family everything.”
Molly’s sweet, open face shuttered like a prison on lockdown. “No. You do not owe us anything. You’ve repaid us every day you’ve lived in this home with your kindness, you spirit, and your huge heart. We all love you and have our own special relationships with you just like in any family. But Nova, well…” She smiled softly, secretly as she thought of her eldest son. “He always believed he wasn’t good enough for the happiness he was born into. He believed that he hadn’t suffered strife, he wasn’t tested enough, so he threw himself recklessly into every new experience, any bad idea, just to collect scars like most boys collect baseball cards. It was Dane and you that gave him a purpose, that made him feel like a better person just for loving you, for giving you two the opportunity to enjoy the fruits of his life too.”
She stroked my hair again, smiling at me the way one woman smiles at another in a secret, feminine confidence. “If that was the foundation of his love for you, you can imagine how difficult it might have been for him to realize that he was in love with you too. Over the years, I think we all saw it, even sweet, oblivious Hudson, but we left it alone, hoping you two would work it out. It’s taken a little longer than I thought, but I hope now you are.”
“We are, I think,” I murmured, looking at my phone, letting the warmth of those photos overtake me again.
“Since you turned sixteen, you’ve always looked at each other just a little too long to be just friends,” Molly divulged with a low chuckle. “I still remember the first time Diogo noticed. He was not too pleased with his eldest son. But he gets it, we all do. Sometimes two people become so entangled in one another that they have no choice but to fall in love.”
“It’s still a choice, though,” I insisted. “And I choose him.”
There was a knock at the door then, and I shot to my feet, startling Molly and making her laugh again. I straightened my new leather jacket and my purple boho dress then struck a pose for my foster mum.
“Good?”
Her smile was slow and sweet. “Always, but yes, very good.”
I beamed at her then practically floated to the door.
When I opened it, I frowned at Nova mockingly. “Lost your key?”
He grinned as my eyes raked over every inch of him. His tee was a brilliant white, heightening his tan, his ink, the brightness of his teeth and the whites of his eyes, and he wore new jeans, dark with a faint crease still down the middle thigh from being folded at the store.
“No, this is a date. I knocked all proper and shit,” he declared proudly.
“Well, bravo,” I teased then tried to look behind his back. “What do you have back there?”
“Oh,” he frowned then leaned close. “Give me a kiss first. Nothin’s ever free.”
I laughed and darted forward to press a kiss to his cheek.
“Not what I was thinkin’, but I’ll take it,” he said churlishly.
I laughed and absently, I wondered if I’d ever been so giddy, so absolutely filled with positive anticipation and hope.
I gasped when he brought his hands around his front holding two massive fistfuls of sunflowers.
Suntastic Yellow Sunflowers.
I looked at him over the top of the blooms as wet hit the back of my eyes, and my nose started to sting. “You’re going to make me cry, and I have makeup on.”
“Don’t cry, we got shit to do,” he ordered, handing Molly the flowers as she came up behind me. “Hey, Mum. How many vases do you think you have?”
She frowned at him. “Um, a normal amount.”
He nodded, a little grin tucked up on the left side of his mouth. “Huh, well get Milo, Oliver, and Hudson over here, you might need help with the rest of Lila’s flowers.”
We watched as he gestured to the street, and then we both gasped at what we saw there.
My little blue VW bug had all the windows rolled down, flowers exploding out of every opening like an overstuffed doll.
Nova laughed, a fully bodied, rich sound that rang through the air and made me smile even though I wanted to burst into tears. He grabbed my hand and urged me down the stairs toward the car. I bent to the flowers instantly, running my hands over the blooms, shoving my nose in the fragrant collection