Page 89 of Late Nights & Love Lines
“Is caring really so bad, Peach?”
“Yes,” she chokes out. “It is. That’s why I never, ever do it, but you assholes sucked me in with your voodoo powers, and now” —she hiccups—“I think I care. A lot. And I spent years not crying in front of people, Seb, years. Then you come back into my life and now I can’t s—stop.”
“Oh, Rowan.” I’m trying to be compassionate, but I also want to shake her a little.
“It’s good that you care because I,wecare about you too. So much that the thought of you leaving has made me sick to my stomach for the last three days.”
“W—w—why do you people do this then?”
Her hair sticks to the tears on her face, so I brush it behind her ears. “Because, sweetheart, a life without love and caring isn’t a life at all. It’s going through the motions but never experiencing the beauty of it. Human beings are capable of the greatest love and the most brutal heartache, and sometimes you wouldn’t have one without the other, but that doesn’t mean you don’t try. If anything, it means you keep reaching for it until you find the place where you belong.”
“I don’t know that I belong anywhere.”
“Jesus, Rowan. Of course you do. You always have. You’ve just been too stubborn to see it. You belong with us, with me and Pappy, with the kids. You belong here in Sailport Bay, where everyone who has met you is ready to adopt you into their liveswithout hesitation because of who you are and the heart that you have. Even if you can’t see that, it’s all here, waiting for you.”
“Stella said they’re an orphanage for lost souls.” She chuckles and blows a snot bubble at the same time. It’s something I’ve only seen babies do, and it makes me laugh harder. “Ugh. I’m disgusting.”
“You’re amazing.”And you’re mine. Someday, when she’s ready for that level of commitment, I’ll tell her that, but for now, I keep it to myself.
I hand her a box of tissues from the nightstand and wait patiently while she pulls herself together.
With a handful of dirty tissues, she squares her shoulders and offers the smallest smile.
“Tell me what you want, Rowan. How can we make this work?”
She blanches, the little color she had draining from her face.
“What’s the matter?” I ask, already knowing I’d move heaven and earth to fix everything I could.
“Nothing.”
I don’t even have to fully form an expression of disbelief before she’s correcting herself.
“It’s just that, Lottie, well…honestly, never mind. I’ll deal with Lottie.”
“Will there be an issue with you giving me your todays and tomorrows?” The excitement fizzing through me now is the same as when I was a kid on Christmas morning, waiting for my parents to get up so I could run down to see if Santa had come.
She swallows heavily.
“No,” she nearly shouts, and I pull back to search her face. “It’s just, todays and tomorrows until September. Then…”
“Then we’ll renegotiate?”
“Um…renegotiate what?” I’ve never heard a person’s voice actually quiver as Rowan’s does now. She lives with very specificfears I’ve never experienced, but that doesn’t mean I can’t learn to help her overcome them.
“From now until September, you’ll give me your todays and tomorrows as our nanny while we work out exactly what’s happening between us on a personal level. In September, we’ll decide if we need to adjust your title.”
“That’s not really what I meant.”
“No?” I question, then drop my lips to her cheek, absorbing her tears with my lips. With my mouth next to her ear, I whisper, “Then be very clear about what you did mean, Rowan, because there’s no part of me willing to walk away from anything we’ve already started.”
“September,” she mumbles as I kiss and nip down her neck.
I press my smile into her skin. “I’m glad we’re in agreement then.”
“I feel like you tricked me.” She moans as I trail a finger along the hem of her V-neck T-shirt.
“It’s only a trick if it’s not the truth, and I’ll never tell you a lie, Peach. Never.”
