Rosie
The glass plunked in front of me less than a second before the beer disappeared.
I blinked at the goblet.
Then up at the man who was chugging that beer.
As he slid in next to me, pinning me between his big body and the wall.
Preventing my escape.
I knew this was coming.
Knew he’d find me eventually.
Or part of me wished he would, anyway.
Because…we needed to talk.
I inhaled, holding it for long enough that my lungs began to protest.
Then I released that breath, allowed it to escape, and reached for that glass, knowing what was inside before I even brought it up to my nose, before I even took a sip.
My favorite variety of Napa Valley.
It was tart and fruity on my tongue, making my taste buds happy, erasing the nasty aftertaste of the beer I’d been choking down.
“God,” Joel said with a shudder, setting the empty glass down. “That’s vile.” A beat. “And warm.”
It was vile.
And warm.
Because I’d been sitting here, barely able to get it down.
Of course, that was probably because I was bleeding out—or had been until Dessie wrapped me up in her arms, hugged me tight, and we talked shit out.
Until she’d confided in me why she’d come back to River’s Bend.
And that shit had cured me of my notion of things being hard and complicated and painful with Joel in about two-point-five seconds.
Because what Dessie had been through…
Shit.
It was…
Well, it was way fucking worse than a conversation gone bad and a fight in the parking lot and my man kind of sort of calling me an old nickname that was painful.
One he hadn’t used in months.
Not since he knew me and loved me and—
Yeah, that shit stung.
But it wasn’t—
Fingers on my jaw, tilting my head up, making me realize that I’d been rolling the stem of the glass between thumb and forefinger, lost in thought, lost in worry about my friend. “I’m sorry, Rosie baby,” he murmured, leaning in so that my vision was reduced to Joel, to his deep green eyes, the stark lines having deepened at the corners, across his forehead. Worry and pain and hurt. It had aged the both of us in the last twenty-four hours.
And, all at once, I was tired of this shit.
So damned tired of the stress and the angst and the drama.
I just wanted this man and our happily ever after.
“I’m so fucking sorry,” he said. “I want you to know that I didn’t mean it. I wasn’t thinking straight and I didn’t sleep and I was so fucking messed up after our fight that—” His fingers flexed on my jaw and he dropped it from my face, clenched it into a fist that he banged on one strong thigh. “Shit, baby. I’m sorry. That all sounds like a fucking excuse and I don’t mean it to be. I spent all night thinking about it, about kids, and I should have been with you.” He raked that hand through his hair, mussing the locks. “I’m so fucking tired of shit taking me away from you, of hockey keeping me from you, but I’m just as bad. I walked out and ran away, and I made a big deal about you doing the same not that long ago. But I did it. And, fuck, baby. I’m worse. Because I’m always leaving. Because hockey’s always taking me away. And—”
“Honey,” I began.
“And none of this has anything to do with what I said at the rink, baby. I cannot believe that I said that to you. I promised myself I would never hurt you like that again a-and—”
His voice broke.
Those beautiful emerald irises glistened behind tears.
“I promised myself I would never hurt you again,” he rasped. “And I did it last night. And I did it this morning. And I’m so fucking sorry.” He leaned, cupped my cheeks in those big, warm, slightly rough palms. “I can promise you that I know how shitty it was for me to go there this morning, and I can promise that I won’t say it again—”
“Honey—”
“Not ever again,” he vowed. And it was a vow, one I felt deeply in my heart.
One I saw written into his expression, in those glittering emeralds, in the tear sliding down his cheek.
“Okay, honey,” I whispered, reached up, capturing that tiny drop of emotion on my thumb, watching it glisten on the tip, understanding how much he was feeling this. My eyes burned, and I blinked rapidly. I’d cried plenty in Dessie’s arms.
But I had the feeling that if I let go here, allowed myself to collapse into Joel’s hold, if I gave him the tumult of emotions in my heart and soul that the last day had wrought, we wouldn’t get to talk about all the other things we needed to straighten out, and I wouldn’t have the emotional energy to address the tangle of words he’d just thrown at me.
What he was expressing about hockey…
That had been very much like the emotions in my heart regarding the mayoral job.
The weight of which I was slowly finding my way out beneath from.
Because this man had helped me get there.
“Thank you for apologizing,” I told him softly. “It hurt me a lot.” His eyes slid closed, another tear sliding down his cheek. I captured that one too, rubbed it between my fingers until the moisture dried. “But I’m okay, and I know both of our emotions were running high. I know we can both do better, and that—as usual—my father picked the most fucked-up moment to reenter my life.”
His lids slid open, some of the pain fading into the background of his eyes.
“And I need to apologize about last night.”
“Rosie baby—”
“No,” I told him. “Let me say this, okay?”
A long pause.
Then he nodded.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured.
He opened his mouth.
I lifted my brows.
A sigh, but he pressed his lips together, let me continue.
“You were right,” I said. “I was scared. Fucking terrified of the thought of being responsible for another human. I don’t know if you know,” I added lightly. “But they don’t come with an instruction manual, and I can’t run a workshop on the best way to raise them.”
Finally, he seemed to relax, the edges of his mouth turning up.
“It will be down to us to make sure they’re safe and protected and raised right, and I honestly didn’t think I could be that kind of person.”
“Rosie—”
“Because my parents are my parents,” I hurried on, pushing through, needing to get this out. “Because I was never with a person who I took seriously enough to want kids with.” I held his eyes, cupped his jaw. “Until you.”
He sucked in a breath.
“I always wanted kids.”
That breath hissed out.
“Until you.”
A whisper of pain across his face.
“Because I knew that we had a future, knew we could have everything, and so I shoved wanting them down. I pretended I didn’t want kids, didn’t want the snot and drama and sleepless nights and the stress and never thinking that you’re doing a good enough job and all the other things that come along with parenthood.” I blew out a breath. “Because the stakes were too high and if I had kids and I was like my parents, if I hurt my babies like they hurt me…” I felt a tear slide down my cheek. “I don’t think I could live with myself. And I know I wouldn’t be able to live with how you would view me when I messed up, when I wasn’t perfect—”
His hands covered mine, peeled them from his face, and held them gently. “Rosie baby.”
“—when I turned into them.”