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Maybe subconsciously in love with you wasn’t the right way to phrase it. That made it sound like I’d been unaware of my feelings for her.
I hadn’t been unaware of my feelings. Just aggressively suppressing them.
“When I thought I was dying, the first thing I thought of was you.” I paused, thinking about how that sounded when I said it out loud. Not bad. “My one regret was not telling you how I really feel.”
Somebody laid into their horn and I whipped my head around, looking for what was going on.
Oh, shit. I’d just run a stop sign. They were honking at me.
Oops.
I probably needed to pay better attention to the road, not my make-Marigold-fall-for-me speech.
But the only regret thing was good. That had to work on her.
Best of all, it wasn’t a cheap line. It was true.
I kept going, still pondering how to open the conversation—but with a bit more focus on the here and now—until I turned up my parents’ long gravel driveway. With no more stop signs to worry about, I tilted my rearview again and spoke into it.
“Marigold, I’ve been a total jerk to you for a long time, so I know I don’t deserve anything from you. But when electricity was coursing through me and I thought I might be about to die, the one regret I had was not telling you how I really feel.”
I nodded. That was a pretty good start.
Speaking of people I’d been a jerk to for a long time, Levi’s SUV was parked outside my parents’ house. When my sister had married him—a freaking Bailey—it had felt like whiplash. One minute we were happily hating on and pranking each other, the next we were supposed to be family. How was a guy supposed to deal with that?
Looking back, I felt kind of stupid for holding onto my grudge for as long as I had. Levi was actually a great guy. He’d stepped up as a dad to my nephew Thomas, and treated Annika like gold. What more could a brother ask for?
When that realization had hit me, I’d decided to stop being an actual asshole and just pitch him shit like a normal brother-in-law. We’d gotten along fine ever since.
I parked next to him and got out. The squeal of tiny human laughter came from the side of the house. I grinned. I’d always had a soft spot for kids, and having nieces and nephews was the best. Levi and Annika had four—Thomas, who was nine, five-year-old twins Juliet and Emma, and the tiny terror himself, two-year-old Will.
Every family has a kid who’s largely responsible for their parents’ gray hair. I was probably that kid in my family. Will was definitely that kid in his. Kinda made me feel like we had a special bond.
Levi stood near the playhouse and swing set he and my dad had built for the grandkids. It was a pretty cool setup. I’d spent countless hours pushing the girls on the swings. And the playhouse was a favorite with all of the kids. It was on a platform high enough for the kids to go under. A ladder led up to the second level on one side and a homemade rock-climbing wall was on the other. A green slide was the favorite way down.
Thomas was at the top of the playhouse with Emma, while Will was perched halfway up the rock wall. He looked too small to be able to climb it, but he didn’t seem to let the fact that he was only two stop him from doing anything.
Juliet was happily swinging until her eyes landed on me. “Uncle Z!” she shouted and dragged her feet in the wood chips to slow down.
I crouched and held my arms out while she jumped off the swing. She ran to me while the others scrambled off the play structure. Juliet jumped into my arms, followed closely by Emma.
“There’s my princesses.”
“Hey, Uncle Z,” Thomas said. He was a little more subdued than his sisters.
I grinned at him. “Hey, chief.”
“Daddy, Will down,” Will said from the bottom of the rock wall with a proud smile. For some reason, he’d recently started referring to himself in the third person. “Will get down.”
“You sure did, buddy,” Levi said. “Good job.”
I let go of the girls as Will dashed over to me. He collided with my chest and I pretended he almost knocked me over. “Oof. Will, you’re too strong.”
“Will big boy.”
“You are a big boy.” I scooped him up and stood. “You know how to climb that rock wall like a champ.”
The girls started giggling and a second later, they each latched onto one of my legs.
