Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 80620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
I stand to lose Gracen as well, and that scares the shit out of me as much as losing Lilly does. My head drops and I stare down at my unlaced skates.
“Do you love her?” Reed asks, and that question makes me jerk. My head snaps to the right to look at him.
He repeats. “Do you love Gracen? The way you used to?”
I think I love her more. The knowledge slams into me like a wrecking ball punching through concrete.
This isn’t the same young woman that I loved all those years ago. This is a woman who almost died to have my child. Who was an amazing mom to my child when I wasn’t there. She suffered so much all on her own to give Lilly life and security.
Yeah…I love her differently.
More.
Infinitely more.
Reed watches me as I work this out in my head, and while I don’t admit any of this to him, he can see on my face that I’ve reached a conclusion about my feelings. He slaps me on the back and grins. “I’m confident you’ll figure this out.”
Maybe. I need to figure out how to make this right. How do I ensure this doesn’t happen again?
And I know where I need to go to get my answer.
* * *
—
I knock on my parents’ front door, and within moments, my dad opens up. He doesn’t seem surprised to find me here. He was at the game and saw how horribly I played. He was at the hospital and saw my worry over Lilly. He felt the terrible tension between Gracen and me, and he also knew we had a serious talk at the house.
“Rough game,” he says as I step over the threshold.
“Yeah,” I admit as I shut the door behind me.
“Want a beer?”
“Yeah.”
I head into the living room while my dad goes into the kitchen. My mom is reading a book on the couch and she looks at me with sympathy as I cross over to her.
Bending over, I give her a kiss on the cheek. She pats the side of my face softly and doesn’t need to say a thing in return. She knows I’m here to talk to my dad, because he’s always been my sounding board for advice.
She stands from the couch, turns, and points to it for me to sit. “I’m going to head to bed now.”
I nod and flop down. Dad returns holding two opened bottles of Molson. My mom pats him on the stomach as she brushes past him and then she disappears.
Dad hands me a bottle and then sinks back into his recliner. He doesn’t cock it back but sits on the edge, leaning toward me attentively. He waits patiently for me to talk.
I take a sip of the beer, and when I lower my bottle, I lock my eyes with my dad’s. I’ve never held back from him. While my mom loves me as unconditionally as my dad, he’s always been the one I’ve sought when I’ve needed to bare my soul.
“Gracen wants to go back to New York,” I say, deciding to jump right to the issue.
“Why?” he asks simply before taking a sip of his beer.
“We got into a fight before I left for the game.” My dad nods in understanding. I’m sure he knew the conversation wasn’t going to be pleasant when we all got home from the hospital and Gracen asked to talk to me privately. “She blamed me for Lilly’s injury. We then dredged up all the old shit between us.”
My dad chooses his words carefully, knowing that this is difficult for me. “That seems awfully drastic for Gracen to decide to return to New York. I thought things were going great between you two.”
“I thought so too,” I tell him glumly. “I mean…we were getting closer. It felt good being together again.”
She told you she loved you, Marek, and you never bothered to tell her back.
“Gotta solve the problem, buddy.” My dad looks at me expectantly. For me to figure this shit out on my own.
I blow out a breath and sit up straighter on the couch. It’s time to talk frankly.
“When Gracen first came to North Carolina, I wasn’t nice to her. I really had a hard time getting past the fact she’d kept Lilly secret.”
“Understandable.”
“And I kept throwing it in her face. I’d get pissed and just beat her up with it. She took it for a while because she felt guilty as hell. But then one day, she was just done with it. Said that she was done apologizing for it and for me to get over it.”
“She was right,” my dad murmurs.
“I know,” I say with a nod. “So I decided to let it go. I decided to focus on Lilly, and well…I focused on Gracen too. She was the one, Dad, that I should never have let get away.”