Page 124 of A Good Book

“When you look at your child, what do you want to think?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know, but I don’t want to feel like they’re a mistake. Bob Ross says there are no such things as mistakes, just happy accidents. This baby is a happy accident.”

He hummed. “Perhaps.”

That was as good as it got. “Perhaps” from my dad was synonymous with “yes.” When my sisters and I were younger, we’d bug him for things like letting us spend the night with friends, going to the local carnival, or opening one Christmas present on Christmas Eve. And every time he gave us a “perhaps,” usually followed by “I’ll think about it,” that was a yes.

CHAPTERFORTY-FOUR

CHICAGO, “WILL YOU STILL LOVE ME?”

Ben

After Gabbyand her dad left, I checked with Janet to see if she needed help in the kitchen. She was on the phone, so I returned to Gabby’s room to tidy things up after she dumped everything into piles on her floor.

I emptied her backpack, stacking notebooks and folders onto her desk, accidentally scooting her Bible off the edge. When I picked it up, I shook my head at the weathered leather cover and limp, broken binding. The margins on every page were filled with her handwriting. Poems and doodled hearts. For years, I sat beside her in church as she poured her young heart onto the blank spaces, but I never focused on the actual words.

Blue-eyed boy

Best at baseball

Bashful smile

Berry red lips

Be mine

I cringed on her behalf as I turned page after page. There was no big, brilliant, bearded, baritone, brooding best friend Ben anywhere in sight. I asked myself if I could ever love another like I loved Gabby after pining for her the way she had for Matt. The answer made me nauseous.

I was easy, comfortable, familiar, accepting, her teacher, her safe place, and the father of her child. But was I the man who made her heart skip a beat? Did her palms get sweaty when I walked into the room? How many sappy, ridiculous, yet romantic dreams about her future involved me as her husband?

She told me she loved me, and that the kiss in the stairwell changed everything. I wanted to believe her, but I wasn’t immune to insecurities.

Doing a double take, I caught her out of the corner of my eyes, shoulder resting on the doorframe, hands crossed over her chest. Once again, she caught me snooping in her personal things.

“I’ll never be him,” I said, closing the Bible and setting it next to the stack of folders and notepads from school.

She signed, “No. You’re not him. You’re more.”

“I don’t know, Gabbs.” I laughed, staring at the Bible. “There’sa lotof him in there. Years of him. I don’t know if there’s room for anyone to bemore.Don’t get me wrong, I’m okay with loving you more. That would make your Grandma Bonnie so happy. But I can’t help but see him inked in the margins of your whole world and not feel like there’s no room for me.”

She reached for my face, and I shook my head.

“It’s fine, Gabby. You don’t have to make me feel better. I don’t know if you can. I’m just working on accepting it. Ya know? We’ll be fine. We’ll have a good life. We’ll laugh like we’ve always done. We’ll be there for each other. Raise a family and all that comes with that. I’m just …” I ran my fingers through my hair. “I guess I’m still young andstupid, and I want to be the muse for all your poems. I selfishly want my name to be in the margins of your books. But I’m not, and that’s fine. I’ll grow up and focus on more important things like our baby. But right now, I’m struggling to be the man you need instead of the boyfriend you didn’t want.”

She flinched, and that wasn’t my intention. In fact, it wasn’t my intention to tell her that I looked inside her Bible. But she caught me, and I couldn’t lie.

Before her tears escaped, she blotted the corners of her eyes while squeezing between my legs and her desk, resting her backside on the edge while I leaned back in her desk chair and laced my fingers behind my neck. She stared at me for the longest time, like I was a riddle she needed to solve. Then she grabbed a pen and notebook and started writing … and writing.

For the record, I wanted you first, but you were with Susie, and you told me we could only be friends. And that, Benjamin Ashford, was just how long it took me to get the nerve to ask you to be more than friends. You were my first crush long before that, and I want you to be my last. And because you’re so STUPID, you didn’t think to look at the beginning. Genesis Chapter 1.

I lifted my gaze from the paper to her straight face, then I opened her Bible to Genesis Chapter 1.

After the first three words “In the beginning,” she drew a caret symbol and inserted “there was Benjamin Ashford” with a heart behind my name.

Well, damn …

I scooted the chair back and got on my knees, holding her left hand with mine. She grinned as I took the pen and drew a heart on her ring finger, then I drew a circle around her finger connecting the heart—a temporary ring for a forever promise. When I looked up, she nodded a half dozen times.

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