AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I could not take those words back.
My knees literally began to wobble.
“I need to sit down,” I whispered.
“Okay, honey,” Henry said.
Still so calm and gentle with me.
He touched me, held me and guided me down to the sand.
We sat together, sort of tangled up.
“Say it,” Henry whispered. “Say all of it.”
“I just did, Henry. I asked a question. A terrifying question.”
“How can that be terrifying?” Henry asked. He touched my cheek and wiped away a tear. “You need an answer to that question? What if…” He took a deep breath. “Then I’m there. All the time. How do we make it work? We’d figure it out. But if you think for a second that boy will live without a father figure in his life, no chance. Ever.”
“Henry… you can’t say that. You can’t mean it. We’re just messing around, aren’t we? Look at us. We haven’t talked in all these years and it’s a funeral that brings us together?”
“Maybe in some weird, morbid way, this is your grandfather’s offer to us. Maybe he knew all along we were meant to be and he couldn’t face it.”
“How is that fair to Travis?”
“Tough lessons for the kid, I get it. But if you want to talk about tough lessons as a kid…”
That was true. The way Henry had been forced to live and grow up. The fact that my grandfather was the only person who really cared about him.
“It’s not that simple.”
“How so?” I asked.
“It’s not a definite thing. What we’re thinking.”
“And?”
“Don’t you get it, Henry? Don’t you know what this feels like? I slept with someone else right around the same time as you! And now… I don’t know who…”
I hung my head at the gut-punch feeling.
“Fuck,” Henry whispered. “Sage…”
“Listen to me,” I said. I sucked in a breath. “After that night together. Okay? You remember that night?”
“How could I ever forget that night?”
“I tried to. Okay? That’s the truth. I came back home and felt so empty without you. For the first time in my life I had things going my way, then I bumped into you and… boom. So I did something, Henry. I set out to forget you. I met someone. He seemed like a nice guy at the time.”
I saw the way Henry’s jaw tightened again. He hated the idea of another man touching me…
“We went out a couple times in the same week and then… you know…”
His jaw tightened even more. His chest lifted and lowered with deep breaths.
“After that, he never called me again. He never showed up again. He completely just blew me off. Acted as if I never existed. When I got in touch with him he said there was nothing between us. He just wanted to get into my bed.”
“I’ll kill him,” Henry growled. “How dare anyone take advantage of your heart and body like that…”
