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What rocked even more, was Lance walking up to me, grabbing my hip and kissing me full on the mouth. “Have breakfast with me?” he murmured against my lips.
“We already had breakfast,” I reminded him. And we did. He’d gotten donuts while I was showering.
Nathan was happy about that.
I was too.
But it had nothing to do with the donuts.
Lance’s hand clutched my hip. “You need another one, baby,” he said. “It’s on me, fact you’re twenty pounds lighter than what’s healthy for you. Black mark on me. Plannin’ on rectifying that. Starting now. With a second breakfast. Like the hobbits.”
I raised my brow and choked down a giggle. “The hobbits?” I repeated.
He nodded.
Holy shit. I loved this guy.
Needless to say, I had a second breakfast.
“He’s in your life now, for good?” Esther asked me as I settled on the seat beside her.
Lance was going to pick Nathan up from school, do some guy stuff with him. I had no idea what that was, but I was sure Nathan would love it.
Esther hadn’t said much on the Lance subject, but I knew she had something to say, because she was Esther. Hence me coming out the back on my break when I knew she was out smoking.
“I want him to be,” I said without hesitation. “He makes me happy. Makes Nathan happy.” I thought of the change in my son. The change in Lance. Their bond. It was special. Sacred. Natural.
“But?” she probed, sensing the word before I spoke it.
“I’m scared,” I admitted for the first time out loud. “After everything I’ve been through, happiness is scary. Because life has taught me something’s coming after it. Something to take it all away.”
“I’ve learned a lot of things in my life, sweetie,” she said, taking a drag of her smoke, a chesty cough following her exhale. “Almost all the things I’ve learned, I’ve learned the hard way. Despite what Disney tells us, there’s no easy way to learn the things in life worth knowing, to get the things worth having. Money can’t be unspent. Words can’t be unsaid. Wounds can’t be perfectly healed. But money can be saved. Words can be swallowed. Punches can be pulled. It’s a sad thing to realize life isn’t permanent.” She looked outward into the empty parking lot, as if she could see her own end in the haze of her cigarette smoke amidst the sounds of her coughing. The thought chilled me.
Her wrinkled and tanned hand squeezed my own.
“But there’s a silver lining knowing that life is temporary. That means that most of our situations are too. Our hardships. And I know from experience ‘cause I think I’ve been through some of the worst a human has to go through. And we’re not through. Not really. But we’ve realized that happiness, even temporary, is worth holding onto. So, my beautiful girl, just hold on.”
I soon discovered that ‘guy stuff’ was not going to a sports game, shooting wild pigs or learning torture techniques, as I half expected it to be with Lance.
No, it turns out, it was going shopping.
For football gear that Nathan would grow out of in five seconds but he loved and wore to bed.
And also, for the box that Lance had set on the table beside the glass of wine I was finishing.
He didn’t say anything. Didn’t make a big show of the presentation, just placed it silently on the table.
“What is this, Lance?” I whispered, looking at the box with wide eyes. My stomach was twisting with something like excitement and nerves.
It couldn’t be a ring.
It was much too soon. Despite this, I didn’t feel completely sick and panicked at the idea of wearing his ring, bearing his name—I was totally old-fashioned like that—and having a husband who actually loved me, protected me and who didn’t use me as a punching bag.
And more importantly, who treated my son like the little king he was. Who would teach him how to be a man. A good one.
But it was too soon.
Irresponsible.
And the box was far too big for a ring.
Even though I definitely wasn’t a woman accustomed to the finer things in life and had never bought myself any kind of jewelry that didn’t come from Walmart or an outlet store, I knew what a velvet box meant.
That something sparkly and really frickin’ expensive was inside. Because the box was nicer than anything I’d ever owned—well, before Rosie.
I didn’t expect Lance to be the kind of guy that would buy a woman jewelry. Then again, I didn’t expect Lance.I didn’t expect him to come back after he’d left.
But he did.
He did all of that.
I should probably learn not to expect anything from Lance and just welcome everything that he gave me.
Which just happened to include whatever was inside this velvet box.
Lance didn’t answer me, because despite the fact that a lot of things had changed between us, almost everything, his penchant for silence hadn’t. He was a big ‘actions speak louder than words’ kind of guy.
