightly angled so we were facing one another.
“What’s on your mind?”
I ran a hand through my hair and then looked at the ground before meeting his stare. “Are you and Tommy Fisher still friends? Isn’t he the one who practices family law?”
“Yes. Where is this coming from?”
“I have some questions, is all.”
“Is there anything I can help you with?”
I shook my head. “Molly is planning to move in with me until her maternity leave is up.”
“And afterward?”
I gripped the back of my neck and dropped my gaze to the floor. “She said we would figure it out. Whatever the hell that means.”
“Talk to her.”
“And ask her what exactly?” I leaned forward, bracing my forearms on my knees, and looked at my father. “If she plans on sticking around this time? How much involvement in my kid’s life I’ll get to have? Molly has had no problem walking away in the past.” I stood and walked over to the window. “If Molly’s past behavior is any indication, I’ll do whatever is necessary to establish my rights. I’m sure it will take more than my name on the birth certificate to do that.”
The leather chair creaked as my father got to his feet. In a few short strides, he was at his desk, pulling out his top drawer and a stack of business cards secured by a rubber band. He thumbed through them until he came to the one he had been looking for and held it out to me.
Fisher Family Law was embossed in gold script.
“Think long and hard, son, before you put anything into play. There is a time to follow your heart and a time to listen to your head. The one that shouts the loudest isn’t necessarily the one that’s right.”
“Thanks, Dad.” I tucked the card into my wallet.
“You’re welcome. I hope you won’t need it.”
“Me, too.”
As I followed my dad into the kitchen, it felt like a giant weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Molly had had months to wrap her head around all of this, and I’d only found out a week ago. Granted, that wasn’t her fault, but now that I knew about the baby, there was no way in hell I intended to sit by and give her all the power.
Twenty-Two
Easton
The keys jangled in my hand as I unlocked the front door of my house. We walked inside, and I flipped on the lights in the foyer and alcove.
“Are you sure it’s all right if I stay? I didn’t expect we’d be at your parents’ so late. I forgot what a Scrabble shark your dad is.” Molly yawned.
“Of course you can stay. Did you take the day off? You have that doctor’s appointment tomorrow at one, right?”
She shook her head. “Nope. I didn’t take the day off, but yes, the appointment is tomorrow at one. I’m just going to get up and leave super early.”
“All right. I’m going to go take a shower.”
“Actually, do you mind holding off on your shower for just a second? I wanted to give you something.”
Her request piqued my curiosity. “Sure.”
“Here. Um … happy birthday.” She left a bit of space between us as she took a seat and passed me the gift but set the envelope on the other side of her.
“You didn’t need to get me anything.”
The corners of her mouth tipped into a smile. “Just open it.”
“Okay.” I unwrapped the present and lifted out a square frame. When I flipped it over, I was staring at a grainy image. Unexpected emotion welled inside me. I traced the pad of my finger over the sonogram picture.
This was my baby. My son or daughter.
“Thank you.”
When I glanced up at Molly, her green eyes shone with emotion.
“You should’ve been there. I’m so sorry that you weren’t.”
“Me, too.”
She should have tried harder. Then again, I should have been less stubborn.
“The day of the ultrasound, Paige went with me. I was scared, and all I remember thinking is how you should’ve been there. How much I wanted you to be there. I called you at work when I got back to my office.”
Regret stabbed me in the gut. I knew the day she was talking about. When Helen had tried to patch her through, I’d refused to speak to her. I’d been pissed and hurt. I had missed so much, and here I was, paying the price. I didn’t want to miss anything else.
“I had a nice chat with your sister today,” Molly interrupted my thoughts. “She said something that sort of stuck with me.”
“Tell me.”
“She said, ‘If you allow yourself to be ruled by fear, it becomes your master,’ and she’s right. Fear has been my master for far too long, and I’m so tired of being afraid.” She drew in a deep breath as if she were siphoning off enough courage to say whatever it was she needed to.
Nothing could have prepared me for the next words that came out of her mouth.
Twenty-Three
Molly
“If you allow yourself to be ruled by fear, it becomes your master.”
Saylor’s words spun through my head. I couldn’t hold back anymore. If I stood a chance in hell at finding happiness, I was going to have to slash open the deepest parts of me. I had to do this, or Easton and I would never make it.
In order to tell him my story, I needed to put some space between us. I moved to the other end of the couch, put the envelope on the coffee table, grabbed one of the throw pillows, placed it on my belly, and fidgeted with the thread.
“My parents aren’t dead.” The truth left a bitter taste on my tongue.
His head snapped back. “What do you mean, your parents aren’t dead? Why would you lie about something like that?”
“I should have told you, but sometimes, a lie is easier than the truth. I didn’t grow up like you did.” With my palm open, I gestured toward him. “You have this wonderful, amazing family. Your parents are still together and madly in love. You have a younger sister, and when you were little, you had a Labrador retriever named Max. Your family is perfect.”
“They’re far from perfect.”
“Really? It certainly seems that way. Trust me, your family is like some living, breathing Norman Rockwell painting. My family was as far from ideal as you could get.”
“How so?”
“My mom dropped me off on my gran’s doorstep when I was four, and I didn’t see her again until I was eight.”
