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Then it’s just me and Colton, facing this moment together.
“No matter what, I’m here for you,” I tell him, gripping his hand and squeezing it, wanting to reiterate the same thing I told him last weekend as we sat on his front porch. “And no matter what, Teddy will always be your son.”
He swallows uncomfortably as he stares at the envelope, then he moves quickly, ripping it open and tugging out the light blue sheet of paper with the official test results.
I watch Colton’s face as he scans the paperwork, his eyes blinking multiple times, almost like he’s confused.
He looks at me.
“99.99% certainty,” he says, a smile stretching across his face, “that I’m the father.”
I let out a primal scream of joy, flinging my arms around Colton and bringing him in for a tight hug. He wraps his arms around me just as tight and spins me in a circle, our heads tilted back as both of us scream and laugh.
When he finally comes to a stop, he presses a deep kiss against my lips, one that tastes like happiness and joy and the deepest, purest kind of contentment. And I let him, because it feels good and wonderful and right.
Our tongues tangle together, and god, I love the way he tastes. But then he pulls back and looks at me in a way I’ve only seen one other time—that night we had sex on his bedroom floor and it felt too big, too much like love.
But in this moment, it doesn’t feel too big or too much. It feels like everything I’ve ever wanted.
“I’m in love with you,” he tells me, pulling his head back and looking me in the eye. “I’m crazy in love with you, and I have no idea when it started or why it grew so fast. But this situation with Teddy just proves to me that I have to do what’s right, not just what feels easy, and it feels right to tell you I love you.”
He shakes his head and sets my feet back on the ground but takes my face in his hands.
“It would be all too easy to let you hide from me. It would be far too easy for you to say this is something we can’t figure out. It would be so goddamn easy for us to climb back into our holes and live our lives on our own. But I don’t want to do that anymore. I don’t want to push away from you when everything is screaming at me to hold you close.”
I don’t know what to say back to him, my own words feeling too small and silly to compare to the grandeur of what he has just said to me.
So I don’t say anything.
Instead, I kiss him back. I press my lips to his and try to communicate how I feel with the way I take his face in my hands, with the way I bring my body against his, the way I stroke at his hair and breathe in his breath.
Because the things he said are true. They’re so true, and while I might be scared of giving my heart to someone, of flinging myself into his arms and forcing myself to trust him to catch me, isn’t that what love is supposed to be?
Isn’t it supposed to be big and scary and powerful? With so much feeling and trust that you’re willing to take that big leap, together?
Being scared and doing it anyway?
And that’s when I find it—the words.
“I love you too,” I tell him, pulling back and reveling in the joy and surprise on his face at hearing those words repeated. “You’re right, it was easy to run and hide from how big and crazy this feels, but I don’t want that—not with you. I want the big and crazy love, the deep love, the kind of love that’s…”
I pause and look up at the big, beautiful magnolia reaching into the sky above us.
“I want love that’s like this magnolia tree,” I tell him. “It smells like love and it looks like love, but it has roots that dig so deep it can withstand a hurricane. Because that’s what love is about, right? Facing it together? The good times and…everything else?”
He shakes his head for a moment, his eyes closing then opening again, his head tilting back to look up at the magnolia tree. A single tear breaks free from his eye, and I reach up to wipe it away.
“What’s that about?” I ask.
“It’s just amazing how quickly something can change, how long I’ve looked at this tree and only ever seen a hulking goliath that represents all my failures. For months, it’s been this beast I’ve wanted to chop down and burn to bits. And now, with you, I see the thing that represents how grand and beautiful love can be.”
My lips tilt up, knowing there’s more to what he’s saying that I’m sure he’ll explain to me later. In this moment, those words are enough.
Something small catches my attention out of the corner of my eye, and I turn, spotting Teddy running toward us with a huge smile on his face.
He leaps into his father’s arms and Colton clings to him tightly, the high emotion of the morning making us both cry again. But then the three of us are laughing and spinning in a circle together before collapsing to the ground in a fit of giggles.
I stare up into the magnolia tree for a long moment before I feel Colton’s hand grip mine.
