Page 141 of Tempt Her

“So you’re not pissed?” I ask her.

“Fuck yes, I’m pissed,” she answers. “I’m pissed you didn’t tell me.” She steps past me and aims Luke’s way. Grabbing a seat on the edge of the coffee table, she confronts him, “I was never going to force you to come out to me. It just broke my heart when you didn’t. When you didn’t trust in my love for you to tell me.”

“I thought you’d be too mad.” Luke lets go of Stacey’s hand to reach for his mom’s. “I knew you’d be okay that I was bi, but with Ford? I didn’t want to disappoint you.”

“If you love someone,” she answers him, “like the man I raised you to be. To love someone—and I don’t care who—with respect, integrity, and some compassion, too, just like your dad loved me. If you love someone that way, Son, I will never be disappointed in you.”

“He does love that way.” Mateo tells her, “We all love each other that way.”

“It was Luke who was the first to help me,” Stacey chimes in. “I was in an abusive marriage, and your son took the first chance on me and promised he’d help me get out.”

I wince, wishing I could go back in time and erase how I was a dick, how I fought Stacey for so long.

All I can do now is try to make up for it.

Laura nods. “I know who your ex-husband is. I’m glad he finally got caught. And I’m proud of my son if he helped you do it.”

“He did.” Stacey smiles and looks my way. “They all did.”

Fuck, every time Stacey smiles at me, she’s breathtaking, and I swear, she can have my last one. I look at all three of them and have no fear. They’re the life I want, no matter how short.

Laura asks us, “So, how do y’all work?”

“We miss him a fuckton,” I answer first. “So we keep building a family and a life for him to fight to come home to.”

Stacey adds, “And they keep asking me to marry one of them. To make it official, but we already feel married to each other. We’re committed. No one else is in our lives.”

It makes my chest fall, relieved. How I’ve started the divorce proceedings with Amber, Hannah’s mom. Hannah’s old enough now to inherit everything I own, and Amber wants to be free to finally marry Mike, the man who stuck around.

And me?

Yeah, I’d be honored to marry one of them one day. If I can live that long.

“What about kids?” Luke’s mom asks, and we’re not pissed about it. We raise lots of questions for people.

“In a few years, maybe,” Stacey chirps. “And we won’t try to control it. We’ll let nature decide.”

Mateo pulls her closer. “It’ll be mine.”

Luke chuckles. “I go next.”

The fuck they do. I order, “I always go first.”

Laura jumps up; her hands fly up too. “Okay.” She’s half amused, half shocked. “I don’t need details. I got an eye-full already, and I need fucking sandpaper to scratch the image from my mind.”

“Mom,” Luke starts laughing, “why’d you come back anyway?”

“Because I forgot to give you the special bags to protect your cast in the shower.”

Luke shakes his head. “I could’ve used a damn garbage bag and duct tape.”

“Yeah.” She shoves his head with a grin. “Well, at least now you finally know you can’t fool a mother.”

She stays for dinner, and we can all sense the relief. Our families know. They accept us, not as if anyone could ever stop the four of us from loving each other, but I won’t take it for granted.

Wedon’t take any day for granted.

CHAPTERTHIRTY-SIX

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