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And yeah, maybe opening up will help me find some answers. Or at least feel a little less lost.
“My older brothers had a very different experience with Daddy than I did,” I say. “I was just so much younger, you know? Dad mentored Beau and Samuel in a way he wasn’t able to mentor me. I remember when Beau committed to Clemson. The pride in Daddy’s eyes was unmistakable. And when Beau won a championship there? Good Lord, Daddy smiled for a month straight. That, I used to think. I want to make him smile like that. The CTE had already gotten pretty bad by then, so for him to be so happy . . . it was a miracle. You know how angry and mean he was at the end. I was all of eight, but I promised him I’d win one day too.”
Amelia’s brows curve upward. “I remember.”
“I put all my time and energy into football. I guess”—I swallow, hard—“I just wanted to make him happy. He and Mama. They weren’t, though. I thought, hey, maybe if I just work really hard and win that championship I promised him, I’ll make them happy. I’ll save Daddy, and I’ll give Mama the life she deserves.”
There are tears in Amelia’s eyes, and when I blink again, I realize I have ’em in my eyes too. Happens when I think about my father’s suicide.
“I couldn’t save him, obviously. But I still . . . I think about him, Amelia. All the time. I think about whether or not he’d smile if he saw me now.”
“You think about whether or not he’d love you,” Amelia says softly.
Aw, shit, now I’m really crying. “Damn, you’re good.”
Amelia stands up. Rounds the counter and wraps me into one of her fierce hugs. “Your dad always loved you, even if he wasn’t capable of showing it.”
I sniff. “How do you know?”
“Because I see how you love. Someone taught you how to love by loving you. Junie had a big part in that. But your dad did too. Look at you with Liam.” She leans back a little to look me in the eye. “You’ve been with him less than a week, and you’re already telling me how you’re falling in love with him.”
“Maybe that’s because I’m trying not to be like my dad.”
“Your dad was sick,” Amelia replies softly. “Of course you’re not going to be like him. It wasn’t his fault he was mean, and it wasn’t yours either. It was bad luck. But you have the good luck of knowing better. It’s not your job to save anyone, Rhett.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. Pretty sure your dad would want you to be happy at the end of the day. And if trying to save everyone isn’t making you happy, well . . .”
She reaches up and wipes a tear off my cheek. When she moves to pull away her fingers, I catch her wrist, holding her hand against my face.
I can’t.
I can’t let her go.
The thing is, she doesn’t let me go. She stays like that, holding my face in her hand, eyes steady as they move between mine. Acute desire mingles with hard, throbbing pain inside my body.
“All right, Oprah,” I sniff again. “I wasn’t expecting to have an existential crisis in my kitchen in the middle of the day, but here we are.”
“Here we are,” she replies, voice still soft. “Hashtag parenthood.”
“Hashtag daddy issues.”
“I want to believe you, A,” I say.
Her thumb inches toward my mouth. Or maybe I just want it there. I want her to touch my lips so I know it’s okay to lean in and kiss her.
“I want that too.”
I blink, confused for a beat—is she reading my mind?—but manage to recover, saying, “I’ll work on it.”
One side of her mouth quirks upward. “You take everything so seriously. What if you don’t need to ‘work on it’? What if you just—God forbid—try to enjoy life a little more and go from there?”
“Okay,” I say, even though I wonder what enjoying life would even look like.
And then the answer comes: it’d look like kissing Amelia.
Right here. In the kitchen on a Friday afternoon while my son naps upstairs.
I use my thumb to urge hers closer to my mouth, the edge of her palm scraping against my scruff. “Can I?”
Her gaze lingers on my lips before flicking back up to look me in the eye.
“Yes,” she breathes. “Yes.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Amelia
What are you doing? What the hell are you doing?
Ignoring the chant of my runaway pulse, I let Rhett guide my thumb to his bottom lip. It’s soft, hot to the touch, and because I’m wildly, frustratingly turned on, I tug at that lip, pulling it down. The look in his eyes ignites.
The inside of his lip is slick, a deep, gorgeous pink that, if memory serves, matched the crown of his dick.
