“Are you serious? We really get to go to California?” Zander even sounds like a little boy now. I try to savor this moment, knowing there’s few of them in his future. His voice will keep dropping until it’s as deep as his dad’s, and he’s going to grow hair all over his body, and he’s going to muscle up. And every bit of the little boy I fell in love with will be gone.
“Yeah, baby. I can’t promise he’s going to be what you want him to be. I have it on good authority that your dad’s become a really good man, but he’s got his issues. I just don’t want your heart broken if he isn’t the dad you want and need.”
Zander gives a firm head nod and shrugs his shoulders as he mumbles, “It’s cool.”
It’s anything but, but he won’t admit that.
“She’s doing the right thing,” Diesel says quietly.
“Yeah,” I agree. “It’s time she comes home.”
“She’s not the only one who needs to come home,” he says with a squeeze of my hand. I turn to face him and get nice and close.
“I’ll start looking for an apartment,” I say with a smile. He shakes his head.
“No, I’ll find us a place. I don’t trust your judgment. I’ve seen where you live now.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my—wait. You’re going to find us a place?”
“You’re my woman?”
“Yeah.”
“Then yeah,” he says. “You think now that I’ve seen you walking around with a kid on your hip and a smile on your face after you’ve spent all this time acting like you don’t want or need nothing or nobody that I’m just gonna let you get away? Fuck that. You let me in, and I’m staying in now. I’m going to be up your ass so often that when I got business to take care of, you’re going to fucking celebrate just to get a moment alone.”
“Don’t suffocate me.” I eye his mouth.
“You’re gonna love it,” he says. It sounds more like a warning, but there’s a smile in his voice and on the curve of his lips, so I don’t care.
“I already love it,” I say and take his mouth, knowing that whatever comes our way, we’ll work it out. Once the cleanup guy arrives, we’ll leave and I’ll help Amber make arrangements to make her move to California. Life will settle back in to the new normal, whatever that may be, and we’ll only get stronger as a couple. Because I love him, and I’m tired of running from anybody who could possibly hurt me. If reliving the situation between Amber and Wyatt has taught me anything, it’s that I need love in my life just as much as the next person does. I’d rather get hurt than live in a bubble.
Diesel cradles my head in his heads, takes his mouth from me, and presses our foreheads against one another. He breathes in deep and sighs heavily.
“I’ve wanted you for years. Waited for you. Now that I got you, you gotta know, babe, I’m not letting go and I’m not taking you for granted.”
“I’ve been waiting for you, too,” I say on a shaky breath. “I just didn’t know it.”
The End