Page 78 of Nothing to This
Because he’d given up, taken the easy way out and gone back to life as he’d always known it without putting up a fight.
“She said it was a one-night thing.Obviously, she didn’t feel what I felt, but I don’t know… She didn’t have a lot of experience.She was twenty-three when we met, for God’s sake, she was just starting out.”
“So you let her go.”
“If it had been supposed to be something, we’d have figured it out by now.”
“I disagree,” Brenna said.“Neither of you have ever bothered to spend any time getting to know each other until now.Mom and I love Rylee, and she loves us, but that didn’t happen in a flash of lightning.We’re family.We’ve spent half a decade getting to know each other, spending time with each other, being there for each other.Rylee knows she can rely on us, and we can rely on her… She’s raising the next generation of Dawes and doing a fucking amazing job, I don’t know if you noticed.”
Pride and appreciation for both the mother of his children and his sister rose within him.“I know she’s a good mom… But she doesn’t know if she wants more kids.”
“And you do?”she asked and exhaled, slouching back in the chair again.“You don’t get it.God, I don’t know how any woman can have a relationship with a man, you’re so upside down.”
“Thanks.”
“Rylee doesn’t want to be a single parent again.She adores her children.Although she’d never say it, raising them has been hard work and she’s done it basically alone.I only know from stories she’s told after the fact, pregnancy was a slog for her.She had all sorts of issues to work through and she had to track you down and deal with your lawyers too.She hasn’t had it easy.So, when you say more kids, all she thinks about is the Everest she’s just got through climbing.”
His sister was trying to help, but irrational offence surged through him.“It wouldn’t be that way.If we were together, she wouldn’t have to lift a finger.I’d get her a staff, anything she needed for—”
“You didn’t for the last two.”
“I didn’t know she needed it,” he argued.
Brenna waved a hand up and down.“Calm, brother, don’t get defensive.I’m trying to explain why she’s hesitant.”Straightening again, she licked her lips.“Sky makes you watch her Disney movies, right?”
“Yeah,” he drawled, not sure where she was going.
“You know what happens right before the narrator says they lived happily ever after?Right at the end, the princess and her prince, they kiss.”Eyeing him, she nodded like she was trying to convey something.He didn’t get it and shook his head.“Damnit, brother, you have to kiss her!”
“You think that will make everything better?”he asked, recalling what Rylee once said about his kiss.
“I think the movies you watch with Sky represent everything you’ve been through with Rylee so far.Every kid grows up with fairytale movies.It’s only when you’re an adult that you appreciate the real story is what we don’t see.The real story happens after that kiss at the end.”
“Bren—”
“I’m telling you to kiss her, not because I think it will fix everything, I’m telling you to kiss her because that kiss will be your start.It will be the beginning of your love story.Sky’s allowed to believe the movie is the toughest trial the hero and heroine will face, she’s four.You know better.You need to start your story.Kiss her.Claim her.And deal with the trials together.”Damn, he hated when his sister made sense.“You need to kiss her, Jame.”
He could feel himself being seduced by the hope his sister offered.Last night he’d tossed and turned trying to come to terms with knowing he’d never have Rylee as his own.All day he’d been on edge and short-tempered, because he didn’t like to give up, and that was what Rylee had asked him to do when she’d pulled the brake.
A flash of memory from last night chilled him; he didn’t want to hope and be shot down again.
“She doesn’t want it, Nana.She told me, we don’t want the same things.”
It took her a second to gather herself, reminding him of the way Rylee paused before speaking to the kids when they were pushing her buttons.“You’re really hung up on this kid thing,” she said and sighed.“I think she’d do it.I think she’d have your babies… if you married her, which we both know you would, so don’t even pretend to hesitate.”
“I don’t know, Nana, Rylee mentioned Gabby, and she’s right.I didn’t marry her, did I?I could have, but I broke it off.”
“I didn’t know Gabby,” Brenna said.“I read about your engagement online.”She rolled her eyes in a way meant to chastise him while at the same time communicating that she didn’t care enough to dwell on what had been.“You said Rylee was different, that being with her was different… did it feel that way with Gabby?”
Exhaling, he tossed the pen to the desk and pushed back in his chair.“No… No woman’s felt like Ry.”
Brenna smiled.“You ever think that maybe that’s why you haven’t settled down?That there was some part of you that wanted to feel the way Rylee made you feel?And because no woman’s matched her, no other woman was enough.No woman lives up to the mother of your children and now you’ve come full circle back to her because she’s The One.”
Sky would love the story her aunt was weaving.
One thing he couldn’t deny was that he’d wanted to pursue a relationship with Rylee when they’d met.He had a vivid memory, that often revisited him in his dreams, of lying in the dark next to Rylee’s sleeping form, running his fingertips up and down the center of her naked abdomen, admiring her beautiful body strewn in the hotel sheets they’d made love in.Unable to take his eyes off her, mesmerized, he’d vowed to make her the center of his world.
Pride was to blame for him not following through.She’d basically laughed in his face the morning after when he’d asked about seeing her again.She’d been so young and wanted a casual interlude.To her, he was a one-night stand, a casual fuck; nothing more.
