Page 56 of Beneath the Scars
“You look good with a baby in your arms.”
I look up at Ginny as she comes back into her living room. “I hadn’t realized how small she is.”
“And yet I feel as if she’s growing like a weed. It’s gone by so fast.” In her black leggings and cropped T-shirt, she looks exhausted and yet happier than I’ve ever seen her.
“You holding up okay?”
“For the most part. The hormones have been a bitch to get a handle on. Carson’s been a saint throughout it all. I’m not sure what I’d have done without him.”
To my horror, tears well in Ginny’s eyes.
“Hey,” I say softly. “What’s this about?”
“Oh, just ignore me.” She sniffs. “This happens way more often than I’d like.” Ginny yanks a tissue from the box on the end table to dry her eyes.
“Uhhh… What’s going on down here?” Carson’s eyes bounce between me, Nina, and Ginny. He heads straight to Ginny, palming her face and wiping the tears streaking across her cheeks. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” She breathes out a watery laugh. “I got emotional thinking about how fast time has flown.”
“Ah. That’ll do it.” Carson presses a kiss to Ginny’s forehead. My best friends have been in love with each other since they were kids. Seeing them happy together always makes me proud. Our whole friend group has been rooting for them from the beginning.
I walk through the open living room into the kitchen to let Carson and Ginny have a moment together. Nina hasn’t made a peep, seemingly content to stay in my arms for as long as I’ll hold her. It’s not quite so scary anymore, now that I’ve gotten used to her weight.
I’ve never given much thought to having a family of my own. My best friends seem to be on the path toward happily ever after, and I was happy to sit on the sidelines, cheering them on. Adalaide was the only woman I’d ever imagined settling down with, and that seemed like a pipe dream. It felt like self-sabotage to picture a life with her, so I just never did. Now that I have her, I’ve started to wonder what it might be like to have Addie by my side forever.
Does she want a family? Is she looking toward the future with me by her side? She told me she loves me that first night we decided to pursue our mutual affection for each other, but she hasn’t said it since. Does she regret saying it?
I haven’t been able to form the words to say them out loud to her, despite being overwhelmed by my feelings. They keep getting stuck in my throat until I have to swallow them back down or risk choking on my emotions. What if I can’t ever say the words to her? How can I believe I’ll be able to keep her if I can’t tell her how I feel?
She’ll get tired of waiting for me to get my shit together.
Then I really will be a shell of a man, broken into too many pieces to ever have a hope of being repaired.
“Guys!” Lottie bursts through Carson and Ginny’s front door in a whirlwind of brown hair and excitement. Gia follows closely behind her with Ryan on their heels. “We have huge news.”
“What’s going on?” Ginny asks as everyone congregates in the living room.
Ryan raises his eyebrows at me when he sees I’m holding Nina. I shrug, since I can’t offer any other explanation at the moment.
“We stopped at the historical society to drop off some groceries for Alice before coming over, and she dropped an epic bomb on us.” Lottie is practically bouncing in place. She pulls a leather-bound book from her purse and holds it out asif we’re supposed to know what it is. “This is Victoria Ashcroft’s journal!”
“Shut up!” Ginny gasps, jumping up to grab the book from Lottie.
“Alice found it in a trunk when she was rifling through some of the stuff in her attic,” Gia says. She’s sitting next to Ryan on the couch, her head on his shoulder. Something about her expression makes me frown. She seems tired or sad or something. I can’t quite put my finger on it.
Ryan catches my gaze, and I silently ask him if he knows what’s up. He minutely shakes his head, a look of concern on his face to match my own. Huh. We may need to push our prickly friend to open up to us soon.
Gia has never been good about telling us how she’s feeling. She and I have that in common, but Gia has always felt like she needs to be the life of the party even when she’s not feeling her best. I don’t have the compulsion to pretend I’m okay when I’m not—I just don’t want to talk about it.
“Has she read it?” Carson asks.
Lottie shakes her head. “Just enough to double-check the dates. She said it would only make her cry, so she wanted us to see if there’s anything in it we can use for our search for information.”
A while back, Lottie found some old letters in Carson’s brother’s house. They were dated in the late 1800s and seemed to be love letters to a woman. We decided to see if we could figure out who they belonged to, only to stumble across a murder mystery in the process. Apparently, one of the authors of the letters we found went missing with his fiancée and was presumed to be dead. We’ve been trying to solve the case ever since.
“This is so exciting,” Ginny squeals. “Should we take pictures of the pages and divvy them up?”
“That would probably be the fastest,” Gia agrees.
