Page 14 of Independence Bae

“I think that whatever you and Raven decide I’m a hundred percent okay with.”

I followed him to a booth in the back corner overlooking the lake. I couldn’t get over the views. While New Castle would always be home, and nothing could be more beautiful to me than Pea Patch Island—I definitely could get used to Chicago.

“What if it means moving?”

“As long as it means Raven and I are together in the same place, everything else can be worked out.”

I’m not bullshitting either.

“I truly believe that if opportunities are placed in front of you, the universe intends for you to jump. And in taking that leap it will align your world to accommodate.”

“What about your job?” His brow furrowed, and even in the midst of taking a sip from his beer, I could see there was a frown hidden behind that glass.

“Before I went to Virginville, I was managing hotel properties from Manhattan. I still manage a great deal of them from Virginville. I think de’Fluer is ready to have the reins loosened. I have a great team there, and I’m always just a flight away if anything heads south.”

He shifted his beer between his hands, deep in thought.

“I know it’s not my place to ask, but what about kids? Like if the two of you have them—don’t you want to be like in Delaware near your families?”

I couldn’t help the violent almost cackle that erupted. “Honestly, I think it’s better to be further away. We’ve never really discussed it though.”

“You know about Marley, I’m assuming.”

I nod and open my menu. “Yes. Thin walls. Congratulations, by the way. I know it’s a surprise, but again the universe aligns in crazy ways sometimes. It looks like its handed you everything you could ever possibly dream of. Career, amazing woman, and kids, wrapped in a pretty bow.”

“I’m freaking out.”

Ted and I had been decent friends over the course of the last few months. I guess given he’d seen me with my dick out, and me writhing in pain at the piercing shop, sharing such intimacies as life fears really shouldn’t throw me. However, I’d never taken him for the talk about feelings type.

“Well, it’s a huge change you hadn’t expected. If it had come after you were married and there had been a conversation about dropping the goalie, to use a hockey metaphor, then there’s a kind of psychological preparation for it happening. This was a total curve ball.”

“I’m assuming Raven has told you about my less than stellar home life growing up.”

“If people were judged based on their home lives, then I shouldn’t marry Raven because her mom is a frigid, heartless, bitch. And I know I shouldn’t say that about my soon-to-be mother-in-law, but Raven had a terrible time growing up in that house. Especially after her father got sick. She is exactly the opposite of that though. Sure—she’s a bit of a porcupine but underneath that exterior she’s a damn marshmallow. And you’re the same.”

“A marshmallow?” He quirked his eyebrow at me, clearly annoyed by that statement.

“No—totally different from how you grew up. Everyone you love you shield from any hurt or disappointment you see coming. As if the very thought of someone you care about suffering is something you have personally tasked yourself with preventing. Don’t you think that would transfer into fatherhood? That kid is going to be the luckiest baby alive. Between you and Marley they won’t ever want for anything and will be bubble wrapped from the world’s ills.”

We sat in contemplative silence, just the sound of the Grateful Dead on the jukebox. Raven and I hadn’t discussed kids. I turned forty in a month, and she followed close behind me. Then again, Ted was the oldest of us at forty-three, and he was about to be a Dad, so there was still hope of course. The more I thought about it, the more a little vine of hope cracked open my heart and started to grow.

“What did you tell Marley when she told you?”

“How excited I was, how much I looked forward to our lives together.”

“But nothing about your fears?”

He shook his head, grabbing the check and pulling a few twenties out of his wallet.

“You need to be able to lean on her as much as she leans on you, Ted. And you need to trust her enough to be vulnerable in front of her.”

The plan was to each take our respective women out for dinner. I hoped Ted would use the evening to exorcise some of those fears. Raven and I on the other hand, would be heading to the Signature Room on top of the Hancock. Maybe it was cliché to propose on the top of the world—but I felt like with the recent contract development and finding Raven again after so many years, it was time. I’d waited twenty years for her, surely a few more hours wouldn’t kill me.

Chapter Eleven

“You just walked out?”

“Well, I mean I had to change back into my clothes first.”

---