Page 53 of The Loves We Lost
I can’t think of what to say next.
Shouldn’t we talk about it now?
I’m so sorry I’ve steamrolled into your life again.
I wish it were as easy to be with you as it is to love you.
My heart cracks with the weight of it all. But I can’t even allow myself to cry.
This is a mess of my own making. And I’m messing around with both Miles’s and Avery’s lives if I screw this up.
So I do as he says and go to bed, lying as close to the wall as I can muster. And I don’t turn around when he climbs in bed behind me and tugs me to his chest, even as I fall asleep, safe in his arms.
19
BATES
There’s a saying. Something about how wherever you leave your hat is your home. But as I follow Avery and Vi’s car as part of their escort home two days later, I feel like I’ll be leaving my heart in their home with them.
Niro keeps glancing my way.
And annoyingly, Catalina has not come with us, because he knows I’m gonna need his full attention to get through all this.
When Vi’s car pulls up onto her driveway, I bring my bike to a stop by the curb. Avery jumps out, and she runs to me. She’s about to throw her arm around my leg when I nudge her away. “Watch out, pumpkin. Bits of the bike are hot, remember?”
“Oh, right,” she says, tears filling her eyes. “I just didn’t want you to drive away.”
I kick my leg over the bike, tug off my helmet, and remove my leather. “I’m not going anywhere just yet.” I scoop her into my arms, and she wraps her legs around my waist. Little hands go into the hair at the back of my neck, and she plays with it. Something her mom liked to do too.
Halo, Niro, and Vex get off their bikes.
“We’ll take a look around,” Niro says as he slaps my shoulder.
I walk up the drive to where Vi has opened the door. “You want to come in for a while?”
I draw circles on Avery’s back with my palm. “I do.”
“Avery, honey. You’re too big to be carried. Why don’t you get down and you can show your daddy your bedroom? Go give it a quick tidy and he’ll be there in a few minutes.”
Yesterday was awkward between us.
I’d woken with her wrapped up in my arms. Her leg between mine, her steady exhale against my chest. For a fleeting moment, in that garbled state between awake and sleep, I thought everything that had happened between us had been a dream until I remembered it wasn’t.
When Vi roused shortly after, she refused to acknowledge anything that had been said in the bathroom and had resolutely said no when I tried to persuade her to stay for a few days longer.
She ignored me, her head down in her laptop, but her fingers barely moved over the keys. I wanted to shake her. I wanted to see the agony I felt in her eyes too. That I wasn’t the only one feeling like their heart was getting smashed all over again.
But this morning, a different kind of ease settled between us. Just in time for me to drive the two of them home.
And now that we’re here, I’m not ready to let them go.
Avery wiggles out of my arms and heads down the hallway to her bedroom.
“I have something you might want to see.” Vi heads into a comfortable living space with white walls and pale pink curtains and cushions. She pulls a brown leather album from the shelf and hands it to me. “Avery’s baby book.”
I take it from her, open it, and read the first page.
Momma the day before I was born.
