Page 122 of Infatuated as They Come
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Holly’s mom threw her arms around me the second I got inside the house.She kept whispering to me about how sorry she was and if I ate and if I needed to get some sleep. She finally pulled away from me when I muttered out a low, “I’m fine.”
“Where is he?” I heard Holly ask next to me.
Hand on her chest, Holly’s mom sighed deeply. “The three of us need to talk, darling. Why don’t you go wait in the kitchen?”
My eyes met Holly’s and I squeezed her hand, giving her a nod before she kissed my cheek and slowly left. Me and her mom moved into the living room, her dad’s eyes locking on to the floor the second we got inside.
“We jumped to conclusions last night.” Holly’s mom wrapped her arms around herself. “We both thought the worst and should have waited until we had answers. Sawyer, we’re both so sorry. I can’t imagine how awful last night must have been for you.”
Her voice was muted, but I could tell she was being sincere. She always had been since I first met her, and I could see the guilt there in her eyes.
I gave her a nod, hands pushed into my pants pockets. “I get why you were scared,” was all I could really say.
She gave her husband a not-so-subtle nudge. “Say something,” she whispered under her breath.
He still had his eyes fused to the floor before he looked at her, then at me, then back at the floor. “What am I supposed to say?”
“Say sorry to him.”
“You know I’m not going to do that.”
“You made a mistake. We both did. We were wrong.”
“I might have been wrong about that, but I’m still not wrong abouthim.”
“I would never do that to Holly,” I said, the tone rising in my voice. The weight of the accusation he had thrown my way last night was still sitting there heavy on my chest. “I know you think I’m not right for her, that I’m not good enough for her, but that thought has never crossed my mind. Hurting her like that…” I winced at the visual, at the image of her with that bruise on her cheek, and then there was just a flash, just a second of me being responsible for it. Me with my fist colliding with her face. Just thinking about it felt like it would suffocate me. “I would never do that to her. You think I’m like my dad, that it’s—like you said—in my genetics—”
“Joe!” she said harshly. “You said that?”
“But whatever he thought, whatever good he felt when he was hurting my mom,” I kept going, “I don’t have that in me. That part of him is not part of me and I would never let it be. Holly is… so, so special to me. I look at her and I keep wondering how I got lucky enough to get her. I don’t know what I did to get a girl like her. All I want to do is work hard to be the man she’s proud of. You keep reminding me that I can’t give her the world, but I already know that. I’ve known that since the day she told me she wanted me to be mine. Even before that. You can keep hating me, but I’ll still give her everything I can, even if that leaves me with nothing.”
“She loves you,” her mom said, voice soft and shaky. “She really does. You mean the world to her, and she just wanted to celebrate this day with you, and now look what’s happened. You deserve better than this.”
I nodded. “All I can say to you both is that I love her. You’re trusting me with her to look after her. Laying a finger on her is something I’ve never done and I never will. I never want to hurt her. I love her, and I guess that might not look like enough, but it’s real. That love is all I have to give Holly, but I feel that love for her in every single part of me. When I wake up, when I go to sleep, when I look at her, when I go to work, when I paint. She’s everything. The best part of my life, the part I’ll do everything to protect. And you can talk about how I’m not good enough for Holly, how I have no money, how you think she’s gonna marry some rich guy when she gets bored of me. Do it. If it makes you happy, talk about that all day, but…” I sucked in a sharp breath, my eyes lifting and making sure they stayed locked with Joe’s as I continued, “what you said to me last night? About my mom? Don’t ever bring her up again.”
I could see more guilt grow in Holly’s mother’s eyes as she looked over at her husband, and I knew what we were both waiting for. An apology, an awkward handshake, the tiniest bit of acknowledgment of his fuck up.
He cleared his throat, eyes finally leaving mine as he turned around. “I need to talk to Holly,” he said lowly.
Chapter 31
Holly
Me and my father were both in the kitchen, the air thick with tension that never used to exist between us. Deep down, I had always been daddy’s little girl, and something I cherished and held near to my heart was how close me and him and Mom were. Kindness and love and happy memories was what I had grown up with.I was one of the lucky ones. But the man standing before me was quickly destroying all of that love and closeness. He was ruining everything that used to make me love being his daughter.
“This is the worst thing you’ve ever done,” I muttered. “I’ve tried so hard to get you to see that he’s not a bad person and he’s tried too, but you? You won’t ever change, will you?”
He leaned up against the island, eyes on the floor as he gave his head a slow shake. “I’m not sure what you want me to say.”
“Saying sorry to him would be a good start.”
“I’m not saying sorry for what I did.”
“You never say sorry for anything when it comes to him.”
“What was I supposed to think, Holly? I got that call and I saw you passed out with a bruise on your face. I put two and two together—”
