Sweet (Landry Family 6)

Maybe someday I’ll know.

What?

I still against him, holding my breath as I rethink that through. Maybe someday I’ll know.

The idea doesn’t terrify me like I thought it would. Actually, I sort of like it. A little Nate to protect from the world. To break the chains of generational trauma.

“What?” he asks, lifting my chin. “I just felt your whole body tighten.”

Do I tell him what I was thinking about? I stare in his eyes and feel a warmth cover me.

“I hope you take this the right way,” I say, biting my lip.

“Tell me.”

“I was just thinking about how if you and I had a baby someday, like eighty-six years from now, how special that might be. Like a victory for humanity in a very dramatic way.”

His eyes widen, the greens turning to gold. A slow smile graces his lips before he flips me on my back.

He doesn’t answer me. Just slowly kisses me until I forget what we were talking about.

TWENTY-THREE

PAIGE

“And he lost the car, Paige. Your father couldn’t remember where he parked it. I swear, if he would’ve parked it in the same row we always park in, we would’ve been home an hour earlier.”

I laugh. “You two are eventually going to just start driving separately to your date nights.”

“We can’t do that. He’d forget where he told me to meet him.”

I shake my head and pull onto Hollis’s road.

“Where are you going? You didn’t tell me,” Mom says.

“I’m going to hang out with Hollis and Larissa for a while. He just got home from Nashville, so we thought we’d catch up.”

“I love that you have him there, Paige. I can’t wait to meet him.”

The last sentence hangs between us, a thinly veiled suggestion to ask her to come to Savannah. And, for the first time since Hollis came back into my life, I don’t hate the idea.

“Let me ask him today when he’ll be in town, and maybe we can arrange something.”

“Yes. Please, baby girl. You have no idea how much that would mean to Daddy and me.”

“But no brothers,” I say, flipping my visor down to block out the early afternoon sun. “We’re going to slowly introduce him to everyone. You all can be overwhelming.”

I decelerate to give a bird time to fly off the road. I’ve always wondered if it’s their way of playing chicken—getting an adrenaline boost.

“What else is happening?” Mom asks. “You seem happy today. Not that you don’t always seem happy, but there’s a lightness to you today. That and you eased up on the visit thing.”

I think I beam.

Telling my mother about Nate could very well backfire. She can’t keep a secret to save her soul, and if she goes telling my father or my brothers that I have a serious man in my life, I wouldn’t be surprised if they all showed up with bats. But the idea of keeping the information away from her doesn’t feel right either. Nate, and Ryder, feel like a part of my life.

“Well,” I say, choosing my words carefully. “I have a boyfriend.”

“Okay. Tell me about him.”

I hear the caution in her voice, the edge of concern as any mother would have, I suspect. There was a time in my life when that would’ve annoyed me, but I appreciate it now. Even though there’s no need for it.

“Actually, I’ve been seeing my boss, Nate.”

“Your boss? From The Gold Room?”

“Yup.”

She pauses. “Well, you’ve mentioned him many times. It’s always been positive.” She pauses again. “That’s where you’re staying. With Nate.”

It’s a question more than a statement, a way of her working through the thoughts in her head.

“Yeah. I’ve been staying with him and his little boy, Ryder. He’s seven and the cutest little boy ever.”

“I have five rather cute boys myself, so I’m going to have to disagree with you there.”

I laugh.

“Tell me about him,” she says.

I go into a long monologue about Nate and how he makes me laugh, makes me feel good—makes me happy. She listens patiently, not interrupting me once, while I word vomit my happiness onto her.

“Well, it sounds like you’re smitten,” she says.

Smitten. “I think I might be.”

“Will he be there when we come to meet Hollis?”

“I don’t see why he wouldn’t.”

“You know we’d love to meet him.”

And there’s the second thinly veiled suggestion from my mother today.

“I bet you would,” I say, pulling into Hollis’s house. “And I will take that under advisement.”

“Paige!”

I laugh. “I’m kidding. Of course, you can meet him.”

The words echo through my brain as I pull the car to a stop. I just said that so easily. Of course, you can meet him.

Well, that’s new.

“I just got to Hollis’s, Mom, so can we continue this lovely conversation where you put your nose into every aspect of my life later?”

“This is my job, and I’m damn good at it.”