Page 69 of You're the Reason

“I don’t know. I wish He had. It should have been me instead.”

“I blamed myself for a long time.”

“For Gregory’s death? How do you figure that? You were in Paris at the time.”

“The day before he died, a bunch of us in the program snuck out of the dorms. We didn’t do anything horrible, but definitely enough to get sent home. I remember thinking as I climbed into bed that night that my parents were wrong, bad choices didn’t always come with consequences. I woke up to the call that I had a ticket on the next flight home. At first, I thought it was because we were found out. But it was Gregory. I thought it was God’s punishment.”

“God doesn’t work that way, Grace. He isn’t up there waiting for a chance to punish us.”

“Are you sure?”

“I may not have everything figured out about God, but I do know He’s ready to forgive us every time we fail.”

“God never really played a big role in our family outside of Sundays.”

“Maybe that’s why you don’t know who you are.”

She whipped her head to face him. “What do you mean by that?”

“I’m not trying to offend you.” He held up his hands. “I just know that before I could really understand who I was, I had to understand how God saw me.”

God saw him? Did He see her? “How does He see you?”

“As His child. Not an easy concept since my mom wasn’t the greatest example of a parent. But I have a few vague memories of my dad. My dad always believed in me, always loved me, never missed a phone call when he was deployed. He was faithful. Always built me up, never tore me down. He was a good dad.”

“Sounds like it.” She reached across the car and grabbed his hand. “I bet he’d be proud of who you’ve become.”

“I think he finally would be.” He captured her fingers with his thumb and then let it trail across her hand a moment.“He used to say ‘Tomorrow’s a new day with no mistakes.’”

“Smart man we could both learn from.” Why did his touch affect her so much?

“Yeah.” He pulled his hand back and tucked it under his leg.

She rested her head back on the headrest. “What are we doing?”

“I wish I could say this will work. But let’s be real, your parents will never support this.” He met her gaze. “And, you’re going back to Chicago.”

He seemed to be waiting. But waiting for what, her to disagree? Everything he said was spot-on. And she didn’t see that changing. So instead, she just nodded and shrugged. “We’ve never had the best timing, have we?”

“You could say that.” He turned to stare out the front window again. Wall back in place.

Everything in her wanted to scream, but what options did she have? “So where does that leave us?”

“Friends?” He started the car and started backing out of the spot.

Could they be just friends? In Chicago, she would have said absolutely, when he’d shown up in the studio to tell her about his presentation with that big grin on his face, she would have said probably, but now after knowing what it felt like to be held by him, kissed by him, just friends seemed straight up impossible.

She started to say as much, but the hope in his expression stopped her. He needed a friend right now and how could she refuse that?

“Friends. We’ll just pretend the kiss never happened.”

The muffler rumbled louder than normal as he hit the throttle, but she could have sworn he mumbled the words, “Not likely.”

Two days later, the plan for his Wednesday had been simple: come to Jon’s house, talk to him, then return to the studio for a few hours of lifting. How did Seth find himself in a playroom having a tea party with two bears, a doll whose hair had seen much better days, and little Becca, who was holding a teacup up to her eye as if she might be able to see through the solid plastic.

Seth caught the straw hat that was way too small, as it slipped off his head. He put it back on and prayed the chair under him wouldn’t break. He hadn’t even known they made chairs this small.

“Becca, no. It’s a teacup.” Vangie pulled the cup out of her sister’s hand and set it back on the saucer, her strawberry blonde curls swinging. She wore a very colorful apron and pointed to the tiny cup in front of him. “Uncle Seth, you have to drink the tea. And don’t forget to stick a pinky out.”

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