For Lucy

Maybe I won’t win her heart this time, but now I know. She loves me. She’s always loved me.

As I cover the firepit, Tatum flies past me into the house. I rub my lips together, tasting her, then I grin. While I clean the kitchen, Tatum helps get Lucy ready for bed. I don’t mean to eavesdrop, but they left the door cracked open, and I can hear Lucy telling Tatum about Ashton.

Twenty minutes later, Lucy calls out, “Night, Dad.”

“Night, Luce. I love you.”

“Love you too.”

When I put the last dish in the cabinet, Tatum steps around the corner. She fiddles with the rings on her fingers. Something she’s always done when she’s nervous. “Ashton is a real asshole,” she says soft enough to keep Lucy from hearing her.

With an easy chuckle, I nod. “Agreed.”

“Well…” she jerks her head toward the back door “…I’d better get home. Thanks for the…” her cheeks turn pink again “…the uh … s’mores.”

A shit-eating grin settles on my face. “You’re welcome. Anytime.”

Tatum won’t even look at me. She has the shyness of a teenager with a crush on her teacher. It invigorates my ego that’s been down for the count for quite some time. She hasn’t acted this way around me since we first met.

I should let her go, let her walk herself out to the car, drive home, and drown in a sea of guilt. I’m an adult who should have enough respect and decency to let her sort out her issues with Josh. I should be the better man and stay out of the way. After all, I had my chance with her.

“I’ll walk you out.” Yeah, I’m still the guy who stole her at the bar.

She opens the back door and shoots me a suspicious look. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”

It’s pretty much the best idea I’ve had in over five years.

“It’s a dangerous neighborhood.” It’s actually the safest street in Redington. “I wouldn’t be a gentleman if I didn’t walk you out.”

She struts her stuff to the gate. “I don’t recall you ever being a gentleman.”

I waited forever to have sex with her. How has she forgotten that? Although I don’t think she thought I was being a gentleman at the time. She was too busy thinking I was still a virgin.

Tatum opens her car door and turns. “Thank you for walking me to my car.”

I slip my hands in my pockets to keep from using them to grab her and kiss her. “You’re welcome.”

When I take a step closer, she shakes her head. “Don’t even think about it, Emmett. I have enough to confess to Josh.”

I narrow my eyes. “You’re telling him? About the…” I smirk “…s’mores?”

“Emmett, he’s more than a casual fling. We’ve been together for over a year. And he asked me to marry him. And I …”

My smirk dies. She shot it down with the word she hasn’t said yet.

“Love him. I love him, Emmett. And tonight … I was off. Confused. He caught me off guard with the proposal. And you caught me off guard with …”

“The s’mores,” I say with less humor to it.

“Yes.” She draws in a shaky breath. “It’s just been a very emotional and confusing day.”

“Then drive home safely. Get some sleep. And I’ll prepare myself to take a beating from Doctor Josh when he finds out about the s’mores.”

Tatum shakes her head and tries so hard not to smile. She knows I’d level Josh in a blink. In fact, I’ve leveled him so many times in my head, I’m not sure it would even take a full blink. And it’s not that I don’t like him. I do.

I just don’t like him with my wife.

“Night, Emmett.”

“Night, Tatum.”

I wait for her to pull out before bouncing back into the house on a completely irrational and likely impossible fantasy. But at this point, I’m good with irrational and likely impossible. It’s way more than I had yesterday.

Chapter Nineteen

THEN

“Why?” Lucy teared up when we told her that we were getting a divorce.

“Because we need space to heal after losing Austin,” I say, squeezing her hand as she deflates, sitting on the edge of her bed between me and Tatum.

“You don’t love each other.”

“No, that’s not true. We just don’t know how to love each other the way we used to love each other. So we’re going to take some time to figure it out,” Tatum says as if we’re taking a break and might get back together.

“But we’re not going to be a family.”

“We will always be a family, Luce. Nothing can ever change that. But not all families look the same. You know that. Katy’s parents are not together, but she sees them. They are a family. They just don’t live together.” I wasn’t sure she believed me or truly understood, but it was the best we had to give her.