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“I understand. Of course I do.”
“I can’t believe you heard that. I’m so sorry. My God…”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. I shouldn’t have said it. I was just talking. Just getting out my frustrations. I was a twenty-four-year-old kid and I was scared to death. That’s all.”
“I know. I know that, but…I just…”
“I’m not going anywhere, damn it. Not even when you want me to.”
She squeezed his hand.
“No matter how much Jamie pisses me off. No matter how many guys you date…though I still don’t want to know about that.”
She couldn’t believe she managed to laugh, but she did.
“And, Tessa…Mom and Dad didn’t leave, either. They were taken away.”
“I know,” she rasped, and she did. But it felt the same in her heart. That fear that anyone could disappear at any moment.
“I should never have sent you to that therapist at the school. She was a quack.”
Tessa slapped his chest and managed to laugh again. “I’m sane enough. Saner than you.”
“Yeah, I can’t disagree with that.”
She let herself rest against his chest for a moment, just feeling the solid strength that had always been there for her. She suddenly remembered the time he’d taken her to the park when she was five, and she’d fallen off the top of the slide. He’d held her then, too, but his heart had thundered against her ear as if it were trying to escape his chest. He’d been terrified, she realized now, but his voice had been all soothing calm as he’d tried to comfort her.
“Is there anything else I want to know about right now?” Eric asked. “Anything you haven’t told me?”
“Hmm. Well, I didn’t really take a summer art class in eighth grade. Jamie had to retake a semester of math, so I went with him to summer school for two hours every day so you wouldn’t know.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“No. But it all worked out. He graduated and I did really well in trigonometry when I finally took it.”
He huffed and nudged her away. “Good God, don’t tell me anything else. I don’t want to know. But no more lies. No cover-ups.”
“Fine. Jamie’s gotten really difficult about it, anyway.”
Eric rolled his eyes. “Maybe he has grown up.”
Tessa’s smile faded and she held Eric’s gaze. “He has. And if I’m going to stop covering up, you’ve got to start being more open.”
He leaned forward and looked down at his clasped hands. “I’m not really going forward with the Kendall deal.”
“What about expansion?”
“We’ll talk about it. All of us. All right?”
Relief seemed to scramble her insides and turn her muscles to jelly. “Thank you.” She kissed his cheek and gave him one last hug. “I’ll let you get to your run. I need to take a nap before work. But tonight’s a Rockies game. What do you say we have a baseball night at the brewery? We haven’t done that in a while. We could hang out. Watch the game. Play pool.”
“I thought maybe you’d need some time to make up with Luke.”
She forced her face to stay calm and neutral. “Nah. That’s over.”
“Really? Just like that?”
