Don't Let Go (24 page)

The memory of Noah replacing the string with his little ring he’d worked so hard for sent a pang of regret through my core. We could have been a family.
You had a family, Jules.
Now I’d pushed him away again so he could have one.

“For a little while,” I said, forcing the words out. “He was going to marry me.”

“God, it’s like watching a movie, Mom,” she said. “Like I’ve been in this family all along, the stupid one that didn’t know anything. Do you know how crappy that feels?”

“I’m sorry,” I said, inhaling deep and letting it go. I reached for her hand, and she inched it away. “Becca, I’m sorry. That’s another choice I made, and maybe not the smartest. But it’s not like knowing would have helped you.”

“Who was the guy?” she asked, making my head spin with the direction change. “Wait.” She turned to face me. “Linny’s brother just came back from somewhere. Mr. Ryan was making all that noise over—”

I nodded before she finished. “Yes.”

Her wheels were turning again, and all I could do was hang on.

“That’s him?” she asked. “And that lady at the library—you said it was his fiancée—oh, holy crap.”

“Fun, isn’t it?” I said, rubbing my eyes.

Becca’s gaze landed on the photos again, and she leaned over me to pick one up. One of Seth around thirteen years old, braces on his teeth. “So Nonnie had all this and didn’t tell you?” she asked. “Why?”

A laugh that wasn’t really a laugh but really just exhaustion making noise came out. “That’s the question of the day.”

I looked down at the photo in her hand, and then at her profile. At the crazy hair framing her face, the eyes that had evidently cried the eyeliner off before she’d ever gotten home. Still so innocent and young, no matter how many ways she tried not to be. I took a chance and swung an arm around her, pulling her head over to me.

“Things happen as they’re supposed to, baby girl,” I said, kissing her hair. “I thank God for giving me you.” I heard a sniffle. “And I’m so sorry about earlier.”

I knew that slap would haunt me forever.

“Me too,” came a squeaky response.

I didn’t hold any naïve opinions that all would be rosy, but just for one tiny moment, curled up on the couch with my girl in the middle of the night, I took a deeper breath than I had in a week.

Chapter 15

Hayden looked as if he’d aged ten years in a day, sitting in my kitchen, staring into his coffee like a whipped puppy.

“I’m giving it up, Jules,” he said. “I mean it this time.”

I sat on a stool across the island from him, nursing a third cup of coffee, still in the black leggings and tank top from the previous day. I’d added an old hole-ridden sweatshirt I’d inherited from him when I was pregnant with Becca. It had seen better days, but it was a comfort thing, and if I was pathetic enough to keep on the clothes I’d nearly made love to Noah in, then my ratty sweatshirt was right there in the running.

My head pounded from the crying marathon, my eyes were gritty and my throat was raw. Hayden’s face had lit up with concern when I’d opened the door, thinking I’d fallen on my face when he’d pushed me down at the bar. It’s always encouraging to know just how bad you really look.

I knew what he was there for, it wasn’t the first time. Hayden was a binge drinker, not a constant one, but when he’d decide to tie one on—well, there wasn’t an off switch. There’d been many mornings such as this, full of apologies and promises and good intentions. And I’d learned long before that time faded them. His good intentions would fall in a hole somewhere, and four or five months later we’d be right back here. Sitting in a kitchen, drinking coffee, talking about how things would change.

It didn’t matter that much anymore, since he always stayed on the straight path around Becca, but old habits die hard.

“I know, Hayden,” I said. “It’s okay.” My whole face itched with salt overload. “Want a Pop-Tart or something?” I slid off my stool and opened the fridge. “I think I have a can of biscuits in here somewhere.”

Harley jumped up from her full-body sprawl at my feet, her ears perking at the mention of Pop-Tarts.

“I’m fine, Jules,” he said, running a hand over his face and up through his hair. “I’m not here for you to feed me.”

“Well, that’s about all the brain power I have right now, so I’d grab it if I were you,” I said, opening the freezer to look for bacon. Found it. Closed the door. Not energetic enough to deal with oil.

“I know you don’t believe me,” Hayden said, his words bouncing off my headache like they were playing Ping-Pong.

“I always believe you,” I said, finally finding the biscuits and deciding I wanted them. To hell with anyone else. I’d eat all five. Maybe share one with Harley. Thank God it wasn’t an eight-count can.

