Page 65 of Love Me Gently

Cole

I prepared myself for the same eerily quiet home I’d returned to for the last two weeks. Sometime between getting in my truck this morning, chasing down a couple teenagers who decided to skip school and throw their families and the school into a panic, and finishing up paperwork on a couple other call-outs, I’d convinced myself that this morning had been a dream.

There was no way Trina sat at my kitchen counter eating an entire, single slice of bacon. She hadn’t smiled at me, and she hadn’t stood at the top of the stairs asking me why I was being so nice to her.

So it pretty much shocked me back on the heels of my feet when I opened the door from the garage to the sound of laughter and the scents of sugar, spices, and what could only be Mom’s homemade lasagna and bread. Her own SUV was still outside, so I knew she was still there, I’d just expected to find her quietly knitting a new sweater for the girls or something.

Not laughing.

Not laughingwithTrina…because that was definitely the second voice I was hearing.

“Hello?” I called out, as I slipped out of my boots.

“Up here, dear!” my mom called back. “Dinner should be ready soon and your dad is joining us, too.”

I skipped a couple of stairs in my hurry to get up there. Was this really my life? My reality? Trina sitting at the table with both my parents again?

I blinked a couple of times when I reached the living space, and sure enough, she was there.

Trina was sitting with her back to me, on the bench at the dining table Elle and June usually fought over, peering at me almost warily over her shoulder. But her color was good. Her cheeks flushed. There was some kind of… glow… about her.

“Hey,” I said, and hung up my keys.

Her eyes flicked to my belt, to the gun at my hip and then down to the floor. “Hi.”

That sound.

It was so much better. Not boisterous, and it was only two tiny simple letters, but there was a timid life to it.

Heaven. It was better than anything I could have imagined after last night.

“Dinner will be ready in fifteen. Trina and I made pies and cookies so don’t eat them before the girls get back, and your dad will be here any minute. He’s stopping at the store for some more drinks.”

“More?” My brows rose. “How much have you already had?”

“None. Yet.” My mom chuckled and tossed down a playing card. There was a face-down deck between them and a stack of cards in each of their hands.

I had no idea what they could be playing, but they were doing something. Trina was out of her room and smiling, as little as it was.

And soon, I’d be with my family and her, enjoying a meal together.

“I’m changing. Be back in a second.” That was said to Trina, who nodded and then quickly turned back to the cards in her hand.

I reached my room, closed the door, and shortly after, my mom shouted, “WAR!”

“Well, that explains the game,” I muttered.

Still, I was grinning.

Hope bubbling.

Maybe it was a foolish hope, built on the dreams I had as a teen, but knowing my dad was coming over, my family and Trina were going to all sit down and eat dinner together. The only thing I could figure that would make that day better was if the girls were there to join us.

Soon.

Soon they would be.

As much asI’d wanted to slide into the bench next to Trina, I took my normal spot with my back to the kitchen at the head of the table. My mom stayed across from her, my dad at the other end.

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