Page 78 of Free Fall

“Hey, and to think, I was going to offer you breakfast.”

Seren tried to hold in her laugh. “It’s lunch time.”

“Fine, lunch it is.” I crossed my arms over my chest, meeting her eyes. She softened. “I have eggs and bacon.”

“Perfect.” She nodded. “How did it go?”

It had gone so well, it was busy and exciting and everyone had been buzzing with energy and thrilled to be there. The club was open, and it was a fresh year. Dad had text me a happy new year to ‘my whole family’, and Luca had kissed me at midnight.

I grinned at Seren, too wide, and she held up her hand, shaking her head.

“I don’t even want to know.”

Epilogue

Zelda

TwoYearsLater

“We have to go in at some point,” Luca said from the driver’s seat. We were sitting outside my parents’ house, a second attempt at a family BBQ. The first had happened last year, in the summer after months of slowly talking to Dad, of dropping Luca bombs into text messages or not leaving him out of the photos I sent.

It was obvious they both missed each other. Luca was often reminiscing, bringing up all their old parenting hacks and dramas whenever Leo, now five, would be difficult. We were adding a sibling, only one more, soon, and Luca said it was Dad who’d dragged him through those young twin years of double the trouble. Luca said he didn’t want to be a decrepit old man by the time the kid reached puberty, but I couldn’t imagine him ever like that. He was full of life again.

“I don’t wanna,” I admitted, even as Leo got fed up in his car seat and climbed over to the front, getting elbows and knees into every sensitive part of both me and his dad.

“I wanna see Gamma and Grandpa, Momma!” he said, gripping my face as he sank onto my lap. “C’mon.”

He made my heart squeeze, and I kissed his sticky cheek. “Alright, come on then. Can’t be as bad as last time.”

Last time, Dad and Luca had crashed through the patio doors in a full-blown fist fight, not twenty minutes after we’d arrived. Since then, though, I’d caught them chatting on the phone and seen Luca laughing at messages. Things were shifting, something was on the wind. I had to suck up the awkward.

As I was about to open the door, Cole’s fist tapped on the glass. “You fuckers coming? Jesse’s already here.”

“Fuckers!” Leo shouted as Cole yanked the door open and let Leo fly onto him. They both laughed as Cole swung him in circles and charged around the front yard.

Luca grabbed my hand over the center console while we watched my dad come out and chase the two brothers across the grass until Cole relented and handed Leo to his grandad.

“It’ll be okay, Zel,” he reassured me. “We can do this.”

“Yeah, but there’s more news today, isn’t there?” I said, fiddling with the ring on my finger. Luca had proposed while balls deep inside me on stage in our club just nights ago. “He’s going to hate you again.”

“Ah,” Luca muttered with a relaxed shrug. “There’s always a little bit of hate between us now.”

My shoulders slumped, but Luca tilted my head with his fingers, forcing me to look at him, keeping it soft. Dad still wasn’t comfortable seeing any affection between us, but he kept his anger in check when we were in public. Events inside a house were danger zones for his rage to explode out of him.

“I love you, Zelda,” Luca said, giving me a peck on the nose. “We’ll manage.”

I took the man beside me in, with the sounds of our child’s laughter and the echoes of our family’s voices in the background. We started so rocky, so treacherous, it had felt deeply wrong, like some kind of exile or hell. But looking into his eyes now, there was nothing nefarious left. We opened ourselves up in every sense, and each door nudged open a rough journey. But we’d done it. We were here.

“Let’s go ruin your dad’s day,” Luca said, another peck landing on my nose.

“I’m so stupidly in love with you it’s ridiculous, Luca,” I told him, watching his face light up, those laughter wrinkles beside his eyes showing themselves.

He leaned across the console and kissed me, cupping my cheek as our mouths pressed together. “I love you more.”

Dad watched us, his expression moving between scowling and acceptance with every breath. I would take whatever I could get, though. It had taken him a long damn time to reach this point, and it was mostly because of Leo that he’d managed it.

“I can tell, you know,” Jules said, sidling up next to me. I was lounging at the poolside, reclining on a sun chair with a mocktail in hand and sunglasses covering half my face. Luca was in the pool with all of his sons. They were playing a terrible game of water basketball because Jesse and Leo kept cheating. Leo cackled when Cole complained, throwing the ball at his big brother’s face with perhaps a little too much pleasure.

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