Page 123 of Wreckage and Rain

"Good." It comes out of me rough and I stand up and put my arms around her. She folds against me, her forehead under my jaw. I put my hand on the back of her head and hold her while she shakes. She stays against my chest until the shaking stops. Then I sit down on the foot of the bed beside her, and she sits back, dries her face with the heel of her hand, and I watch her put herself back together into someone about to say something bigger.

"I don't want to talk about your mother."

"What do you want to talk about."

She takes a breath. Holds it. Lets it out.

"I want to talk about us. You and me. Whether I take your last name back or keep mine or keep both. What the ordinary version of us looks like. Whether we have a kid someday. Everything that doesn't fit on a lease." She holds my eyes. "You and me. Everything after this."

The room goes very still.

"Okay. Let's talk about us, then. Bennet Ventures is mine. There's no Charleston piece left in it. The whole point of separating it from Bennet Holdings was so that when his burns, I'm not in the building."

"Your father."

"I'm not going to see him."

"Your mother."

"I'm not going to see her."

"Greg and Sarah."

"We'll go down as often as we want. Every holiday, every chance we get. I'll sit in the diner and let your mama tell me I'm too thin and let your daddy ask whether I'm taking care of you, and I'll mean it every time. They're my family too, Summer. They have been since I was a kid sliding into that booth and letting Greg decide whether I'd do. If we have a kid, they're the grandparents. Mine are a name on a court document."

She's quiet for a long time. Her hands rest on the pillow, open and still.

"And Sam."

"Sam."

"He's in my life, Colt. I don't just mean back then. I mean now. Going forward. He's family. I'm not going to pretend he isn't."

"I've been waiting for you to make me say this part out loud. I was hoping you would."

"I need to hear you say what that means to you. Not at the bar where he's pouring you bourbon and being gracious. Here. To me."

I reach over and take her hand again, because I want to be touching her when I say this, and I want her watching my face.

"Sam is non-negotiable," I say. "I know that. I knew it the night I saw him in your club. He saved you while I was failing you. I'm going to spend my life understanding that. I'm not going to ask you to put him in a smaller room. I'm not going to ask you to apologize for getting close to him. He's one of the people who kept you alive. I owe him a debt I can't pay. The least I can do isn't be small about it."

"Colt."

"I'm not finished. Sam will be at all of our holidays, birthdays and celebrations. He'll help carve the turkey and decorate for Christmas. He'll be in the hospital room when we have a kid. He'll be the person you call when something is wrong and I'm what's wrong. That's what it means that he's family. I'm going to make my peace with that and I'm going to do it in a way that doesn't require you to manage my feelings about it. I'll manage my feelings about it. That's my job."

She looks at me.

"That's the best sentence you've ever said to me."

"I'm working on a portfolio."

"Keep going."

"There's one more."

"Tell me."

"I just want you to know that the version of me that exists from this point forward, that man, is yours. Not because you've earned him by being patient. He's the man you deserved years ago and got late. I'm sorry it took this much wreckage to grow him. He should have been here all along."