“He did.” I nod. “I’m so fucking glad he’s gone.”
When his visit to Aspen’s came to light, he was let go immediately and no one’s seen or heard from him since he hightailed it out of town.
“I heard back from Vail.” Her grip on my shoulders tighten. “The land is ours to keep.”
“Ours,” she repeats.
“That’s where you showed me what having a future could look like, and there’s no one else I want to be there with. It can be our home away from home.”
She presses up on her toes, brushing a kiss across my lips. “Good. Because when I fell in love with you, I fell in love withallof you. And that place is a part of you.”
She pauses then asks, “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“When did you decide you don’t want kids?”
My whole body goes still.
Not because I regret it.
But because some small part of my brain was waiting for the part where I wasn’t enough. It takes a second to push that away and just hear Aspen.
“I can see your wheels spinning,” she says like she’s got a window directly into my brain. “I know what I want, Emmett, and I’ve known for a long time. But I want to know when you knew kids weren’t part of your future.”
“I’ve made a lot of decisions because I was scared. If I didn’t have anything, I couldn’t lose anything.”
I brush my thumb over her hand, bringing it to my mouth.
“That wasn’t one of them?”
“I never pictured myself as a dad.”
“Not because you thought you’d be bad at it?”
And damn if she doesn’t know exactly where to look for the wound.
“No.” For once, the answer is easy. “Not because of that.”
“Good.”
I lift an eyebrow. “Good?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Most people don’t respond to that withgood.”
“I’m not most people.” She smiles then adds,“I want a life with you, Emmett. I never said anything about needing it to look like everyone else’s. Tell me this, did you think through this decision or did you make it out of fear?”
He shakes his head. “Not fear. I’ve never seen myself as a parent. It’s not something I think you should do unless you’re sure and yeah, maybe my circumstances influenced that but only to an extent. I know better than most what can happen when you leave these things to chance.”
“I couldn’t agree more. And I love kids but I’ve never really needed them to be mine to love them, you know?”
I press a kiss to her forehead because I can see that so clearly. A life where Aspen gets to be surrounded by family and friends without feeling like she's missing out on anything. A life full of noisy holidays, birthday parties, and little voices she gets to spoil before sending them home. And one that I get to be a part of.
Two hours later, my hand rests on the small of Aspen’s back as we walk through the doors of Coyote Creek Memory Care.
I’ve walked through these doors hundreds of times, but this time feels different.
