“I don’t want children, Allie. You need to know that.” He pulls back to look at me. “That won’t change.”
We’ve gone for torment and guilt every day of our lives to kids and he expects a negative reaction. “I’ve never even thought about having kids, Dash.”
He grabs a tissue from the box on the end table, offering it to me before he pulls out and sits up, but he stays right there, elbows on his knees. I clean up and pull a blanket around my shoulders, and sit next to him. “One day you’ll think about kids, Allie.”
My stomach flip flops and not in a good way. “Why do I feel like you’re looking for a reason to leave, Dash?”
He glances over at me. “I’m trying to make you happy.”
“You make me happy. I come from a broken home, Dash. I love my mother, but she pined for my father, and it affected my childhood. I’m not thinking about my biological clock.”
He presses his lips together and looks away. “My father and brother are alcoholics. I control it with physical activity, I rarely overindulge in alcohol, but I’m fucked up. I know this.” He looks at me again. “Too much to be a father.”
“This isn’t an issue.”
“Did you talk about kids with Brandon?”
“Actually, no. We never talked about kids.”
“If I put you in a room with my father, he’d make you hate me.”
He is naked in every way, exposed, vulnerable, and still affected by that encounter between me and his father at the signing. “Never.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Then why don’t you put me in a room with your father and find out?”
He drapes his arm around me and pulls me close, his hand on my face, tilting my gaze to his. “Because I don’t want you to hate me.”
My heart squeezes with the rawness of his tone. “You do enough of that for the whole planet, Dash. You think I haven’t conjured up ideas about what happened and why you feel guilty? I’m still here, Dash. I’m not going anywhere. I can handle this. I promise.”
“Until you can’t.”
“Don’t do that. Not to me and not to yourself.”
“I’m never telling Bella what happened that night. He was my father and stepmother’s son. She wasn’t close to him. What she did to help him was for me and because she’s a good person. She doesn’t need to know.”
“I won’t tell her,” I vow. “That’s between you and her, Dash. I will never break your trust.”
“I know that but Allie, I’m just not ready to tell you everything.”
He didn’t say, “I’m never telling you,” which is more than I expected. I press my hand to his face and say, “I know and it’s okay. Maybe one day you will. Maybe you won’t.” I stop myself there, though I really want to tell him that I can’t fully help him cope with whatever he feels if I don’t understand where those emotions come from.
“One day,” he says softly.
“Let’s go home,” is my reply. “I’ll call Mark and talk to him about my job and then let’s just go home.”
“God, yes,” he replies. “Let’s go home. I’ll arrange our flight.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“After all this time, I know exactly where I belong.”
—Meg Rosoff
The day I arrived in New York City, my eyes were filled with the wonders of a city that was all bright lights, opportunity, and adventure, a place I was now to call home. Today, the day I will soon leave and no longer call it home, I feel no regret. Not for coming. And not for my decision to leave. Do I hope that my career with Riptide might find a lifeline? Yes. Very much. Will I choose Riptide over Nashville, where both Dash and my mother live? No. No, I will not.
If happiness is where the heart is and my heart is no longer in New York City.
It’s in Nashville.
As John Denver sang, “Country roads, take me home, To the place where I belong.”
My suitcase is open on the bed and I’ve all but finished packing when Dash enters the bedroom as he sticks his phone back in his pocket. “I already had a pilot on the payroll for the next few days. We’re meeting him at the airstrip. I told him we need at least three hours. I thought you might want to swing by your apartment and get a few things.” He glances at his watch. “That’s still going to put us home pretty late. I’d say nine with no delays.”
“I’ll just let the movers get the rest of my stuff here. As for the time, I’m okay with that if you’re okay with that. I’d just like to be home.”
He stops on the opposite side of the bed. “What about your job, Allie?”
“I do need to call Mark, but they’re not counting on me for Riptide business. I was just going in to work on the valuations for the auction, but really, it can all be finished by phone.”