Page 66 of Hold You Close
She smiles. “Good job, Uncle Ian.”
I close my eyes for a second. “But I still feel like I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.”
“It’s okay. You’re doing great, and I’m here for you. We’re a team. United front, remember?”
“I really want to make a joke about uniting fronts right now.”
Laughing, she gently pushes me away and tries to get around me. “I have to go change or I’ll never get out of this wet suit.”
I catch her again from behind, wrapping my arms around her. “I could help with that.”
“Ian, stop!” She giggles and attempts to pry my arms from her waist but they’re locked tight. “You’re going to be late for work.”
“Fuck work.” And I realize something—I don’t even want to go to work. For the first time I can remember, I’d rather stay home and hang out with her and the kids than be at the club with its huge crowd and loud music and drunk girls falling all over me. What the actual fuck?
London stops moving. “Can you? I mean, do you have to go in?”
I exhale and drop a kiss on her shoulder. She smells like sunscreen and summertime. “Yeah, I do. But I’ll get out of there as soon as I can. No pressure, but you’re welcome to stay over. Wait—fuck that. Stay over.”
She turns in my arms and looks up at me. “You want me to?”
“Yes. I might be late, but I’ve been thinking about you in my bed for two lonely nights. Stay.”
Her eyes brighten and then she smiles. “Okay, I’ll be here.”
I lean down and kiss her, while my heart races.
Maybe we can actually make it work this time.
Fifteen
London
“Aunt London, are you going to marry Uncle Ian?” Ruby asks as I’m tucking her in.
Oh, Lord. This is the absolute last thing I want to talk about. “Umm.” I cough and fidget with her stuffed panda. “Do you want me to read you a bedtime story?”
“Yes, please. The one about the princess and the frog.”
Great. A fairytale about a frog turning into a prince. No symmetry there. “You’ve got it.”
I lean over to the stack, fishing out the book she requested, grateful that five-year-olds are so easy to divert from the topic you want to avoid. She rests her head on my chest as I read, showing the photos as I go. We get to the end and she lets out a huge sigh. “Uncle Ian could be the prince and you can be the princess. You fall in love and get married, just like in the book.”
Do I burst her bubble about her uncle? No, that would be cruel, but the woman in me can’t let this opportunity pass. I hear Sabrina in my head about not ever needing a man, but having one because you want him.
“You know, a princess doesn’t need a prince to be happy,” I tell her as I kiss the top her head.
“Really?”
“Yup. In fact, some of the greatest women we know don’t have a prince.”
She scrunches her nose. “But Uncle Ian looks just like the prince did. And he took us on the boat.”
Well, he looks better than the prince, but that’s not the point. “Your uncle is pretty great, but I think the princess is happy because she found someone who was a good man and loved her for who she is.”
Ruby yawns and moves to her pillow. “Okay. I still think you should be a princess and be happily after ever with Uncle Ian.”
I giggle at her reversed words. “It’s happily ever after.”
