Page 71 of The Guardian

As I round the corner and start down my street, I see a familiar black sports car parked on the side of the road. As I approach, the driver’s side door swings open and Alex’s long, black-jean-clad legs swing out. He stands up, walking around to the sidewalk I’m on to lean against the passenger side of his car.

The butterflies I normally get when I see him feel like a lead weight in the bottom of my stomach. I’m guessing he’s here to get his things, and I can’t bear the thought of this being the end. The closer I get, the heavier the feeling becomes. I open my mouth to apologize when I’m within a foot of him, but he reaches his arm out to grab my wrist and pulls me right into his arms.

“I lied,” he says as he kisses me, “I can’t walk away.”

Suddenly, the heavy weight in my stomach bursts into a million butterflies, dancing through me as I smile against his lips.

“I don’t want you to walk away,” I say between kisses, his tongue sweeping into my mouth as he pulls me closer, pressing his body against mine. “I’m so sorry. I love you. I do. I love you.” I repeat the words as he kisses me, both of us completely lost in each other on the sidewalk.

22

ALEX

“Alex, you’re home!” Chloe barrels down the stairs, throwing her arms around me. “Did Mom apologize to you?”

“Apologize to me?” I ask, looking over at Juliette. “For what?”

“Chloe heard us arguing last night and asked me if I was being mean to you and if that’s why you left.”

“She said she was mean to you,” Chloe says in complete seriousness, making me laugh.

“Your mom wasn’t mean to me. I was the one being mean, and she had every right to be upset with me. But we both apologized to each other.”

“So you’re staying here forever then?”

I glance up at Juliette. “I think that’s something your mom and I will need to talk about first.”

“But you’re staying tonight?”

“I’m staying tonight,” I reassure her.

“Woo-hoo!” Chloe punches the air then turns to her mom. “Can Zara stay and can we have a pizza party? She wants to see theHe-Mancartoons I was telling her about.”

“You sure about that, Zara?” Juliette smiles at her.

“Yeah, for sure. I’ve missed hanging out with Chloe.”

“Okay, well, you girls decide what you want on your pizzas and I’ll order it in a little bit.”

Juliette orders the pizzas and grabs herself a glass of wine and me a sparkling water as we head out on the back porch to talk.

“I talked to Caleb today. That’s where I was coming back from when you saw me earlier.”

“Oh yeah? How’d that go?” I ask nervously.

“Good. I talked to his sponsor beforehand, which made me feel better, and I talked to Chloe about it this morning.”

Juliette’s bare feet rest on my lap. I run my thumb leisurely over her instep. “How does she feel about all of it?”

“I think she’s overwhelmed by it but plays it off. Either that or she really doesn’t fully understand it all yet.” She sips her wine, looking up at the sky, which is full of pink and orange streaks—like someone took a paintbrush to it. “She said she’s open to having her dad in her life. I told her it would be very limited. I don’t want to just throw her into it. I’m thinking supervised interactions, maybe a coffee date or dinner first.”

“About that . . . my behavior last night was out of line. Well, no, it was more than that: It was wrong. Chloe should have her dad in her life, and I was coming from a place of jealousy and feeling insecure and threatened.”

“May I ask why?”

I stare down at where my fingers massage her feet. “Yes. I don’t talk about it, but you deserve to know my past and why I’ve chosen not to settle down. When I was in high school, I fell head over heels for this girl, Sierra West. She and I seemed like soulmates, which I know sounds crazy for a couple of kids, but we just meshed. We wanted to get married and have it all, so I proposed. She fully supported my military career, and when I was 24, she told me she was pregnant. I was ecstatic—over the moon—and couldn’t wait to be a dad. I started noticing, though, that the people I thought would be happy for us didn’t seem too happy; they seemed weird. My best friend, Nick, even started avoiding me. One night, I ran into him and he’d been drinking. He confided in me that he and Sierra had been hooking up behind my back for over a year. It started when I was away at training. He thought the baby was his, and that turned out to be true. Seven months into the pregnancy, she confirmed it with a paternity test and my entire world shattered.”

“Oh my God.” She reaches her hand out to rest on my arm.

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