“I didn’t know about you. I didn’t. I didn’t know about you until the first time I saw you. The second I saw you, I knew it. Think my heart recognized you with the way it leapt out of my chest. It’s not an excuse, but I need you to know there wasn’t a day in all those years that I was without your mom that I didn’t think about her. That I wasn’t praying she was happy and living the kind of life I’d always hoped that she would have.”
My head angled, and I filled my gaze with my son, hands splayed across his precious face. “And I have to wonder if all that time I didn’t sense that you were out there, too. Maybe my thoughts could never get that far from her because you both were pulling at my heart.”
Tears blanketed his face. “Then why didn’t you ffffind us?”
“I don’t know the answer to that, other than I was afraid. Afraid of loving someone the way I loved your mom.”
“Do you still llllove her?” His question cracked, broken in his throat.
“So much, Big Ben. I love her so much. And I love you.”
God, I loved him. Loved him so much it physically hurt.
My ribs expanded. Too full. This massive feeling taking over.
“Do you understand? I love you. You are my son, and I am never letting you go.”
A timid smile curved the corner of his mouth. “You won’t llleave us?”
“Never.”
He swiped at the moisture on his face. “It would hhhuurt bad if you lllleft. Wwwwe need you.”
I hugged him to me. Desperately. “I need you, too.”
His little arms wrapped around my neck. “I llllove you, Dadddd. I thinkkk I knnnew it, too.”
I pulled back. “Knew what?”
“That I belonnnged with you.”
I took his hand and pressed it over my thundering heart. “You do belong with me. You are right here. Forever.”
With that crooked, adorable grin, he took my hand and spread it over the thrumming of his little heart. “Forrrevvver.”
Twenty-Eight
Mack
It was strange when you spent your entire adult life feeling like an outsider, on the fringes peering in and wishing for something better when you knew you had no chance of ever attaining it. You got content in your own weird way because you had to accept that was as good as it was going to get.
Then the roof gets blown clean off that conviction. That resolve blown to smithereens.
You’re left splayed wide open. Feeling things you’d never thought you’d get the chance to feel again.
Couldn’t say I was complaining.
Ian lifted his tumbler of scotch into the air where we were all gathered around a booth at the back of a trendy bar downtown where we’d met for dinner and drinks.
Couples’ night.
Me and Izzy.
Jace and Faith.
Ian and Grace.
Well, we had a plus one. Courtney was flying solo, an old friend of both Faith and Izzy’s who wanted to tag along.
“This one goes out to these two love birds right here,” Ian said. “May Izzy never stop blushing every time our boy Mack here smiles at her, and may he never stop looking at her like he wants to eat her. That’s what real relationships are made of.”
My shoulder was slung around both of Izzy’s so I could hold her close, and there was no missing the heat radiating off of her as she buried her face in my chest, her flustered grin pressing right at my heart.
Ian and Jace had been razzing us nonstop since we’d shown up. Okay, they were razzing me. It just meant Izzy got in the middle of it.
Welcome to the family.
I lifted my beer. “I’ll drink to that.”
Grace swatted at her husband, nothing but love beaming from her smile. “Of course, you would think it’s all about the sex.”
He leaned in and nuzzled her face. “Uh, yeah. Get to live my life in you. What could be better than that?”
She grinned and leaned in for a quick kiss.
“Ha, isn’t that the only thing all men think about?” Courtney added, laughing. “Take away their boy bits, and they wouldn’t know what to do with themselves.”
“Faith here sure doesn’t seem to be complaining.” Jace winked at his wife.
“Nope, not at all,” she agreed.
My chest stretched tight. Overflowing. All things right. I leaned over and stole a kiss from the side of Izzy’s head, breathed her in, felt the satisfaction in my soul.
“I love you,” I murmured, knowing she’d feel it rather than be able to hear it.
Izzy turned that sweet face up to me. Tonight, she wore that blonde hair up, pieces all over, the girl so fucking sexy I didn’t know how we made it all the way over here without me taking a detour to my place.
But it was more than that. So fucking much more because I knew I’d never felt happier than when those hazel eyes flashed with our truth. “I love you. So much. I’m so glad I’m here. With you.”