Page 55 of If Only In Our Dreams

I ached to reach out and scrub it away with my thumb.

But I’d taken a lot of liberties already. I’d frightened him when he was supposed to be the one trying to frighten me. I didn’t want to push too hard, for fear I’d send him running. Robin always looked like he had one foot out the door. Like he was one wrong word from disappearing entirely.

“You finished the thing?” My eyebrows rose.

Robin nodded. “Been working on it all week! Miles and Bubba helped.” He nodded again, even more jerkily. The dark circles beneath his eyes were not better. In fact, he somehow looked worse. Skin sallow, a twitch to him that betrayed his exhaustion.

“That’s very sweet of?—”

“Are you ready?” Robin rocked back and forth on his heels, clearly excited. “To see it? Because it’s ready. And up. And ready.”

“I wanna see the thing,” Rosie piped up from behind me, because of course she’d been listening.

“She wants to see it!” Robin pointed at her, like he was trying to convince me—and I wasn’t already pulling my shoes back on.

“I…wanna see it too,” Jane added, more quietly, her tiny hand clutching at my coat. I gave her a little pat to soothe her, took a deep breath, and tried to reroute my thoughts.

I had a hard time when plans got changed.

Had a harder time with surprises, if I was being honest.

It would take me a second to wrap my head around the fact that we would not be sitting down for our usual routine tonight. It’d be Robin’s surprise, and then straight into the bath, and then bed.

Taking a steadying breath, I forced away my unease—knowing it was a product of my brain’s betrayal—before I turned back to the kids to get them done up again.

I must’ve looked pinched because Robin stepped in like he had that day at the park.

“Doyou want to see it?” he asked the girls, mock dubiously. “You don’tlooklike you want to.”

Both twins swiveled to stare at him, their honeyed eyes narrowing. “What you mean?” Rosie asked, just as dubiously.

“You don’t have your clothes on properly.” Robin’s hands were on his hips as he eyed the missing shoe and unzipped coat. “No hats. No shoes.” He shook his head. “You must not actually want to go.”

Before I could blink, both little girls were tearing their winter gear back on. Their motor control wasn’t the best, so I still had to help, but the willingness to get redressed made a huge difference in my efforts.

When they were done up like my little goth penguins again, I gently pushed them toward the door, surprised, when both girls latched on to one of Robin’s hands, and he began to march forward. He flashed me a grin over his shoulder, all bluster, but I’d seen the look on his face when they’d grabbed his hands.

Seen the reverence there, the wonder.

The joy.

Swallowing the lump in my throat, I turned off the lights and locked up behind us. Then I headed down the steps in the back toward the parking lot where Robin and my children had disappeared.

“What is the thing?” Rosie asked. I could hear her tiny little voice from several feet away.

“Nun-ya,” Robin replied.

“Nun-ya what?” Jane echoed, confused. Robin slowed down when it was obvious that Jane was stumbling. My heart ached.

“Nun-ya business.”

The twins laughed, a high tinkling little sound—delighted, like Robin had just said the funniest thing in the history of the entire universe.

I died a little on the inside, warm, warm, warm.

Because they were right. He was.

The funniest, the sweetest, the most wonderful man I’d had the fortune to meet.

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