Move the Stars (Something in the Way 3)

“Oh, no. Oh, Manning.” She dug her fingernails into my back. “Is that why . . .?”

I nodded slowly, my eyes moving between her lips, ears, forehead, eyes. All of her. “I couldn’t take it. Not after the letter I’d read from my dad. Suddenly, that guard was a molester who could get to you while I was stuck in there. That guard became my dad. He became me.”

Lake’s hands shook as she touched my face. Her tears made straight lines down her temples. “I’m sorry. I should’ve listened. I never should’ve gone there.”

“I’m grateful that you did. At the time, I would’ve spent more time in SHU if it meant keeping you away from there, but now that so much time has passed . . . I can admit I would’ve done the same if I were you. And it gives me some peace knowing you never forgot about me.”

“I tried. Did you ever read any of my letters?”

“No.”

“Where are they?”

“At the house.”

“Do you think Tiffany knows about them?”

“They’re hidden in the attic, but with her, anything’s possible.” I thumbed away some of the wetness on Lake’s face. She was the first person I’d ever told, and with that information out of my brain, I realized Lake was right. What she and I had wasn’t bad or immoral or wrong. She was a part of it, and her goodness always prevailed, and I was not that monster. “You know what?”

She barely even whispered. “What?”

“Instead of continuing to blame myself for something I never had control over, I’m going to make it right, Lake. I’m going to be everything my father wasn’t. You and I will have a family one day, and—”

She cried more, and I had to nuzzle her to make sure she heard every word. “And I’ll spend a lifetime making up for his mistakes. I will be the best father to our children.”

“You can’t say that,” she said, sobbing into my neck. “It’s too early. We’re not even official.”

“We are official,” I said, smiling about how juvenile it sounded, and also at the idea of raising a family with her. “If anything, it’s late, not early.”

I thought I felt her smile against my neck, too. For all I’d dreaded telling Lake the truth about my family, a weight lifted. We’d turned a hard conversation about something ugly into a glimpse of a happy future. Being with Lake had taught me there was such a thing as second chances. I wasn’t my past or my father’s mistakes. I was just a man becoming the best version of himself for the girl he loved—for his Birdy.

* * *

I held Lake until she eventually calmed and I could no longer ignore the voices coming from the next room. “What’s going on in there?” I asked.

“Val invited some people over,” Lake said. “Every time she and Julian break up, she has a party claiming to celebrate. Really, she wants an excuse to get drunk or high.”

With a heavy sigh, I dropped my forehead on Lake’s chest. “You’re fucking kidding me.”

“We won’t be able to hide in here. They’re my friends, too. They’ll find us.”

“Lake.” I implored her. “I want time alone with you. I’m leaving tomorrow.”

There was a crash in the next room followed by laughter. Lake shrugged it off. “One of the kitchen chairs has a loose leg. People fall in it all the time.”

With a knock on the door came Val’s high-pitched voice. “Roger’s early,” she said. “Come say hi or we’re breaking in.”

“Roger?” I asked, covering us with the top sheet. “Does your door lock?”

“No.” She craned her neck out from under me to call, “Don’t come in here. Give us five minutes.”

“You have four!” a man yelled from the other side of the door.

Lake tried to get out from under me.

“I’m not done with you,” I said. She laughed, but I hadn’t meant it to be funny. I was dead serious.

“They’ll come in here, Manning. Believe me.”

I let her push me off. “Who’s Roger?”

She picked a shirt off the ground. “A friend from class.”

“What kind of friend?”

“A gay one.”

“Ah.” Relieved, I watched her dress. “You forgot your bra.”

“It’s fine.”

I sat up, grabbing my own clothes and searching the bed for her undergarments. When I didn’t find them, I lifted the frame a little. There was no bra, but I did pull out something familiar, something I hadn’t seen in probably six years. “Who do we have here?” I asked.

When she turned and saw the stuffed bird in my hand, she lunged at me. “Oh my God.”

I held it over my head, out of her grasp. “It’s Birdy,” I exclaimed.

“I tried to hide her,” Lake said, her cheeks pink.

Unable to contain my grin, I looked up at the blue and white toy I’d won for Lake at the Balboa Fun Zone since I couldn’t take her on the Ferris wheel. “Why would you hide her?”