Page 83 of Perfect Composition
Her words resonate deeply within me. “Would you? If I asked you to support me.”
“Mama, I’d support you if you wanted to have a mad affair with the sheriff, Rodeo Ralph, or my father. If they make you happy, I’d give you my blessing to be with any or all of them.”
I open my arms, and she falls into them. I kiss the top of her head. “If I haven’t mentioned it yet, I love you.”
“I love you too, Mama.” We’re both silent for just a moment before Austyn asks, “So, are you?”
“Am I what?” I try to fob off her question.
“Going to have a mad affair with my father?” Her eyes are bright with inquisitiveness.
I grip her chin, place a smacking kiss on her forehead, and announce, “I’m not telling.”
Austyn begins to protest. “But I tell you everything.”
“I’m the mother. That’s how it should be, darling.”
“That’s a load of crap. We have a different kind of relationship. We’re special.”
“That we are.” And despite the crazy road that led us here, I wouldn’t change a single thing about the relationship I have with my daughter. Ignoring her dramatic sighs, I roll off the bed and make my way to my wardrobe to figure out what to put on to punish Beckett. There’s no reason he should get to enjoy seeing his mark on me.
Not just yet.
For a night that many consider traditionally somber, my house is filled with lots of laughter. I love it. Right now, restrained emotion is the last thing I’m feeling. I want to sit onSanta’s lap and make wishes I know might never come true. I want to feel a child’s belief about Christmas Eve. I want my daughter and her father to find balance so they each have one another.
For a brief moment, I close my eyes and let the discordant sounds whisper over me as I make a wish on the most important star of them all that’s shining down upon all of us—the Christmas star.
As I wander in and out of bodies, Jesse gives me a toast from where he’s talking to Mitch near a window. I smile as I pass him. But my steps falter on my way to where Austyn is sitting at the piano with her father.
I didn’t think wishes came true so quickly. Shifting out of their line of sight, I study the way their two heads bend toward one another. Beckett’s head tips back in laughter. Austyn shoves him in the side, almost knocking him off the piano bench, which is apparently just what she wanted. Casting a sultry glance over her shoulder at Mitch, she begins to sing “Christmas Wrapping.”
My eyes drift to where the mysterious guard stands with my brother. He lifts his drink to hide his smile from Austyn, but from where I’m standing, I catch the flash of dimples before he manages to control it. Judging from the way Jesse’s face tightens, he didn’t miss it either. He glares at me across the room.
Ah, what can I say, big brother. We Kensington women like our men difficult.I try to communicate that in the shrug I give to him.
He rolls his eyes and lifts his beer to his lips.
Austyn finishes with a flourish and to a round of applause, including, I note, verbal exultation from her father and nonverbal communication I don’t want to interpret from Mitch.
Then Beckett bumps her over. “Okay, kid. My turn.”
Grandly, she stands. “At least I have the courtesy to give way when another artist is playing.”
Beckett rolls his eyes before his lock on mine, proving he knew where I was the whole time. Ignoring our daughter, he dances his long fingers along the keys before his deep voice launches into one of the most heartbreaking Christmas songs of all time: Taylor Swift’s “Christmases When You Were Mine.”
His voice croons softly about the combination of heartbreak and the holiday season. I could try to claim it’s the perfection of his voice singing the powerful words that holds me immobile, but I’d be lying. It’s the expression on his face, tortured yet hopeful.
It’s a mirror of what’s in my own heart.
Maybe it’s the emotional upheaval causing my walls to crumble, but I feel them fall brick by brick. It’s an avalanche inside my chest. I try to find an anchor in the room, only to find all of my usual supports enthralled with Beckett. Wildly, my eyes find his again, realizing his never left mine. He arcs his brows as he sings about loneliness and Christmases when I was his.
The song ends, and the room explodes in applause, freeing me from my internal meltdown. Just as I’m about to seek out some sanctuary, Ethan loops his arm around me. I sag against it in relief. “I’d ask how you’re doing, but I don’t think I have to,” he observes.
“I’m fine. Fine. Everything’s just fine,” I babble.
“You’re about as fine as when you realized he left the first time.” He nods at Beckett, who’s still playing at the piano, only now the tempo’s more upbeat as Austyn’s joined him. “Before you were left behind hurting, Paigey. This time, I wonder if it’s not the other way around.”
I whirl on him, incredulous. “Are you crazy? He’s him, and I’m just me.”