For the briefest second, I met his gaze before my eyes darted away. I didn’t want his pity, but it was only a matter of time before I would see it burning in his blue irises.
I recounted the story of how I’d lived with Gran until she died of cancer and explained how I had ended up back in my mother’s care.
“Every day, my mother reminded me just how much she didn’t want me. And I tried. God, how I tried to make her love me. In the end, it didn’t matter because, after a few months, she signed her parental rights over to the state of Georgia.” The words she’d said to me that day still haunted me. “On the bright side, at least she didn’t drown me.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing.” I waved him off.
“Tell me.”
“The day she took me into the local Division of Children and Family Services, she told me that I ought to be thankful that she hadn’t drowned me in the lake like that one woman had done to her two little boys.”
Easton’s jaw twitched. “What the fuck? Who says shit like that to a kid? Jesus, Molls.”
“My mother. And it was a long time ago.” But I’d remember her words until the day I died.
He leaned forward, bracing his forearms on his thighs. “You were never adopted?” he gently inquired.
“I came close once, but it sort of fell through.”
I hadn’t thought about the Mitchells in ages or the discussion I’d overheard one night after Paula learned she was pregnant. She was worried about how they were going to take care of five kids. How they were going to feed and clothe all of us. I worried about it, too. Even when her husband, Dan, had told her they would figure it out. I lay awake for a long time that night. I thought about all the times different men had come to visit my mother. I remembered hiding in the closet and covering my ears while her special friends were over, and I remembered how, sometimes, she would go to the store afterward. My mother had figured it out, and I made it so that the Mitchells wouldn’t have to.
Easton moved closer, hooking a finger under my chin, his stare bore into me. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because of how you’re looking at me right now.”
“How am I looking at you?”
“Like you pity me.” Unable to hold his gaze for another second, I looked away.
He gently pulled me against him, hugging me to his chest, and kissed the top of my head.
When I’d told him about my parents, I had tried to remain detached. Like I was telling a story about someone else’s life instead of my own. Being in his arms made it impossible to separate myself, and before I could stop it, all the tears I’d spent most of my life holding back quietly spilled down my cheeks.
I sniffed, trying my hardest to keep a tight rein on my emotions.
Easton rubbed circles on my back. “I’m sorry. I’m just so fucking sorry.”
The tenderness in his voice cracked my chest open, loosening the chains around my heart and crumbling my walls to dust. Loud sobs broke free.
The louder I cried, the tighter he held me. I had no idea how much time had passed when I finally managed to pull myself together.
I dragged in a deep breath.
He brushed away a stray tear and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “I wish you had trusted me. Did you think I would judge you or that I wouldn’t understand?”
“I was ashamed.”
“You were just a kid. It wasn’t your fault.”
“Rationally speaking, I understand that, but …”
“There’s more. Isn’t there? More you aren’t telling me.”
My voice was so small when I answered him, “If I tell you, it will be all you see when you look at me.”
“It won’t. I swear that it won’t, but I won’t force you to. If you can’t talk to me, you need to talk to someone.”
“Like a therapist?”
He nodded.
“My childhood … it’s not something I discuss. People are under the assumption that everything needs to be talked to death.”
“You need to consider it. I’ll pay for it. I can get you the phone number for Saylor’s therapist, or if you don’t want to use Dr. Gold, we’ll find someone else. She specializes in grief counseling, but I’m sure she could at least recommend someone.”
“I’ll think about it.” And I would. It was all I could promise him for now.
Twenty-Four
Easton
I watched Molly for several long minute
s, internally debating on pushing her for more truth, getting her to agree to seeing a therapist, but from the looks of her, she had reached her limit. I wished she’d opened up more than she had. I hated not knowing if the images I’d conjured in my head were worse than her reality. Then again, if it was worse, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
For tonight, I would let it go for both our sakes.
My gaze darted to the table and the envelope we both had forgotten about. “What’s in the envelope?”
“The baby’s gender is written on a piece of paper inside. I thought we could open it together.” She leaned sideways and picked it up. “Do you want to know? I’ve waited this long, and it’s your birthday. If you don’t want to find out, we don’t have to.”
I stood and held out my free hand.
She put her palm in mine, and I gently pulled her to her feet.
“Where are we going?”
“Just trust me.” I led her to the center of the living room and then released her hand and sifted through the pocket of my jeans, causing the coins inside to jingle. “Heads, we look. Tails, we don’t.”
“Okay,” she nervously agreed.
She crossed her fingers, and then I flipped the coin into the air.
The quarter made a thud as it hit the area rug.
“It’s heads.”
Her mouth lifted into a smile as she passed me the envelope.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
When she nodded, I broke the seal on the envelope and withdrew a folded sheet of paper. We stood shoulder to shoulder as I opened it.
“Oh my God.” Her hand flew to her mouth.
Acting on pure instinct, I threw my arms around her, lifting her feet off the floor, and spun us in a circle before setting her down and crashing my lips to hers.
We were lost in the moment.
Her fingers twined in my hair, pulling me closer, urging me to take the kiss deeper. I had missed the feel of my mouth on hers. The slide of her tongue. The way she tasted.
