AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I have something for you.”
“Oh?”
“Do you want to come out from the garden?”
“I don’t know. The fence is designed to keep pests out, Gus, and the jury is out on you.”
“That’s why you have to come out. I can’t come in.”
“Wow. Okay. That was charming. I’m annoyed you can still charm me.”
She wandered out of the gate, around to where he was. She leaned against one of the long wooden poles and stared at him.
“Just a second.”
He reached into the back of his truck and pulled out a heart-shaped box, a small velvet box and a gigantic teddy bear.
“What...the hell is that?”
“Romance.”
And she couldn’t help it, even with her heart in her throat, she laughed. “Is it?”
“Oh. And these.” He reached in and grabbed a bouquet of flowers. Red roses. “Now it’s romance.”
“I see it now,” she said. “Just the chocolates, the bear and the jewelry didn’t say it. But now that you’ve added the roses I understand what’s happening.”
“Okay, I know it’s cheesy. But I wanted to do that. Because we didn’t have it. We didn’t do romance.”
“Gus,” she said, moving closer to him, and taking the bear from his arms. “We have had romance. When we bought our sugar shaker. And my thrift store wedding dress. And the frying pan. When we went and got the nursery stuff for the baby. I’m not looking for you to be something that you’re not.”
“I am. I’m looking to be something that I’m not. Because I’m desperately afraid that what I am...that what I am falls short of what you want to have.”
“Gus...”
And he sank to his knees. Down on the ground like she’d been that night at the bonfire, when she’d thrown up and he’d come to get her. To protect her, because he always did.
On the ground like she’d been in the parking lot of Smokey’s when he’d taken her home, when he’d been just what she needed even when she hadn’t realized what that meant.
He was on his knees now.
And it was her turn.
“I knew she was going to leave,” he said. “They didn’t fight that night. It was weird. I was ready to read to the boys until... That’s why I read to them. We would sit in a tent on the floor in that room, and I would read to them. I would do my damnedest to drown out the sound of their fighting. Of my dad throwing things. And I’m glad that they remember that. As a happy thing. Because it wasn’t for me. It was a challenge to keep talking. To try and drown it all out. Because I had to take care of them. I had to. To protect them.”
“Oh...”
“One night, she packed everything up. It was quiet in the house, and I went downstairs. She handed me this box of army men.”
“Oh,” she said again, this time the sound coming out as one of distress, because she hadn’t realized.
The army men.
“She said she was gonna come back for me. For us. She left those with me. It was a present. I told her I...loved her. She told me to be strong and take care of them until she got back. And I decided to save the army men for that day.”
Her heart squeezed tight. The box wasn’t opened.
All these years he’d never opened that box.
