Page 69 of The Yips

“Where should we stop for lunch?” I asked.

“Sam, I’m good with McDonald’s. But I don’t see you eating fast food for some reason.”

“I have no idea how you can eat what you do,” I said. Kelsey maintained the body of an athlete while eating whatever the fuck she wanted.

“Well, breastfeeding plus running regularly helps. And maybe you need to be careful now that you are so close to thirty, but I’m going to get fries with my meal…and maybe even a shake.”

“What are you, a junk food connoisseur?”

“You could say that.”

I shook my head and smiled at her. “I can order a grilled chicken salad if you want McDonald's. The fridge at home has been fully stocked for dinner so that we can eat healthy tonight.”

“You want us to stay tonight?” She asked hesitantly, her eyes darted from me to the road and back again.

“Yeah, ofcourse I do.”

“We’ll have an entire week together starting Tuesday for Texas…”

“And?”

“Are you going to get sick of us?”

“Not a chance.” Was it wrong to admit to her that I wanted to have them move in with me? Would it scare her away to know that I’d remodeled the nursery and bought Crew an actual crib? I hoped not. I warned her, I planned to spoil her, and was all in. Eventually, I might even get her to relent and drive the BMW; maybe someday, she’d even call it her car.

CHAPTER 61

Kelsey

We stopped at my apartment before heading back to Sam’s place so I could pick up anything Crew and I needed before we left for Texas the following day. My tiny apartment had never seemed particularly joyful, but today, it looked especially sad and lonely. Even if I hadn’t spent all my spare time with Sam, I had committed to leaving and was no longer trying to make the space into a home for Crew and me.

“Are you okay?” Sam asked when I stilled in the bedroom.

“Yeah, it just feels a bit surreal. In a couple of months, my entire world has changed. There is nothing about my life today that resembles where I was even two months ago.”

“I feel the same way, but I don’t doubt for even a second that everything about this, everything about us, is exactly where we are meant to be.”

I held two duffel bags of clothes, one on each shoulder, realizing that I could leave everything behind right now, but the man standing there, holding my son, protecting and loving us both, had become my entire world.

“I’m not coming back here, am I?”

“I hope not,” Sam said with watery eyes, holding Crew a little tighter.

“I’m not moving in with my parents, either?”

“I hope not,” he whispered.

“Okay,” I said, dropping the duffel bags as I slid into his embrace. I closed the circle, the three of us, my home, my heart.

“Hey, Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“I love the car, thank you.”

He started shaking with laughter, and Crew followed suit until we were all hysterically laughing. When Sam caught his breath, he said, “I’m glad we’re finally on the same page. You’re welcome.”

Shortly later, we arrived at Sam’s place and ushered everything from our trip and what I’d picked up from my place into the master bedroom. Sam set a play mat on the floor with toys for Crew to get some play time and stretch out after being cooped up in a car most of the day. I opened the door to the space we’d been using as Crew’s bedroom and received another shock.

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