Page 80 of Fresh Start
“The butterfly release,” she said and danced out of the room, leaving the door open behind her.
Nathan passed the room in the hallway, and when he looked inside, he tilted his head and furrowed his brows.
“Y’all made up,” he said.
“We did,” Leo replied.
Nathan put his hands in his pockets and smiled at me.
“In that case, welcome to the family, Dawson,” he said. “Now I’d suggest you get up before Summer shouts your ears off any more than she has already.”
Nathan closed the door, and I looked at Leo who was still under me. “Hey,” I said.
Leo smiled and said hey back. I leaned down for a kiss, and he moaned.
“No. Don’t do this to me now. Any member of the family can walk in at any time, and I don’t think Summer will forgive us if we make her miss the butterflies,” he said, and he pushed me off him.
“Fine,” I said in a fake upset tone, and I got out of bed too.
We showered—but not together—got dressed, and only fifteen minutes later we went down to find all of Leo’s family waiting for us. Leo took the opportunity to formally introduce me to everyone.
His grandma hugged me and asked me to call her Yaya, like the rest of her grand and great-grandchildren did. Andy shook my hand with a firm grip that said if I ever hurt his brother, he’d do bad things to me. Luke shook my hand and drooled a little when I said it was nice to meet him again. Nathan fist-pumped me. Then Summer took my hand, and, with us leading the rest of the family, we all walked out and descended to the beach.
“Don’t you have a sister? Where is she? Why isn’t she joining us?” I asked Summer halfway, and Leo came up to walk next to me.
“Oh, yeah, Maya is on vacation. She won’t be back until next week, and then she’s doing summer camp, so she won’t be around much,” Summer replied. “But I’m sure she wishes she were here. Wait ’til I tell her we don’t only have one new uncle, but two.”
Leo burned me with his brown gaze, and without even thinking about it, I laced my fingers with his.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Holding my boyfriend’s hand,” I said.
“What if anyone sees us,” he said.
“I don’t care.”
He smiled and squeezed my hand back, and Summer was still holding my hand on the other side. We almost felt like a family. Like our own little family. And this was more important than anything the papers or the blog ever wrote about me. How could I have ever let them control my life and my happiness the way they had?
When we got to the beach, we stopped by the bed and breakfast where we picked up Melody, who had help at reception so she could join us, as well as Karen, Tracy, and Alice.
“You two are adorable together,” Alice said as we stepped onto the sand where it seemed the entire town had gathered.
“Mom! Dad!” I waved when I saw them, and Summer ran up to them to hug them before we got there ourselves.
Leo and I were still holding hands. At this point, I didn’t know if I could let him go even if I tried.
Mom and Dad didn’t say anything about us. They just smiled and turned their attention to the middle of the beach where I noticed the guy that had given the tour at the butterfly center standing in front of cages, along with a team of people.
“It’s about to start,” Mom whispered at us, and her gaze dropped to our linked hands.
Her own hand rubbed my back, and she put her head on my shoulder.
There wasn’t a big speech or any announcements. The crowd went silent as if by instinct, and when you could have heard a pin drop and the only background noise was that of the crashing waves, the center employees opened the cages and a myriad of colorful butterflies filled the sky on their way to freedom.
Their fluttering wings and cathartic release gave me the strength for what I did next.
As the crowd cheered around us and everyone was distracted by the beautiful view, I pulled Leo into my arms, opened the camera of my phone, and took a picture of us, the manic butterflies behind us making the picture look digitally manipulated.
