Page 97 of Hold on Tight

“No. No, he didn’t. He made me very, very happy.” Mira stroked Sam’s hair. “Sometimes grown-ups cry when we’re happy.”

Sam glared accusingly at Jake. “When are you going to say the ‘I’m sorry’ part?”

Despite their best efforts to keep serious, they both laughed a little, and Sam made a face of confusion and hurt.

“He did,” Mira told Sam. “He said a very nice ‘I’m sorry.’ ”

“Does that mean you’ll kiss and make up and he can live with us all the time?”

Jake dared to glance at Mira, and she was looking right back, an eyebrow raised. Not ayes, exactly, but definitely not a no. A bright Christmas-in-July gladness settled on him.

“That’s something your dad and I will talk about and it will take time to figure out,” Mira said. “You have to be patient with us. Grown-ups are slow about making decisions.”

“But in the meantime,” Jake said, “I would be happy to visit you whenever I can, as long as it’s okay with your mother. And no matter where I live, I’m your dad, and that’s never going to change.”

Sam nodded thoughtfully, then said, “There are two hundred and fifteen spaces between there”—he indicated—“and there.”

“Did you count those?” Mira asked, pointing at the most distant panel.

“No,” said Sam, and skipped off.

“You made a good kid,” Jake said.

“Wemade a good kid,” she corrected.

He grinned at her. “I was just the sperm donor.”

She slugged him in the arm, and he grabbed her fist and tugged her close, so close he could feel her warmth. Another inch or two …

But he had one more thing to say. The most important thing. “I love you, Mira. And I’m sorry it took me so long to tell you that.”

Her eyes got, if possible, brighter, and her lower lip trembled. “I’m glad it took you so long, because I had to get my head sorted out. I had to realize that I was trying too hard to be someone I already was. I wanted to be an adult, as if it were a test I had to pass. But in the end, I realized that growing up is a lot about deciding. Deciding tobewho you want to be. Not letting anyone else dictate the terms, and not getting stuck in old ways of seeing yourself. And I owe you an apology, too.”

“Does it come with wine and kissing?”

“No,” she said. “Maybe chocolate and blow jobs?”

Jesus. All the blood in his entire body had just screamed into his dick. “Okay,” he said. “I’m good with that.”

“I didn’t fight hard enough for you. I was so busy trying to prove something—I don’t even know exactly what—to myself, about my independence and whatever, that I missed what was going on.”

“What was going on?”

“I was falling in love with you.”

“Oh,” Jake said, the words springing to life in his chest. Because maybe he’d known, but there was nothing,nothing, as good as hearing her say it. As seeing it there on her face, her eyes shiny with it, her cheeks glowing, as if the way she felt about him was beaming out from the inside.

“I love you, Jake. I kept notwantingto. Because it seemed like I went straight from being my father’s baby to being my baby’s mother, and the last thing I wanted was another role like that. Jake’s girl. Someone’s—someone’s wife.”

“I never thought you were anyone’s anything,” Jake said quietly.

“I know.”

“Except your own you.”

“I know.”

“Who I love. Because you are spectacular. Bold and bossy and beautiful and an amazing mother and completely, insanely sexy …”

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