Until You (The Redemption, #1)(78)

I mean, I don’t know how anyone can say single dads aren’t sexy. Because this one? He is over-the-top incredible in every sense of the word.

And I’m the lucky one he’s chosen to be with.

The girls begin to cue everyone back up to their places, and while he waits, Crew meets my eyes.

Every woman should have a man who looks at her like he looks at me. Like even when he’s in the midst of being in the moment with his own daughters, I feel like I’m the only one in the world he sees.

And nothing could be further from the truth . . . but it’s how he makes you feel.

I smile softly at him. Loving Crew Madden is one of the easiest things I’ve ever had the pleasure of doing.

It’s the self-preservation that’s much more difficult. The keeping it to myself and trying to pretend that casual is all we are.

The constant reminders that Crew and the girls are leaving in just a few weeks.

There hasn’t been a day that’s passed that I don’t have to repeat it to myself.

It’s a telling sign that I’ve let him think that I believe his excuses as to why the cottage isn’t complete. Even more so that I haven’t called him on it by moving my things back there when he wasn’t around.

But I don’t want to leave this family I’ve grown to love. A love I’ve felt in silence to protect myself from the devastation I’ll feel when he leaves. A pain that will hurt like hell but that will reaffirm that this was real. That this really happened.

So I sit here and watch Crew and his uncoordinated dance moves, hear his rich laughter, revel in the glances he slides my way, and try to soak up each and every minute I have left with him.

Hopefully the memories will help ease the sting.

But I’m not sure if anything ever will.





CHAPTER FORTY-ONE


Crew




The night is warm. The lights strung up all over town cast a soft glow that one might say is romantic. The song is slow and bluesy. And the woman dancing in my arms owns me.

So much so that when the fireworks go off overhead, I have more fun watching her react to them than watching them myself.

The girls walked to the lake that borders the festival with Phoebe and her parents so they could watch the fireworks there—supposedly it’s a better show because of the reflections off the water.

But I don’t need a better show.

I have it right here.

Tenny turns and looks at me with narrowed eyes. “What?”

Nothing.

Everything.

So much that I haven’t said and desperately want to. But I don’t quite know how to say it because it was a shock to me as well.

I’ve fallen for her.

I love her.

But haven’t I felt that way for some time? Haven’t I questioned and doubted and told myself I was full of shit because I’m not exactly the expert person on picking who to love?

And yet here we are.

A girl who’s never going to leave here, whose secrets remain untold. And a boy who doesn’t know how to feel any other way for a woman who seemingly jumpstarted his heart again.

Maybe it’s the finality of the night. Founder’s Day. The celebration of the end of summer. Of getting one day closer to packing up and leaving for home. For Chicago.

But is it still home to me?

Or is this house here, the one I’ve put time in, the one I’ve heard my girls giggle and huff in, the one I’ve sat many nights on the porch with Tenny’s head on my shoulder watching the sunset . . . the one that feels more like home?

“You want to tell me what you’re thinking about?” Tenny whispers in my ear as color explodes overhead.

“You.”

“Me?” She smiles, and before she can say another word, I slant my lips over hers.

I don’t care who’s around or who’s watching or that we’re in the middle of a goddamn fireworks show. I take the kiss I want. The kiss I need. The one that tells her everything my words have lacked.

And when the kiss is done, when the moment should have passed but only feels so much more powerful, I rest my forehead against hers. “I love you, Tenny. I didn’t think I had it in me to love again, but I do. And I have.”

Her hands tense on my shoulders. Her breath hitches as she shakes her head back and forth, physically rejecting what I’ve said while her eyes tell me she knows. That she loves me too.

“Don’t say that, Crew. Please.” She presses a kiss to my lips that is in such contradiction to her words my chest aches. “I can’t give you what you need. What you deserve.”

I take her hands in mine and squeeze gently so that she looks back at me again.

The fear is there. It swims with love, and I don’t know how to conquer that. I don’t know how to right wrongs that someone else caused other than to be patient.

Even if it fucking kills me.

“You’re telling me you don’t feel the same? All it takes is a simple shake of the head to tell me otherwise.”

“I told you before that I don’t want to lie to you . . . so I’m not going to answer that.”

She didn’t shake her head. She might not be able to say the words, but she sure as shit didn’t shake her head.

A smile tugs on the corners of my mouth as relief—and even more love—flows through me at her non-answer answer. Just like our official first non-fight fight.