Page 117 of One and Only

“I hope he does.” She made a soft happy sound that had my chest clenching tight. “But he should have a bed for naps too. Or when I’m at school and he wants to feel safe.”

My eyes closed, and I fought the desperate urge to burst into tears.

The energy under my skin had nowhere to go, and during the entire drive back to Salem, I could feel it clawing desperately under the surface.

Somehow, I’d kept my shit together during the remaining time at my parents’. My mom studied me a few different times—that Mom look that had the power to reduce me to a blubbering mess—so I refused to make eye contact.

After pushing Olive on the swings for a while, Tim had fallen asleep on the couch.

Poppy was too distracted by the baby to notice my internal freak-out gauge had reached code red levels, and my brothers were about as observant as a Pop-Tart, so…

Here I sat.

Alone in my feelings, casually waiting for them to burst out of my mere mortal flesh that had never done a very good job at keeping me calm and steady when shit like this happened.

Cameron used to joke that I was like a ticking time bomb when I didn’t have something to do.

And this was the worst possible thing to remember at the given moment.

Stuck in the car with the man I was likely falling in love with, his daughter who I was definitely in love with, knowing that everything he’d sacrificed for Olive was about to explode in his face, and I couldn’t do a fucking thing about it.

My hands trembled in my lap, and I linked my fingers together to keep them steady.

Underneath my ribs, my heart was a knotted mess.

Beckett kept the conversation going with Olive because it was the chattiest I’d ever heard her, and when I managed a sidelong glance, the warmth in his eyes just about undid me, as she talked about the kittens and the swings and the trees and Cameron’s big truck.

“I’m glad you had fun, sweet pea.”

I stared at his hands, the way he held the steering wheel. The veins that crisscrossed under the skin. The spread of his long fingers. The gold ring on his hand.

“It was the best day ever,” she proclaimed.

He glanced in my direction, a sad smile curving the edge of his lips.

A dangerous trembling started down in the base of my belly.

My parents had a big pond on their land, and we used to fish there when we were younger. On the rare occasion I was there alone, I used to love to find the smallest pebble I could find and toss it straight into the middle.

Because without fail, that teeny tiny pebble caused slow, rolling movement in the glassy surface of the water, and I loved waiting to see how long it would take them to reach me where I sat by the edge.

Somehow, I knew this was going to happen.

No matter how much I didn’t want to face it, and no matter how much I lied to myself that we’d escape this inevitable outcome… I knew we’d have a reckoning for this thing we’d done.

The waves, tiny and imperceptible at first, were about to knock on the door.

I exhaled slowly, keeping my gaze trained outside of the window as my mind tripped over racing thoughts.

Josie would be furious.

She’d feel betrayed.

And she’d have every right to.

The house came into sight, and the trembling in my stomach spread. My ribs rattled, something trying to shake loose from where I was keeping it leashed tight.

“Can you bring Olive out into the backyard when Josie gets here?” he asked quietly.

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