“And I always let you down.”

On that one, I turned. “Hayden, let it go. Please.”

He met my eyes. “I can’t.”

“Yes, you can,” I said, holding the cold biscuit can against my right temple. “It’s not about me anymore. You want to quit? Quit. But it’s for you, not for me.”

“And if I’d actually got it together years ago?” he said, sitting back in his chair. “We wouldn’t be sitting in your mother’s kitchen talking about how it’s not about you.”

I closed the fridge and walked-slash-shuffled over to him and leaned against the granite feeling really damn tired of hearing how many things my mother still owned. My kitchen, my house, my son.

“It’s my kitchen now,” I said. “And stop it. We are where we are because—we just couldn’t make it work.” I pushed off and walked to the end table, scooping up a handful of pictures in one hand and coming back to spread them out in front of him.

Hayden’s eyebrows came together as he leaned forward again, moving his coffee cup out of the way as he picked up and set down a photo or two.

“What’s this?”

“My what-ifs,” I said, bringing his gaze to mine. My breath caught in my chest as I said the words. “My son.”

His expression sharpened as he focused on me harder, looking at the photos more closely and then back at me in question.

“Holy shit, Jules. You have pictures now?”

I shook my head. “My mom did.”

His wide-eyed expression slowly moved back into a knowing frown borne of experience. He’d known my mother well. “What did she do?”

I gazed upon my little boy at various stages of his life. Stages it would have meant the world to me to be a witness to. “Arranged a trust for him—not a bad thing—but in exchange she got regular pictures and updates.” I smiled, and my face felt as if it might crack. “Which she shared with Johnny Mack under another arrangement—that I never be told.”

Hayden closed his eyes and rubbed them.

“His name is S—Seth,” I said, still having trouble with knowing that. Feeling like somehow I should have just magically sensed it, and known he was a Seth, instead of being told my own son’s identity.

“Shit,” he whispered, squeezing my hand.

“I could play that damn what-if game for the rest of my life,” I said. “With him, with you, with Becca.”

“With Noah Ryan,” he added.

I faltered in my spiel, the sound of Noah’s name putting his face right in front of me. The last expression I’d seen on his face before I’d told him good-bye yesterday.
God, that was only yesterday.

“I can’t live like that anymore, Hayden,” I said, recovering. “Obsessing over how I’d do things differently—especially with Becca. All I can do is try to do it right, now.” I touched his arm. “You, too.”

He looked down at my hand and back at me.

“What’s going on with Noah?” he asked, his voice low.

God, if I could just cut that name out of everyone’s vocabulary, my insides would have it so much easier. As it was, the quiver that started at my center and worked outward at every mention of his name, every memory of his face, every relived second of being wrapped up in him yesterday just mere feet from where I currently stood had me a jittery mess.

I let go of him and walked back around to my coffee, deciding I’d had enough caffeine. “Noah and Shayna are getting married, Hayden,” I said, trying to pour the words down the drain with the cold coffee from my cup. “They have a baby on the way.”

“I didn’t ask what’s going on with them,” he said. “I’m asking about Noah and you.”

“There is no
Noah and me
,” I said, point-blank, turning back to him. “Never can be.”

“Your eyes say different,” Hayden said, his voice soft, and maybe a little sad.

I widened them as much as I could. “Bullshit. My eyes aren’t open enough to say anything,” I said with a smirk, tossing a dishrag at his head.

He gestured toward the pictures spread in front of him. “Becca know?”

I nodded, sighing heavily. “She does now.”

“How did that go?”

The memory of me slapping her face as she called me a liar and a hypocrite seared through me. “We’ve had better moments,” I said. “But I think it’s kind of okay now.”

There was a pause as Hayden stared at the pictures, though I had the impression that wasn’t where he was at all.

“Jules, I remember the things I said—about her, about you. I—”

“Stop,” I said, laying my hands flat on the granite. “Seriously, stop.”

His eyes flashed. “I threw you on the floor.”

“And you’re lucky I don’t kick your ass for that,” I said, trying desperately to lighten the tone. “Now quit with the pity party and either pretend it never happened or make a change.”

