Page 51 of Tough Love
My arse hits the mattress, and half-heartedly I sift through my bag, looking for a comfy sweater to pair with my favourite jeans. I’m an only child now. How fucking strange does that sound to voice out loud? Do I say that? Or do I still describe my family as having two daughters? Because they do, it’s just one isn’t here anymore.
The cotton of my comfy sweat top runs through my fingers as I fidget with the material, pondering how I’m going to cope with this change.
I’ve put my hand up to be the sole carer of a little boy. A child I didn’t know existed until barely a week ago. Can I do it? Will I be enough for him?
I don’t want to seem selfish, but there are so many things Ihaven’tthought about, like how this will affect my career, my desire to travel? I’m no longer a young independent career woman, I’m a working mother.Mum.Can I even call myself that? It feels wrong, like I’m stealing what isn’t mine.Carer.I guess I go with the truth; I’m caring for my nephew.
I strip out of the damp skirt and blouse, and tug on my go-to comfort clothes: torn jeans and my off-the-shoulder pink sweatshirt. Briar’s door is pulled most of the way shut when I emerge with my wet clothes in hand and head downstairs to the laundry. The distinctive ting of a teaspoon in a cup drifts through from the kitchen, giving away where Evan is.
I set the washing down and step out to find him crossing the entry toward the living room, two mugs in his hands.
“Come have a seat.” He jerks his head toward the living room, and then leads the way.
I sit on the sofa, tucking my legs up beside me, and accept the hot cup he passes over. The blissful aroma of chocolate drifts on the steam, and I duck my head to inhale its sweet goodness.
“I found some hot chocolate sachets in her pantry.” Evan lifts his mug to his lips, testing the temperature before he sets it back in his lap. “Figured it was that kind of day.”
“Perfect.”
Everything about this man fills my senses. His large frame spills over from his side of the sofa, a thick thigh brushing against my knees as he shifts with his drink. I sip my hot chocolate in silence, admiring his sharp jaw and thick neck, leading down to broad shoulders and a deep chest. All features that hadn’t developed yet when I last saw him as a bright-eyed seventeen-year-old. He clearly works out now, and a part of me wonders if it’s more than just physical fitness for the sake of his job. Did something happen that I never knew about, making him want to change the way he looked?
“I feel like we should be reminiscing about when we were younger,” I say with a gentle laugh.
“Why?” He turns to face me, cocking an eyebrow. “Apart from you, they were some of the worst years of my life, and I’m pretty sure they were for you too, so why rehash it?”
Point taken.
I shrug, cradling my mug for lack of anything else to do. “Common ground?”
He nods, setting his mug aside on the coffee table. “Here’s something you might not have known, then.” He twists on the seat, his knee very obviously resting against mine now. “I fell in love with you in your first year at high school. You were so happy and full of life—everything I wasn’t. You’d smile all the time, even at the silliest things.”
“We didn’t start going out until third year.” I try to hide behind my cup, but I’m pretty sure my cheeks are red enough to be used as a warning beacon.
“I know.” He smiles. “I had a crush on you for years before I got the guts to talk to you. Used to be late to English every Thursday, just so I could see you walk to your Biology class.”
Words escape me. He never told me this. I always thought he didn’t take notice of me until that day we crossed paths on the sports field. He’s a year older than me, was the bad boy all the girls talked about and none of the boys wanted to hang around. I didn’t think I was even a blip on his radar until I finally filled out my B-cup.
He grins devilishly at me as I stare at him like a fool, taking in every detail of his matured face. His brow has hardened, his jaw is sharper, and even his cheekbones seem more prominent as his face has filled out. Yet one thing remains the same. His eyes are such a striking mix of blue, but alone they wouldn’t be anything great. What sets them off, makes them pop, is his ridiculously long lashes, that are such a rich black shade it almost looks as though he has mascara on. They say eyes are the windows to a person’s soul, and his have always been my favourite view.
He makes me feel … wanted, understood, and most of all, normal. I don’t feel like that girl who was shamed and shunned, ostracised by people who didn’t know a damn thing about her. I don’t feel like I come with a warning label, or that I have to disclose to him what he’s in for.
Because he knows everything already, and the fact that he doesn’t care lifts a weight off my shoulders.
I’m free to just be me.
“I didn’t think anyone liked me,” I say quietly, admitting one of the things that hurt the most, even before the shit hit the fan. “I never got asked out, never had a guy take a second look at me. Not until you.”
“They were just intimidated,” he says. “You didn’t seem as though you needed to be made to feel pretty, or told you were all that and then some, because you were already so confident in yourself.”
I shake my head, chuckling. “Hell no. I came this close to throwing up half the time before I left for school in the morning.” I hold my thumb and pointer finger a hair’s breadth apart. “I was a ball of nerves.”
“Well,” he says with a shrug, “you never would have guessed it.”
“I’m a good actor.”
“At least until you met me.”
Yeah—that. Only it wasn’t that I stopped hiding the truth when Evan and I started dating, it was that it happened to be the same yearhetook an interest in me. I found the love of my life, right when the person who deserved my time the least finally broke me.