Page 54 of It's Always Been You
“I do, but how did you know where I live?”
Asher grins again. “Julie. My wife knows everything. When she kicked me out of the house today and told me to go play with my friends so she could play with hers, she texted me your address. I think she’s playing matchmaker.”
“Uh, with us?” I wave a hand around at the rest of the guys who are making their way to the kitchen with the food and drinks. It’s nice how they make themselves at home immediately. It’s been a long time since I’ve had friends familiar enough to just show up at my house on a random Sunday. We’ve all hung out together a couple of times in the two weeks that Molly has been living with me, but it’s never been just the guys. I like it.
“Nah,” Jeremy says. “With you and Mol. The girls wouldn’t send us over here unless they thought Molly was interested in going the distance with you. I think it might be their way of giving her a little push towards you. Folding you into our little found family of sorts.”
“Realllllly,” I muse, my smile spreading.
“Look at you,” Jordan says, opening cabinets at random and taking down plates and cups. “I know that look. You’re totally gone for her.”
I sit down on one the stools at my counter and prop my chin on my hand, watching the four guys rustle around my kitchen for everything they need. “I’ve been gone for her for almost fourteen years.”
Ben stops opening takeout bags and gives me a knowing smile. “I know something about that.”
“You and Hallie? It’s strange to think of you guys not together. I know I haven’t known you long, but I’ve never seen two people more meant for each other.”
“Uh, no one is more meant for each other than my girl and me,” Asher says. “I literally only had to hear her voice, and I was done for.”
Ben slaps him on the back of the head. “Quit making everything about you. You’re obsessed with my sister. We know.”
Asher just smiles, unperturbed. “Bet your ass I am.”
“Anyway,” Ben turns back to me. “I’ve been in love with Hallie since we were eighteen. It took me eleven years to finally tell her how I felt.”
I study Ben. Something about him—about all these guys really—makes me want to open up and spill all my secrets. “The ten years Molly and I were apart were impossible. I missed her so much there were times I didn’t think I would survive it.”
“So why didn’t you come back for her sooner?” Jeremy’s serious voice is a far cry from his general lightness and cheer. “She’s been here all this time, and I know from Ems that Molly has never dated anyone seriously. Ems is never wrong, and she’s sure you’re the reason why.”
I’m torn between being happy she hasn’t dated anyone seriously and hating that I’m the reason she didn’t wring every ounce of happiness out of the past ten years.
I blow out a breath, considering how to respond. I could hedge and equivocate, but the truth is, I don’t want to do that. This is Molly’s family, and I want to be honest with them the way I want to be honest with her.
“When my parents died, I was…god, I don’t even have a word for what I was. The grief was so consuming I couldn’t see through it. My sisters were twelve and eight, and all of a sudden, I had to be a surrogate parent and sift through the wreckage that our lives had become. I was too broken to accept the help Molly was offering, and that broke us. I broke us.”
I look around at the guys, and all I see is patience and acceptance. It pushes me to tell them the rest. “I never stopped thinking about her. I never stopped loving her. Ever. But by the time I had my head above water again, I realized I was stuckwhere I was. If it was just me, I would have dropped everything and moved to where Molly was. Begged her for another chance. But it wasn’t just me. I had my sisters, and I wouldn’t uproot them again. I searched around to see what Molly was doing. She was in law school by then. She was editor of the law review, and was winning all sorts of awards, and had really prestigious internships. If I came back for her, I would have been asking her to give up the life she was building to, what exactly? Help me raise my sisters? I wouldn’t do that to her.”
Ben nods at me in understanding. “And now?”
I shrug and lean back in my chair. “Liv—my youngest sister—is a freshman in college now. I stepped down from the day-to-day operations of my company and sold my other one. There’s nothing tying me to California anymore. Now, I just want to be wherever she is.”
Jordan flashes me a grin. “Your second company. Rory Industries. You started that just so you could sell it to Montgomery, didn’t you? And made up a consulting gig with them when they probably could just deal with the whole thing on their own. So you would have an excuse to be here?”
I grin back. “I thought it was the girls who were the smart ones.”
“Oh, they are,” Jeremy says, chuckling. “They’re way smarter than us. But if your goal was to hide your motives, you should have worked a little harder. My eight-year-old daughter could have figured this one out. Do you even actually have to be in their offices?”
I shrug. “Nope. There isn’t all that much for me to do, and what there is, I can do in my office here. It was a pretty thinly veiled excuse, but I just needed to be here.”
Asher hands me a plate. “It’s romantic as fuck, honestly. Coming back to get her after ten years? Uprooting your life to meet her where she is? I dig it.”
“It’s only romantic if she wants me back. If she doesn’t, then I’m just a guy living in Pittsburgh without much to do.”
Ben shrugs. “It’s a great city. But you forgot about the whole fake fiancée thing. And the temporarily living together thing. And the going to California with you next week thing. One thing about these women, aside from them being smarter than all of us put together, is that they don’t do anything they don’t want to do. Molly is doing these things because she wants to, and I’d say that’s a whole shitload of points in your favor.”
I smile at all of them, because they are so right. She might not be ready yet, but she will be. And when she is, I’ll be here waiting. “Thanks for coming over; it’s been a long time since I’ve had friends like this.”
Jordan smirks at me. “No offense, dude, but that’s kind of pathetic.”
