Until You (The Redemption, #1)(60)

“To be honest,” I say, “I ended up having to quit because life got in the way. I had to move away from the studio where I taught—”

“Why?” Paige asks.

I hope my stuttered smile doesn’t give my lies away or the utter devastation I felt during that time in my life. From what I saw with Kaleo, to the lies I had to tell to keep myself alive, to how I felt leaving the one thing I’d ever truly loved for me.

“I had to pay bills,” I say and stick out my tongue. “Icky adult stuff that you guys won’t have to worry about for a while.”

“Do you ever dance now?” Addy asks. “Just for fun?”

“I haven’t in a long time. No.”

“You should,” Addy says.

“Dad says everyone has to do something for fun to relieve stress,” Paige says. “Back home, Dad and Uncle Justin used to golf. A lot. After they had a tough day, they’d go and play a round of horrible golf as they called it. But not anymore . . .” She glances at her dad and then grimaces as if she shouldn’t have said something.

That, in and of itself, has my curiosity piqued.

“Golfing is your thing?” I ask Crew, not exactly picturing him as a golfer—a bit too calm for a man who lives in the chaos of other people’s lives—but then again, maybe that’s why he does it.

But the minute the words are out, he stands abruptly from the table and moves toward the sink. “At times,” he says gruffly before turning the water on and effectively ending the conversation.

“Tell me about what you’re working on in dance?” I ask Addy to try and alleviate the sudden awkwardness.

She proceeds to show me a few moves, and while I am paying attention to her, I’m also watching Crew. For a man who’s normally so easygoing, there’s definitely something eating at him.

He opts out of playing a game of Yahtzee with us when he’s usually the one rounding everyone up. He tells us to go ahead when the girls ask if I’ll go upstairs so they can practice hair styles on me.

And when the girls are finally in bed, books in their hands, and the promise of lights out in ten minutes, I head downstairs to find him.

He’s sitting on the couch, a beer in one hand and his head resting against its back. Music is playing softly through the speakers and the lights are dimmed.

I find myself stopping on the last step to take him in.

With as much as I’m worried about him in this moment, the sight of him there staggers me. His broad shoulders. The curl of his hair, a little too long, in need of a trim. The flex of his bicep as it lays across the top of the couch and he lifts his arm to support his head.

My history tells me I should be wary of a man who’s moody and drawn into himself. Isn’t that what Kaleo was like those last few months before my world came crashing down? Using his quiet brooding and harnessing it like a weapon to keep me in line? Isn’t that how I remember my dad acting before he went on a bender?

And yet somehow, I feel the exact opposite with Crew. Sure, he’s been somber all evening, even a little distant, but I have no qualms about walking over to the couch and curling into him. In offering him silent comfort to help combat whatever is going on in his head.

How did this become so easy? Being here with him and the girls? The laughter that rings out more often than not and the level of comfort always present? The cottage down the road that’s soon to be ready for me to move back into but that neither of us have mentioned once?

How was it a few weeks ago I didn’t know Crew, Addy, and Paige existed, and now I simply can’t imagine a world without them in it?

It’s crazy to think of how alone I was but didn’t even realize it myself until I came here. Until him.

What’s even crazier is how little I think about Kaleo. It’s almost as if being with Crew has proven to me that having a normal life is actually attainable. It’s like he’s shone a flashlight in the shadows that once lurked in the darkness to prove they were completely harmless.

“They in bed?” Crew asks, startling me. I didn’t know he knew I was here.

“Yep. I told them they have ten minutes of reading before lights out,” I say as I move across the room and sit down next to him, making sure I’m keeping a safe distance in case the girls decide to head downstairs.

“Wow. They negotiated for more reading time and you caved?” he teases, and for the first time all night, there’s some levity to his tone.

“I’ll never say no to books or to reading.” I shrug. “Occupational hazard . . . or more like occupational appreciation.”

He shakes his head and grants me the smile that’s been lacking all night. “They really do have you wrapped, don’t they?”

“It’s easy when they’re such good kids.”

“Hmpf,” he murmurs before falling quiet again. We sit there for a few minutes, listening to the music and enjoying the simple yet important feeling of putting the kids to bed and knowing it’s our time to be together. A concept I never understood until now.

“Do you ever want kids?” Crew asks out of the blue.

“Yes. At some point. When I meet the right person.” I fumble for an answer in regards to something I thought I knew to be a certainty but has since been turned upside down and rethought. “Sometimes things don’t turn out the way we planned in our mind. Why do you ask?”