The Lights on Knockbridge Lane (Garnet Run 3)

They dressed and went to find Gus. Just before they descended the final step into the living room, Adam grabbed Wes’ hand. His heart felt like a hummingbird’s in his chest, suddenly, at the thought of his daughter not approving of him and Wes.

Gus was lying on the couch, her head hanging over the side, watching TV upside down. She claimed it was more interesting that way.

She smiled when she saw them, and then her eyes tracked down (well, up, for Gus) to their joined hands and her eyes went wide. Her mouth opened in a perfect O and she flipped right side up.

She bounced on the couch and clapped a hand over her mouth, something Adam had taught her to do when she had something she was about to say but wasn’t sure if it was appropriate.

“It’s okay, sweetie,” Adam said.

“You! Are you? You’re!” She bounced with each word.

“We’re dating,” Adam said.

He walked over to the couch and Gus stopped bouncing. Standing on the cushions she was almost as tall as him. Her expression was serious as she said to Adam what he’d said to her many times: “You made a very smart choice.”

Adam burst into laughter that turned, in an instant, to tears. He grabbed Gus in a hug and squeezed her tight. Before becoming a parent he never could have imagined the singularly exquisite feeling of his daughter being proud of him. He cried happy tears into her messy blond hair.

“Thanks, sweetie,” he gulped.

“Are you okay?” Wes looked concerned.

“He’s fine,” Gus said, unconcernedly patting Adam’s head. “Daddy gets very emotional sometimes.”

Her nonjudgmental explanation just made Adam cry harder.

He felt Wes’ strong arms come around them both, holding them tight.

When Adam’s tears dried and Gus got bored of hugging, they went to the kitchen and Adam put waffles in the toaster as Wes made coffee. Gus set the table and began a long, enthusiastically detailed description of the book she was reading about a girl who discovers alien life on Mars.

“Mars is not the most likely planet to play host to life forms,” Wes said seriously.

“It’s fiction,” Adam said.

“Still!”

And Wes began an equally long and enthusiastically detailed explanation of the meteorological and chemical environment of Mars as compared with other planets.

Adam tuned them both out and watched as if it were a movie. He felt so utterly joyful—so full up with warmth and happiness—that it seemed his skin could hardly contain it.

“Be right back,” he murmured, though Gus and Wes were too focused on aliens to notice.

In the bathroom, Adam stared at himself. His eyes looked shockingly blue against the redness left over from crying, and that almost got him started again. He’d always cried easily, but sometimes the tears felt so close to the surface that they just welled over.

He looked in the mirror and let his chin wobble and his lips tremble and his eyes fill with tears. He smiled at himself and said firmly, “It’s brave to take risks. It’s okay if things don’t work out. It’s still worth trying. Love is always worth trying for.”

Love, love, love.

It was what he’d never felt from his parents. It was what he’d wanted so desperately with Mason, and realized wasn’t there. He’d learned what love was from Gus, and now that he knew, he would never accept anything less.

“It’s not silly to want love. It’s not foolish to admit you want it.”

“Daddy?”

Gus’ voice came from the other side of the door.

“Be out in a sec, sweetie.”

“Is your tummy not feeling good?”

Adam grinned.

“Nope, I’m fine. Be out in a minute.”

“Okay.”

Just when he thought she’d surely left, she said. “I ate your waffle.”

Adam laughed, hand over his mouth. At his silence, Gus said, “I can make you another one.”

“That’d be nice. Get Wes’ help if it’s still hot, though.”

He heard her walk away and sank down on the toilet seat, scrubbing the tears off his face.

His daughter was a goddamned jewel. The amazing man he was quickly falling for liked him back. It was almost Christmas, his favorite time of the year.

Nothing could ruin Adam’s perfect happiness.

Chapter Sixteen

Wes

Wes was on fire. He hadn’t felt this alive since he walked into the lab his first semester at Caltech and saw the equipment that would enable him to carry out all the experiments he had in his head.

It was the buzz and pop of possibility, the tingle of potential.

It was happiness. He’d just never had a name for it before.

Telling Adam about his family, his past—putting it into words for the first time in years—had clarified it for him. His father had been wrong. Wes hadn’t realized how muddy he’d allowed that to get in his mind after all this time. How much the guilt of choosing not to have a relationship with the man had complicated the story.

Now, though, eating waffles at Adam and Gus’ kitchen table, seeing how everything Adam did was in service of showing Gus fairness, exposing her to honesty, both in fact and feeling, and giving her space to be herself, it was very, very clear. His parents hadn’t been like that. They hadn’t been like that at all.