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“And why didn’t you just bring them with you?” I ask.
He rubs the skin on my hand with his thumb and glances away from the road long enough to meet my eyes for just a second before looking back. “Because I thought you might need this time. A little time to adjust. To ask questions.” He pauses and then adds, “To freak out,” with a chuckle.
“I don’t want to be freaking out,” I qualify truthfully.
He nods. “I know. It’s normal. Natural. I realize this is a big deal for everyone involved.”
“Maybe it’s too soon. Maybe—”
“Lauren,” Garrett interrupts imploringly.
I swallow hard before answering. “Yeah?”
“Do you like me?”
I blush at his straightforward question, studying the side of his handsome face while butterflies swirl in my stomach. There’s a small, fragile part of me that wants to lie—that wants to protect myself. But the rest of me knows that this is the time to be bold. To be brave. If I don’t go after what I want, no one else is going to do it for me. And whether it was planned or not, for the time being, I want him. “I do. Quite possibly more than I’ve ever liked anyone before.”
Garrett squeezes my hand so tight it almost hurts. “I don’t know if there’s any question in your mind, Lauren. But just in case…I feel the same. And my kids are the most important people in my life.”
I nod. He’s so right. The only way to know if this is going to work is to try.
“You’re going to like them,” he says affectionately.
I have to laugh. “Yeah, I’m not so worried about liking them, Garrett. I’m worried about them liking me.”
He smiles as we turn into his driveway. He puts the Suburban in park and shuts off the engine, and I take all the air available into my lungs and hold it. The front door bursts open, and a flash of long-limbed boy comes whirling out the door, straight for the car. He’s smiling so big the dimples in his cheeks look like craters, but for as much as I’d like to focus on him, I’m drawn to the girl back at the door, leaning casually into the jamb with her arms crossed over her chest.
She’s so pretty, I swear I almost tear up.
Sweet Jesus, of course he spawned perfect humans. I can only imagine what his ex-wife looks like. At that thought, my lungs seize, picturing the day I actually have to meet her face-to-face and hope she doesn’t claw my eyes out or something.
“Ready or not,” Garrett teases as Hayden nears his door, knocking me back into reality. One major milestone at a time, Lauren. “Here we go.”
I nod. I’m ready. I think.
As ready as I’ll ever be anyway.
Hayden rips open Garrett’s door, and several peals of his laughter come pouring in. The sound is like a balm to my fried nerves.
Garrett’s smile is big and authentic as he climbs from the cab down to the pavement of the driveway and runs a loving hand over Hayden’s head. “What’s up, bud? Are you that excited for the zoo?”
Hayden waggles his eyebrows dramatically. “Something like that.”
I open my door and climb down, and then I round the hood and hold out my hand for Hayden to take. He looks at it with big, wide, excited eyes.
I’m not sure if people don’t normally introduce themselves like adults or what, but his excitement at shaking my hand makes me smile so big my cheeks hurt.
“Hi, Hayden. I’m Lauren. It’s really nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too,” he returns.
Having seen pictures of them inside the house, I was well aware of the resemblance between father and son. But in person, I have to say the pictures didn’t do the likeness justice.
He looks so much like his father, it feels like I’m looking back in time at Garrett himself.
“Sarah,” Garrett calls, making my head swing up to look at the doorway where she’s still standing. He wasn’t wrong about her. She’s one cool customer. “Come over here, please.”
She rolls her eyes but shoves away from the doorjamb and strolls in our direction. She’s wearing a long black floral maxi dress with a sophisticated moto-leather jacket over top and a pair of Doc Martens-style boots.
Her dark brown hair is down in rolling waves around her face, and I’m one-hundred percent positive her makeup is better than my own.
She has a look in her eye I can’t quite read as she approaches, and for a split second, I have to remind myself not to be afraid of a twelve-year-old. I wasn’t quite as confident as she seems to be as a young girl, but I’m pretty sure nerves are the kind of thing girls her age eat for breakfast.
The best thing I can do for all of our sakes is be myself, without conjecture about who she wants me to be or anxiety.
