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Kelly laughed and nodded.
“All right. I can do that,” she said.
“You can do what?” I asked.
Kelly looked up and grinned at me.
“There you are,” she said. “Your father here is putting in an order for the pictures he wants.”
“What pictures?” I asked.
“Of my granddaughter, of course,” Dad told me, looking up at me only briefly, then going back to her phone and reaching over to swipe. “And that one.”
“We’ve been going through my gallery of all the pictures I have of her from when she was born. It might take a while. We’re only on month three,” she said.
“Well, put in a couple extra orders for me, too. I have a wallet that is in need of a bunch of pictures to show off to people,” I told her.
Kelly laughed, and I leaned in to kiss her cheek. I went to the other side of the garage and started going through the stack of orders sitting on the table. Now that my personal bike was fixed and ready for the upcoming race, I planned on getting some work done on some of the commissioned projects before getting a few rounds out on the practice track.
Opening the tall metal locker against the wall, I took out a folded pair of coveralls and stepped into them, zipping them up the front. I was already borrowing Quentin’s clothes for the day. I didn’t need to bring them back to him splattered in chemicals and paint. As I took out the specs for the first project and started gathering the materials I was going to need to get started, I looked back across the garage at Dad and Kelly. They were still chatting away about the pictures, with Kelly now pointing out specific ones and telling Dad stories about them and what was going on in each one. They both smiled widely and occasionally looked at each other and laughed. I felt my heart warm. I could definitely get used to this.
36
Kelly
If I had ever allowed myself to think far enough ahead to imagine what it would be like after telling Darren about Willa, I wouldn’t have been able to imagine it being as happy and comfortable as it was, much less that it would have been as easy as it was to settle into a new routine. It was a completely different life, a new existence for both of us, yet it happened easily and naturally. Our new relationship and how we existed in it unfolded each day without any effort or stress. We were just happy, and that was something I hadn’t let myself think I could be. I’d wanted it, of course. Like anybody else, I wanted to imagine one day I would have a happy life, a family I could enjoy. But I told myself that was something I had to wait for, that would come a long time in the future.
Yet, here it was. It was just handed over to me, and I couldn’t have felt better about it. Well, maybe I could have. Darren and I got through that first week in our new routine without any conflict or awkwardness. But that included not having the talk we needed to. Both of us had acknowledged that conversation was crucial and inevitable. We couldn’t just keep going and pretending things were normal and like we could figure out our future without ever acknowledging the past. There was no way we would actually be able to build our lives together if we didn’t eventually hash out everything that had happened.
I felt that conversation hovering over us. It had to happen at some point, but there was never a moment during the week when either of us brought it up. Not that there wasn’t the opportunity. That was both the best and the worst part about it. Darren and I saw each other all day in the garage, occasionally stealing kisses and spending the lunch hour together. Then after work every night he went home, changed clothes, and came to my apartment. He spent a couple of hours there really getting acquainted with Willa, helping me give her a bath and put her to bed. By the third night, Willa handed him her favorite bedtime story rather than me. His eyes glowed with joy as he took his place on the edge of her bed and started reading to her.
I loved watching the two of them interact with each other. He was completely natural with her. Even though he said he didn’t have any experience with small children, his instincts kicked in instantly, and their bond got stronger with every day. And every day I became more smitten with him. I thought of him first every morning and fell asleep with him on my mind at night. Some of those nights, I was wrapped in his arms, and some of those mornings we learned to start our days together. It was taking time to get used to each other and the process of living the basic, monotonous moments of life together, but I was loving the process. I just wished it didn’t feel like we were getting further and further from the time when we’d be able to have this important conversation with clear minds.
