Page 89 of Born in the Spring

“Elara,” I call to her as I chase the haste in her feet, with another adrenaline spiked laugh as I slow her down by the hips.

“If you’re telling me to wait, I can’t,” she says as she spins to me, her haste now in her voice, some of it from her nerves, her worry, but most of it from the deepest need we’ve both felt, those bluest flames in her eyes.

“I’m not telling you to wait,” I say, like that’s the last thing on my mind, something we’ll never have to do again. “I’m coming with you.” I lace my fingers through hers, raising our held hands between us, and her smile echoes the timidness I felt earlier as we continue on together, united in everything.

Just as my mom has been with me, and with her. She’s watched me love Elara for six years, and I’ve watched her love Elara for just as long. That’s how I know she’ll at least understand.

Thirty-Seven

Elara

Amie’s rolling sectioned off pieces of meat beneath her palms on the steel counter top of the kitchen, the sight sending a little roll through my stomach. She glances up to let us know she sees us, then turns her attention back to her rolling as my stomach does the same.

Jasper’s thumb rubs at mine and I lean against him as we lock eyes, silently agreeing to let her have the time she needs to acknowledge us now standing in front of her as us.

I don’t want to hurt Amie more than she’s already been. But I can’t hurt Jasper, and myself, more than I already have.

“You two gonna offer me your free hands?”

Her words are pointing, her acknowledgment, and Jasper’s fingers do a drumbeat at my knuckles from pinky to index, the soft padding a guiding rhythm for my pulse.

Amieisherself, unbothered in tone. But she’s asking for help, needing totakethe time, and needing us to stay as she does.

My body perks as it normally does to get busy as Jasper and I untwine, rallying over to her.

“You stir,” she orders Jasper with a motion to the stove as I’m washing my hands. He moves to the pot, sizzling with a mixture I can now sniff out as her special cranberry sauce, and realization stalls the inhale in my lungs. “We roll,” she says to me, sliding her pre-prepared meatballs to my side of the counter top as I settle in next to her.

I blow out the last of my released breath as my palms roll the same as hers do, our fingers shaping the balls at the same second, down to the way we bend them. And of course she knows she doesn’t have to teach me her way. She already taught me. After she learned I was hard to refuse too.

Amie’s added three meatballs to the pot and I’ve rolled three more when I feel the soft bumping of her shoulder against mine, her voice even softer as she says, “This is the first dish you ever helped me make.”

The sizzling behind us simmers to a low static as this acknowledgment really impresses on that full circle feeling.

It was during my first year here. And I was on the eve of a relationship. With her son.

“It is,” I whisper, managing a smile, through that constricting in my chest. It’s lessened, since I’ve been standing with her, since she’s started talking again, but it’s there.

I add my meatballs to the pot, meeting Jasper’s gaze when he pauses his stirring, my pulse skipping the same as it did when those beautiful eyes, even more so attentive to my face, captured mine the very first time. The similar touch of vulnerability within his steadying confidence.

We were always going to land here.

Amie drops her meatballs in between us, spurring Jasper’sstirring, her stare bouncing from him to me before she turns back to the counter, and with one more steadying look from Jasper, I turn back with her.

It’s quiet again as we roll the last meatballs. Amie adds hers to the pot, then scoops up mine before I have the chance to.

“This is okay,” she says through a deep sigh when she spins back to her spot next to me, staring ahead, while both my and Jasper’s focus has snapped to her, a fast thumping of my heart and a complete stop in his stirring.

“It’s okay,” she says again, now with a deep breath, her voice strong as her gaze points to me. She nods through a slow stretching smile, the tears filling her eyes drawing tears to mine.

“It’s okay,” she repeats, the exact words I’ve needed to hear—from her—before she pulls me in for a hug by her wrists. I hug her back, our arms holding to each other so our meat-coated hands don’t touch our clothes.

I find Jasper through the haze, my clearing blinks showing me the wet lining his lashes as he watches me and his mom, a small smile on his lips too, and I bite at mine as he reaches out to wipe at my cheeks because I can’t.

“Uh—” Amie starts to him as we pull back, making a stirring motion with her finger. “Don’t let my balls burn.”

Jasper moves back to the pot with a laugh as Amie then motions over my shoulder, saying to me, “Let’s wash up.”

We share the sink, her taking one faucet as I take the other, her stare bouncing from Jasper to me again.

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