Page 40 of Joy
I shook my head. That wasn’t the point.
Silas was wonderful. Hot and sexy, kind—everyone’s favorite guy. And he apparently would be a great dad too, if someone like me wasn’t holding him back.
Fuck.
I DIDN’Tsleep well that night. By early light, a little before our usual time to get up and walk Ben, I had been awake in bed for over an hour. I lay on my side with Silas curled up behind me, a big, strong arm wrapped around me. I petted up and down it gently, fingers dragging along the cords of muscle.
I wanted what Annie had said yesterday to be true.Sometimes you can’t beat it, so laugh about it.But she and George had been married. They were committed to the extreme. Silas and I had only been together a few weeks.
God. I was so angry with myself. I finally felt at home somewhere. New Hampshire became everything I wanted, everything I never knew I needed, and I was ruining it all with the same shit as before. The fear of my own failure haunting me. The stupid, nagging voice in my head reminding me I had been shitty at a lot of things in the past, so why wouldn’t that follow me here? I couldn’t be great in LA, and I couldn’t even be good in the middle of nothingness.
I slipped free from Silas’s warm arms and got dressed, took my car keys, and left. I needed to make a decision, and that required some solo driving. Ben whined as I shut the door, but I didn’t let that adorable dog guilt me and hurried across the driveway to my car.
I left Union Road and drove through the itty-bitty heart of Dalton. I passed the old train tracks and kept going straight on toward Lancaster. The river that hugged the road was the Connecticut. I learned that recently. It was glassy-still that morning, as if the entire state, animals and nature included, was enjoying the last few minutes of sleep.
The covered bridge that Silas and his crew had been working on came into view just ahead. They had finished their restoration the other day, and it was open to the public once more. I pulled to the side of the road, shut the car off, got out, and walked across the asphalt toward it. No one was out driving, and traffic simply wasn’t a thing up here, so I was free to cross the road and approach the bridge.
It was dark inside, and the old beams overhead and underneath echoed my footsteps to one another. Being inside the bridge was like a bubble of safety to think and decide my future. Except when I considered the best approach to fixing this mess being going back to California, I realized I really didn’t want to leave. Not ever. This was home.Silaswas home.
I was in there for a while. I knew because when someone called my name and I shook away the heavy thoughts I had been absorbed in, the sound of life echoed into the covered bridge. Morning birds chirped, frogs croaked, and Silas ran toward me.
“Gideon! Goddamn,” he swore. “I’ve been calling you, looking everywhere! Are you okay? You scared the hell out of me!” He took my hands and tugged me into a hug.
I closed my eyes and sank into his arms, clutching the back of his T-shirt. “I needed to think,” I managed, and, oh God, I was not going to cry now….
“About what?” Silas pulled back to look down at me.
“Everything,” I said before I started bawling like a baby.
Silas put his hands on my face. “What’s wrong? Gideon, tell me,please.”
“I can’t be great at a single thing!”
“What are you talking about?”
“I fucked everything up in Los Angeles, and I’m fucking it all up here too.”
“Gideon,” Silas said firmly. “Being the best artist or cook, that doesn’t mean anything. Being happy is what matters.”
“No, I want to be great foryou,” I blurted out around trying to take a breath. “But I’m not! I’m not even anokayboyfriend! Everything I do with you turns to shit!”
Silas wiped my cheeks and kissed me. “You are a pretty wonderful boyfriend. Do you know how I know? Because you makemehappy.” He brushed my hair back. “Do I make you happy?”
“Every day.”
“Then why are you upset?”
“I’m bad luck.”
“No, you’re perfect.” Silas kissed me again. “Bad things happen sometimes—it has nothing to do with you. Don’t doubt yourself. I don’t want you to leave.”
“I don’t want to run away again, I swear! I—I like cooking. I’m okay with not being the best at it, because it’s not what’s most important to me. You are!”
Silas stroked my cheek with his thumb. “And you’re most important to me.”
“You’re not sick of everything that happens? The flat tires, the rolled ankle, thebear?”
Silas laughed. “No, not at all. Gideon… please…. You try, and you care, and you want to be with me. What else could I possibly ask for?”
