“Don’t do that for me. We’re in a different situation than most.” She removes her hand from my arm and pats the bed next to me. “Grayson, I don’t want you to forget her in order to be with me. I never want the girls to forget or feel as though they can’t talk about her. I know that this is hard for you.” She reaches over and takes my hand in hers. “I know Holly was the love of your life. I know this isn’t how you had planned for your life to go. I understand that, and I don’t expect you to alter your life for me. I just want a chance to be a part of it. If you think you have room for both of us?” she asks softly.
I swallow hard, trying to rid myself of the golf-ball-sized pack of emotions clogging my throat. “I miss her. Every fucking day, I miss her.” I turn to face her, and she does the same. “I miss her, but I miss you too… when you’re not here. I think about her less and about you more, and I hate that. I feel like I’m forgetting her and replacing her in our lives, but she’s not here, Laken. She’s not here, and she’s not coming back. It’s been three years, and I still have a pain in my chest when I think about losing her—more for my girls than for me. I have you.” I smile softly. “I don’t want you to replace her, but I do have room for you in here.” I place my hand over my heart. “I feel so much for you. It scares me, Laken. Holly is the only woman I’ve ever slept with. She’s the only woman other than my mom and grandma that I’ve ever said I love you to.” I pause, taking a deep breath, preparing myself for the words that I’m about to say. “She’s not my last for those things, Laken. That might have been the plan, but such is life.”
“You’re always going to love her, Grayson. It’s a lot for me to live up to. I know that Holly was it for you. I just hope I can bring you half of the love and joy that she did.”
“That’s just it. You do. My daughters, they smile brighter when you’re around, and me, well, the guys have been giving me shit for weeks about the smile I can’t seem to wipe off my face. It wasn’t until I started spending more time with you that I realized that I could love deeply again. I realized I could feel it in the depths of my soul for more than one person.”
“What are you saying?”
Placing my hands on her cheeks, I smile softly. “I’m saying that I’m falling hard and fast, Laken. I fell in love with Holly when I was a kid. We weren’t perfect, but we loved each other, and we worked hard every day to nurture that love. Then I lost her. I lost myself… until you. We’re not perfect, and my deceased wife will always own a part of me, but you, Laken, you own just as much of me as she did. I know that sounds crazy, but it’s my tragedy and my truth.”
There are tears swimming in her eyes, but she’s smiling, so my guess is that they are happy tears. “I never want them to feel as though they can’t talk about her when I’m around. I want them to know how amazing she was and how much she loved them. I want them to know how much you loved her.”
“Can I say something else? Something that’s going to make me sound like I need to be committed, but I believe it all the same?”
“You can tell me anything.” Her voice is soft, and her eyes, they’re looking at me with so much understanding and, dare I hope, love?
“I think she’s behind this. Behind us. I don’t know how else to explain the fact that we’ve lived in the same small town all our lives, and I’m just now noticing how amazing you are.” I run my fingers through the silky strands of her hair.
“That doesn’t sound crazy. Not at all. Holly was… so nice.” She chuckles. “I don’t know how else to explain it. If I would pass her in the grocery store or on the street, even when she came into my store, she was always so sweet. Hell, even in high school, when she caught me telling Justine how hot I thought you were, she was cool about it. Not rude or snide or bitchy.”
“Wait, I think I need to hear this story.”
She goes on to tell me all about that day in the bathroom sophomore year. “It was easy to see why you loved her the way that you do.”