Page 110 of Anything for You
“That’s just how it should be,” Rachel says. “It’s not her job to fix you. You’ll have to do the heavy lifting on your own. But it will be lighter because she’ll be there to help you carry it. She’s always been your other half, Jeremy, and you hers. Take the night. Eat with us and get some sleep. You and Emma will have plenty of time to talk tomorrow, and all the days after that.”
The doorbell rings then, and Steven gets up to get the pizza. The guys go into the kitchen to get plates and more beer, and Rachel comes over and sits next to me on the couch, wrapping me in another hug and pressing a business card into my hand.
“Also for tomorrow,” she whispers. Then she cups my face, kissing my forehead and both of my cheeks, before smoothing my hair away from my face in the long-standing Parker gesture of comfort. She has done this for me so many times over the years I have known her, but this is the first time the gesture has tears blurring my eyes and the bubble of my emotion threatening to burst. Because for years, my family has been right here, and I’ve never been brave enough to trust it. To believe it.
But tonight, with my brothers around me, the only parents I’ve ever known standing close by, and the woman I love more than I ever thought I was capable of loving anyone and the little girl who needs us both just a couple of miles away, I feel that trust and belief hanging closer than it ever has before. Like maybe, if I try just a little harder, I can reach out and grab it.
And once I do, I’m never letting it go.
Chapter Forty-One
Emma
Jeremy
Meet me at the trail after Maddy gets on the bus?
Me
I’ll be there. Can’t wait to see your face.
I’m stupidly relieved when Jeremy texts me just as I’m waking a groggy Maddy up for school and shuffling her downstairs to have breakfast with my equally bleary-eyed friends. Rachel texted me a picture late last night of Jeremy on the couch with Ben, Asher, and Jordan. He was smiling, but it didn’t go all the way to his eyes. I’m hoping I can get it the rest of the way there.
I put Maddy on the bus, sending good vibes to all the teachers who have to deal with classes full of over-sugared, under-slept kids on the day after Halloween, and then I get right in my car.
Jeremy is already there when I pull up to the park. He’s sitting on the low stone wall, his back to me, staring at the entrance to the trail. His shoulders are hunched up and hishands are gripping the stone so tightly his knuckles are white. His body is shaking a little, and I don’t have to see it to know that he’s shaking his leg, the way he does when he’s anxious.
I want to touch every inch of him. Rub his shoulders until they relax and take both of his hands in mine. Kiss his face and tell him over and over that he’s loved and he’s mine and he’ll never have to feel alone again.
Jeremy turns as soon as he hears my car door slam shut. The look on his face is every emotion. It’s happiness and relief and sorrow and defeat. And also love.
God, the love.
It pours out of the deepest depths of him and hits me right in the chest. I freeze where I stand because he’s looking at me like I’m his everything—the answer to every prayer and the solution to every problem. The reason his heart beats and air fills his lungs. I know this because he’s mine, too. I start walking again because suddenly even this small distance from him is too far.
My breaths come easier with every step I take closer to him. With him sitting on the wall and me standing in front of him, we’re face to face. His eyes are tired, black smudges underneath them that speak to a sleepless night. I cup his face, running my thumbs along his cheeks and under his eyes, wanting to erase his fatigue.
“Ems.” His voice is low and tinged with exhaustion and relief. Then he’s wrapping his arms around my waist, tugging me closer to him in a tight hug. I wind my arms around his shoulders, stroking the hair at the nape of his neck. Running my fingers through the silky strands, I absorb his deep sigh and feel his heartbeat against my own.
“I love you,” he whispers in my ear. “I love you so fucking much. Thank you for coming.”
I pull back a little so I can see his face. “I would go anywhere you were. There is nowhere you could be where I wouldn’t come and find you. I love you too.”
Jeremy smiles, and this time it hits his eyes. Then he slides his hands around my neck and brings my mouth to his, kissing me deeply, like we aren’t sitting in a public park in the morning sunshine. He runs his tongue along the seam of my lips until I open for him, sweeping inside to plunder and taste like he wants to memorize every inch of me, swallowing my moan when he nips at my bottom lip, then tilting my head back to take the kiss deeper.
Butterflies swarm my stomach and need for him swamps me. I wonder how it’s possible to have this much in me for another person, and I know he feels the same because when he breaks the kiss, his eyes are a mirror of the feelings swirling in my blood.
Jeremy leans up and presses a kiss to my forehead, taking a deep breath, like he’s breathing me in before he leans back.
“Sit with me?”
“Of course.”
“I brought coffee,” he says, handing me a to-go cup and picking up his own.
I take a grateful sip of my favorite drink. “Thank you so much. The morning after Halloween with a seven-year-old is…something. There is not enough caffeine in the world today.”
I hop up on the wall next to him and turn, swinging my legs up so I can sit cross-legged. He does the same, so we’re facing each other with our knees touching. I reach out and run a finger over the ink on his thigh, grateful for his refusal to wear anything but shorts to run, even when it’s cold outside.
