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Soon, contractors will be here to redo our porch. By spring, it’ll be like new and much more inviting. I can’t wait to spend many days just like this one eating pie on the porch with Tate.
“Look, Jude!”
I peer past him to look at where he’s pointing. When I see a blue-and-green hummingbird hovering near the feeder, I blink several times to make sure I’m not imagining it.
“It’s…a hummingbird.”
“I’ve never seen one this close,” Tate says, voice breathy and filled with awe. “How beautiful.”
A ball of emotion clogs my throat and my eyes prickle. I’m learning not to bottle up my feelings or direct the bad ones toward myself, but instead talk it out. Tate is a great listener.
“Jude?” He sits the plate down on his legs and nuzzles his head against mine. “Oh, honey. What’s wrong?”
I sniffle, embarrassed that I’m getting upset over a damn bird. “I bought that feeder for my mom. The birds loved it. It was one of the very few things that survived the fire.”
He uses his thumb to swipe away a rogue tear on my cheek, his own bottom lip trembling.
“This is the first time I’ve seen any birds since Mom died,” I choke out, sounding much like a sad little boy and not the grown-ass man I am. “I thought maybe they hated me.”
His lips curl into a sweet smile and he kisses my lips. “Birds can’t hate, silly man.”
I guess it is kind of silly to think the birds were holding some sort of grudge against me.
“Maybe they’ve been here all along, but you’re just now seeing them.” He rests his forehead on mine. “You’re finally seeing past that cloying cloud of smoke your heart was suffocating in. There’s love and beauty all around you.”
He’s got that right.
Tate is both of those things.
We return to lazily eating pie and watching the hummingbird. I feel like I’ve missed so much of my life for nearly twenty years. I’m finally awake and experiencing the world for the first time in forever.
It’s nice.
It’s really fucking nice.
Dad’s house is the usual chaos, except I have a squirming baby in my arms. I stare at Rex and he stares right back at me. Whose harebrained idea was it to hand me the baby?
“Don’t look so freaked out,” Tate says from beside me. “He doesn’t bite.”
“Yet,” Spencer chimes in from my other side. “Only because he doesn’t have teeth yet.”
My nephew makes a playful chomping sound with his teeth that makes me shudder. His baby continues to stare at me, drooling a little while kicking his little legs.
I’m hit with a sudden longing deep inside my chest. I felt like after Mom died, my life was gone. I never allowed myself to dream of things like a family or children one day. But now I wonder. Is that possible for me?
Visions of Tate cuddling a little one while he reads him a bedtime story floods my mind. Then I see small children helping me knead dough in the kitchen, making one hell of a mess. Fuck, why does that make my chest want to explode?
“You’re smiling,” Tate teases, nudging my knee with his under the table. “What are you thinking about?”
You. Us. A future together. A family.
“Stuff,” I say with a smirk. “I’ll tell you another day. Maybe in a year from now.”
Tate narrows his eyes at me. “Tell me now.”
“Nah. I like watching you get all flustered.”
“That’s just mean.”