“What never happened?” Becca said on a yawn, shuffling into the kitchen in Mickey Mouse sleep pants and a Snoopy T-shirt, hair sticking up everywhere, looking like a ten-year-old with boobs.

“Nothing, monkey,” he said, pulling the worry inside. He poked her in the side, making her flinch and grumble something incoherent.

She blinked sleepily at him, as if it just dawned on her that his being there drinking coffee in our kitchen was out of place.

“What’s up?” she asked.

Hayden shrugged. “Just came to talk over some things with your mom.”

She looked wary, cutting a look my way. “Like?”

“Like not your business,” he said with a wink.

I knew what she was thinking—that I’d told him about the whole birth control conversation. Truth be known, he probably
was
heading to that topic next if he could manage to get the hell off of Noah, but I would deflect that. Becca didn’t need to know that I’d told him. Nothing would have ever been the same between them.

I did a miniscule head shake to let her know that wasn’t on the table, and her face relaxed. She picked up my forgotten biscuit can and her gaze fell on Seth’s photos.

“You making biscuits?”

“Sure,” I said, turning on the oven.

Becca picked up a picture of Seth holding a puppy. “Hey, Dad, while you’re here, can you help me make a giant snowflake?” she asked.

Hayden blinked. “As in—”

“As in there’s a big piece of plywood in the garage I can use, and your jigsaw is here, and—”

“Boy, do you have good timing,” I said, smirking at him.

“Why do you need a snowflake?” he asked, his eyes going back and forth between us. “Oh, don’t tell me.”

“I’m helping with a float for the parade,” she said.

“Oh, thank God,” he said, giving me a look. “I thought for a second there your mom had crossed over to the dark side.”

“Ha.”

Becca grinned and grabbed a mug from the cabinet. It was kind of normal again. Or at least a new version of it.

• • •

It did my heart good to see Hayden and Becca work on something together and bicker over the details like they used to. Who would do the cutting and what exactly the design would be, and whether one side matched the other. I really didn’t think anyone would be measuring as it rolled down the street, but they didn’t want my input.

Two hours later Hayden emerged, dusted with sawdust. “Well, I wasn’t planning on staying this long so I have to go,” Hayden said, fishing keys from his pocket. “But I’ll be back later to help her finish.”

“Thank you,” I said. I knew, even with his complaining and groaning, that he secretly loved doing all of that with Becca. Kept him in the family, made him feel needed, and I didn’t have to do it. Double score.

“You’re welcome.” He turned to go and then turned back. “Later, Bec!”

“Bye!”

She’d already flopped on the couch with a book.

“You do have some white paint and some glitter or something, right?” he asked.

I bit my lip. “Umm, doubtful.”

“Never mind,” he said under his breath, taking the steps two at a time. He paused at the bottom and turned back around again. “Be careful, Jules,” he said. “Whatever happens with Ryan—just, don’t get hurt, okay?”

Probably too late for that.

I lowered to sit on the steps after he left. It was nice out—cold, but nice. Sunny, blue sky and rare, non-muggy air. Nice enough to leave the door open for a bit, and Harley took the bait. I heard her toenails on the wood as she slid into a prone position next to me.

“Hey, Harley-bear,” I whispered, sliding my fingers into the soft fur at her neck. She instantly rolled to one side, probably figuring I was a sure thing for a belly rub.

I was pretty much a sure thing for anything not requiring thought. My brain, heart, and everything in between was fried. I would be strong and resilient and firm of resolve tomorrow. And every other day after that, as I watched Noah and Shayna embark on a life together with their new family, all up in my carefully crafted and protected world. I would be okay. I now had pictures of my son to help—and hurt—me. And a new reason to despise Noah’s dad. I couldn’t even think about my mother. My mind wouldn’t let me go there yet, and that was okay, too. I probably didn’t need to hate her, and right at that moment I couldn’t make that promise.

Tomorrow. I’d put my walls back up tomorrow. They’d been with me for two decades, so one day of Noah yanking them down didn’t scatter them too badly. I’d rebuild. Be a hard-ass again and never let anyone close enough to threaten that. Ever again.

Tomorrow.

“Can we go get some paint?” Becca said, padding outside in socks, still in her sleep clothes. She crossed her feet and landed Indian style next to me, leaning over to bury her face in Harley’s neck.