With All My Heart - Emilia Finn Page 0,23
she hit me. “Scary?” I never gave her reason to fear me.
She nods. “So scary. You were all about cracking skulls, racing cars, taking what’s not yours.”
“And now?”
“Now, I realize you’re just a big wuss who likes hugs.”
I grin. “Well, you’re not wrong. I do like hugs, but only from you and B.”
She smiles beautifully. “You don’t even crack skulls anymore. Life is so dull.”
I lean in and press my lips to hers. “That’s because Shane Turdsky isn’t here. No skulls need cracking.”
Her beautiful eyes narrow. “His last name was Tosky.”
“I don’t give a damn what his last name is, because yours is Kincaid.” I slowly lick from one corner of her bottom lip to the other. “Chantelle Kincaid.”
Her eyes twinkle with fun. “Coolest name change ever, by the way.”
“Right?” I stroke the bridge of her nose with mine. “You made my name worth something again, Bert. You made it worth a hell of a lot.”
Taking a deep breath, I stare into her eyes with indecision. I came home to talk to her about something. Something kind of big. Something she might not be thrilled about. “Give me a kiss, then sit down and eat.”
“Did you have a good day at work?” She’s not in any hurry to leave my lap. And for as long as I don’t scold my son for scratching designs into my table, he’s happy, too.
“I did. Same as usual. But listen, I wanted to talk to y–”
“Uh oh.” She shoots up in my lap. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to talk–”
“You said ‘but listen’. That’s a big deal. And you want to talk. That means bad shit’s going down. Tell me quick.”
Taking a deep breath, I look to the popcorn ceiling and hold her tight. “Do you wanna sit and serve dinner, first? We can eat and relax.”
“I can’t relax till I know, Bryan! Come on, you know I can’t take the suspense.”
No. She can’t. Not since her daddy turned up here with a .22 and a bottle of bourbon. Not since she had to wait for me at the hospital while they patched up my broken hand – a hospital visit we couldn’t afford.
Not since we got the call that her daddy had drank himself to death and she’d inherited a shitty, dilapidated house that she insisted would be bulldozed before her daddy was buried.
It’s what she wanted.
So I made it happen.
Now we have empty land with a ‘For Sale’ sign on it seven hundred miles from where we live, but an economy that means no one’s buying shit. Especially not empty blocks of land.
“Bryan! Tell me.”
“Are you happy here, Bert?” I look around the small apartment. “Here. In this place. In this city.”
She looks up and follows my gaze, but inevitably, her eyes come back to mine. “Of course. I’m happy wherever you are.”
I pull her in tight and press a kiss to her brow. “I love you. But now answer that question and only consider this apartment, this city. Take me out of the equation.”
Her face drains white. “I will not take you out of the equation! You are the equation, asshole. You’re not leaving me, Bryan Kincaid. I’ll lace your dinner and chain you to our bed before you leave.”
My eyes go to the ceiling. How is it I made her fall in love with me? How did I get her to fall this in love with me?
Whatever it was, I’d do it again and again and again.
Bringing my eyes back down and my hand to her beautiful face, I stroke my thumb beneath her eye – just because she doesn’t work outside the home doesn’t mean she’s not tired. We’re both exhausted at the end of every day. And when I crawl into bed in the middle of the night, exhausted but craving her body more than I’d crave my next breath, she always obliges, because we need each other like we need air.
She’s tired. She hardly wants to be touched anymore, because she always has a stinky toddler climbing on her. She’s as exhausted as I am, but she never says no.
She never denies us the chance to be joined.
“I love you, Bert. I’ll never be out of your equation. When I’m fifty, sixty, a hundred and three, I’ll still be in your equation.”
“Please get to the point.” Taking my hand and pressing it to her chest, her eyes hold mine. “Can you feel that? You’re making me nervous. I can’t handle it right now.”
“I got a call