Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 143382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 717(@200wpm)___ 574(@250wpm)___ 478(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 143382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 717(@200wpm)___ 574(@250wpm)___ 478(@300wpm)
“You think maybe we should ask your dad to Phoenix for Christmas?” I blurted.
Now that things had settled down with all Jeff’s and my shenanigans, my mind had turned to my man, the upcoming holiday, and the fact that I had Jeff and a lifetime in Phoenix that gave me an abundance of found family, and Eric had none of that.
Eric had done his FBI thing, then spent time in Denver and lived in LA, but he was originally from Michigan, and both his dad and brother still lived there.
His brother…I wasn’t going to go there. He sounded like a dick.
His dad, though…
I mean, Christmas was coming, I had Jeff, and all my girls.
He had no one.
Except me.
“Honey,” he murmured.
“Okay, hear me out,” I began.
He took his hand from my nightie to cup the side of my face, then he bent and got close to said face.
“I know you want good things for me,” he said quietly.
“I do,” I replied.
“And I love that,” he stated. “But we’re looking at a thirty-year commitment to his illness. I’m not without empathy. He lost his wife and the mother of his children, and he carries some earned guilt around that, because he deemed his work more important than sharing the responsibilities of being a parent. I know addiction is a chronic illness. But with any kind of illness, you have to commit to treatment. If you don’t, there comes a time for the people in your life to be forced to make a decision, because your illness, and the decisions you make around it, affect the people who love you.” He stroked my cheek with his thumb. “I made that decision a long time ago, Jess.”
“Okay,” I whispered.
He sighed, and it was such a big one, I wished I hadn’t ruined our moment by mentioning it.
“I haven’t cut him out of my life,” he said. “I don’t talk to my brother, but I do talk to Dad. What I also do is keep firm to my boundaries.”
Smart. Healthy.
And I was such an idiot for bringing it up.
“I shouldn’t have mentioned it,” I replied.
His face got hard. “Don’t ever, babe, not ever think that.”
“We were having a moment,” I pointed out.
“I’m still having that moment, being with my woman and our cat—” Tremendous, he thought of Henny as ours too—“and she gives a shit enough about me to want me to have my family close during a holiday.”
“I’m glad you look at it that way,” I mumbled. “Instead of me fucking up by bringing it up.”
“With the holidays coming, we were bound to have this conversation, and there would never be a good time,” he noted. “I can’t say it doesn’t fuck with me that at one point in my life I had a family. And then one night, I didn’t. But I can say I’ve learned to live with it.”
I rubbed my lips together to stop myself from replying.
He watched me do it, and when his eyes came back to mine, he whispered, “Fuck. It messes you up too.”
The lip rubbing failed when I went back to blurting, “She died on Christmas Eve, Eric. And I haven’t even mastered frying a hamburger. I don’t know how to—”
I stopped talking when the pads of his fingers dug in, and he dropped his forehead to mine, his nose resting atop mine, and I felt like a total bitch, mentioning it and making him feel what I felt coming from him, blasting into me.
He slid his nose down the side of mine, lifted away, and said softly, “You learned I lost her last week. I’ve been living with it for decades. Do you honestly think I’m not looking forward to whatever dress you’re gonna wear to that holiday party at the Oasis and sitting around for five hours on Christmas morning while you unwrap all the presents you bought Henny?”
Awesome!
We were having Christmas together!
“My tree is white with black and silver baubles,” I warned him. “And we’re putting it up tomorrow night after I get home from work. Which is no biggie, since it’s super narrow, though it’s tall.”
His lips tipped up. “Copy that, Wylde. My Christmas tree is massive and we’re decorating it this weekend with Luke and Ava and the girls.”
Oh yeah.
Right.
He’d told me about this. Luke was first up to fill in at NI&S due to their short staff situation here in Phoenix. He was arriving the next day, staying with Eric while it was his turn in the rotation, but his wife and kids were coming to spend the weekend with them.
I grinned. “We have a plan. Now, I have to create a menu. Tree-trimming finger foods. Shrimp cocktail. Chicken satay. Meatballs. And some kind of Christmasy dessert that has ginger in it. And with the girls there, we’ll have to have an after-trimming activity. I’m going to have to think about that, but a Battle of the Best Christmas Song might be in order. I just have to figure out how that’s gonna go. And find time to buy some posterboard to create brackets.”