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“Thank you,” is all I can push over my lips.
Redix loves my parents. You can’t rip away a part of your heart and survive. He grew up with me. He’s fused into every part I am, making my parents his, too.
Nina squirms in his arms and reaches for me. When Redix passes her back, his hands brush mine, and warmth cascades over my soul.
Is this us now? Just old friends?
His eyes lock on mine while a baby passes between us and, no. We’re both in that moment, our last one together, when we made love and wanted to make our baby. Why does that feel like forever ago? And why does the wish in his eyes still call to me?
“I like him, Cade. A lot.” He shocks me, not holding back his words like he used to. “Silas is a good man; he takes care of you, and I’m happy for you both.”
It’s sincere. I know him too well, and every crease on his beautiful face tells the truth.
He used to get so jealous at even the thought of another man. Like the Marines I liked to pick up for one-night stands. Redix would fuck me like he wanted to erase them from my body.
But he’s not acting like that about Silas. Why not?
There’s no tension in his muscles. No narrowing of his eyes. They’re wide and open, and has he let me go forever?
“Your girlfriend seems nice.” I’m lying. That hurt to say, but I do it for him. “I want you to be happy too.”
“We do AA together,” he shares without a smile. “I guess we’re dating, but it’s not serious. We’re not—”
“You don’t owe me details.”
I can’t bear to hear it. I’m a hypocrite from hell, but I don’t want to imagine Redix with that woman. It feels wrong.
“Then why do I feel like I do?” he asks, searching my eyes and closing the distance.
Only a baby resting on my shoulder is between us, and his heat wraps around me like a velvet blanket.
“Why do I feel wrong with her but right about you and Silas? Why don’t I want to punch him, and why do I have to make myself hold her hand, and why do I always hurt without you?”
It’s raw. It’s real. It’s Redix like I’ve never known him. His emotions used to overwhelm him. They tortured his big heart while he held his face in smiles or sexy smolders for everyone, acting like he was perfect. On the outside, he was. On the inside, only I could see his pain.
Now, he sees it too. He’s sober, healthy, and mature enough to say it with no shame.
“I don’t know.”
And it’s a me I don’t recognize either. I don’t have the answers anymore. All the smart-ass comments that usually fly from my mouth are gone.
We’re just sitting together in a pile of questions and a love that time can’t erase with a baby in my arms, and this feels right beside him.
And it bites at my eyes. All the dreams we had. All the plans we made. Every tear we’ve shed together and every laugh with his arms around me. I see it in his eyes, too, and what has to happen to bring us back together?
Nicolas’s laughter from the fountains fills the air. The ocean in the distance roars deep. My heart thunders in my chest, my eyes staring up at Redix as his phone buzzes like a swarm of hornets in his back pocket.
He ignores it.
“Cade, I know.” His gaze pierces my soul as only he can. “Mama G told me.” God, his lips. I miss them and want to kiss them… what did he just say?
“What?”
“Mama G told me about TJ.”
The buzzing. It’s in my brain. It’s in his back pocket. It’s blowing up my world with what-the-hell-is-going-on?
“Dammit,” Redix mutters, reaching for his phone. “Sorry.”
