Loan Shark Love

“We did it,” I tell her, shaking my head in awe. “We did this together.”

And we have. We’ve made a home in each other’s hearts, and we’ve grown together, learning from our mistakes and making each other better for it. Good things grow like flowers between us, blooming in our love. In the garden of our life.

It’s only up from here.

THREE YEARS LATER

Rose

I drown my pizza in ranch, folding it up like a burrito and Grey makes a gagging noise.

“Oh, really now?” I say with a laugh. “You’re not going to pretend you don’t like it?”

Grey face colors, and it’s amazing. “I just wanted to impress you that day.”

“Saving me from being shot impressed me well enough,” I answer him, leaning in to kiss my husband quickly.

My dad chokes from where he sits on the blanket. “Saving you from what?”

Natalie snorts out a laugh. “That’s a long story that you probably don’t want to hear, Sam.”

“Yeah, probably not,” I tell my dad, patting his shoulder heartily.

The sun is shining brightly to the right of us, still golden even late in the day, and the boxes of pizza have grown cold and are half-empty on the blanket. The sound of frogs in the distance and the chirping of crickets are both wonderful additions to our holiday picnic.

There are other families basking in the warmth of the day across the park. I wonder for a moment what they’re talking about and how they are. Surely they can’t be as happy as we are.

Surely, no one can be that happy. Somehow, I can’t imagine anyone being as content as we all are with each other.

This family that I’ve built is sturdy, and I know I can always lean on them.

Ryder flips onto the picnic blanket, carrying a frog in his hand. Natalie shrieks as her nephew tries to show it to her, and Anderson lets out a laugh. Their little girl crawls across his lap, and when Ryder shows the frog to her, she giggles happily, drooling with bubbles popping out as she grabs for the slimy thing.

“Allie likes the frog, huh, baby,” I say to my dark-haired son with a laugh, pulling him in to take the little creature from him. “Aunt Nat Nat, not so much.”

“Definitely not,” Natalie says, scooting into Anderson’s lap for protection.

She still looks happy, though, and I think that her disgust is mostly performative to make her nephew laugh. I’ve seen her pick up plenty of little animals.

At her wedding, with her belly swollen and just about ready to pop, I saw her with a stray cat, leading it to a plate of food. That night had been a good one. My dad had watched Ryder and Grey with a sappy grin. He’s a man who becomes exceedingly sweet and loving when alcohol is in his system, and that night, he nearly suffocated me on the dance floor in front of everyone.

The Grey and I had to sneak off as everyone was doing the electric shuffle, finding refuge in the greenhouse by the big mansion where the wedding was being held.

Grey held me in the moonlight, as bodies came together like the rush of the sea over the sand. We stayed in the greenhouse most of the night, curled up in each other’s arms before we made our way back onto the dancefloor with leaves in my hair and dirt on our clothes. In her white dress, Natalie shook her head at us, miming a gagging motion, but she was grinning. She loves us both, and we love her just as much.

That had been a damn good night.

“Here we go, Buddy, let's take him back to the trees,” Grey says gently, bringing me back to the present and holding the frog in his cupped palm after I’ve taken it from our son. My heart swells whenever I watch them together. Grey is made to be a father. “He probably has a family that would like him to come home. Don’t you think so, Ry? We don’t need to keep him from his family.”

“Come home!” Ryder repeats in his little voice. “Come home!”

“He’s in the repeating phase, huh?” my dad asks, grinning. He takes a drink of his beer. “You were stuck in that phase for a whole year, Rose.”

“Don’t say that, Dad,” I reply with a groan. “He’s repeating curse words too.”

I watch Grey walk them both over to the forest at the edge of the park, and I lean back on the big picnic blanket. The sun is still hot on my face, and I let it warm me from the outside in, taking in the rays like they might fuel me.

I love being outdoors, and I love being in the sun. I love it even more in the company of the people that I care most about. They are the most important thing to me.