AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Rhys grinned. “Gotta get in there before the buzz wears off.”
Zale and Barrett looked to where Mara was negotiating three more songs with Olivia before sending her back upstairs while Bex refilled their glasses. They toasted themselves and the opening notes of Kelly Clarkson’s ‘Miss Independent’.
“I don’t think there’s any fear of that,” Zale laughed.
Shortly after the third song, even Olivia was ready to leave without complaint.
Willa hummed away in the seat beside me, still more than a little buzzed.
“I think you’re more in love with my dad than you are with me, should I warn my mother?”
She laughed. “It’s your father you should warn. If I were to run off with either of them, it would be your mom!”
He smiled. “You like my mom?”
She sighed. “Yeah. She loves you guys. Even when she’s reprimanding Rhys and worrying over you, the love and pride she feels is all over her face.”
He nodded. “She does love us. She’ll love you, too, just like that, just like she loves Bex.”
She didn’t acknowledge that possibility, instead she mused, “I want to be a mother like that one day.”
It was the first time Willa had ever spoken of wanting a child. He honestly thought it was off the table for them. He couldn’t help but hope.
“You’d like to have a child?”
She whipped her head around to face him, trepidation clear on hers, “In a perfect world, yes. In this world, I don’t know.”
“Why?”
“Do you want children, Barrett?”
He glanced away from the road to meet her eyes for a moment. “I want you, Willa.”
She was quiet.
“Are you going to answer?” he interrupted her thoughts.
“Um, I don’t know if I have it in me to meet a child's needs.”
They retreated into their comfortable silence for a few minutes. He pulled into the parking lot of Willa’s building.
“For what it’s worth, I think you’d be a wonderful mother.”
She looked down into her lap and he continued.
“Not a perfect mother,” her worried eyes darted to his and he reached for one of her curls, “but perfect enough, like my mom and every other mom who’s afraid to make mistakes but continues to love imperfectly anyway.”
Chapter 32
Interrupted.
Willa
The sun was high in the sky striving to melt everything it touched. Barrett and I sat up high in his truck, the a/c cranked, and headed to the beach for the day with towels, flip-flops, hats, sunscreen, and cameras in tow.
I kept the music low, my head still a bit fuzzy from the night before.
“You’re quiet today,” he teased.
