Page 148 of Reckless
“Winter Peggy sounds like a farmer Barbie doll that comes with a snowsuit. Summer Peggy comes with a bathing suit and a pair of sunglasses.”
Silent laughter racks my body. It’s not even that funny, but it’s the stress release I needed.
Theo grins at me. “So fucking pretty when you laugh.” He kisses the apple of my cheek, then the other, and finishes with my forehead. “Let me go get changed so I can match my little Power Suit Peggy.”
And only a few hours later, after a simple swipe of Vivi’s inside cheek, Theo and I walk out of that courtroom. Me in my pantsuit, and Theo looking devastating in a stark black suit of his own. He holds my hand and keeps Vivi held tight against his side like the protective papa he is.
I don’t even spare Rob a glance as we pass. I keep my chin high and my shoulders back. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of acknowledging his presence.
However, I do glance up at the handsome man I get to call my own.
And as we pass my ex...
Theo winks at him.
* * *
Now that I’ve decided it’s okay to need Theo as intensely as I do, it’s hard to be as mature about letting him walk out that door to go on the road.
All it took was one shy, “You could always come with me?” to seal the deal.
For the next two weeks, I travel with him. So does Vivi. So does Peter. Most of the hotels are not dog-friendly, but I don’t ask permission, which means they never tell me not to bring him. We hit Fort Worth, Texas—where I realize Theo isn’t nearly as much of a cowboy as I thought—and then San Antonio.
We stroll the River Walk and dine out. He trains hard. I cheer like a lunatic every time he gets on a bull. We make love in the shower once Vivi’s down for the night. I fall asleep with Theo’s strong arms around me at the end of every single day.
And when we walk up the front steps to our little house on a tree-lined street in Chestnut Springs, we come face to face with the envelope we’ve been waiting for.
Plus one more. One he doesn’t know about.
The paper is cool in the palm of my hand as we head into the house with bags and car seats and strollers. Traveling with a child has given me a whole new appreciation for how blissful it is to travel alone.
And yet, the thought of traveling alone fills me with dread. I’d much rather schlep all our shit around and stay with this little family I’ve pieced together over the past few months. Vivi turns one in a week. I go back to work a week after that—something I’ve been trying to pretend doesn’t exist.
I’ve always loved my job. It’s always been the place where I can escape real life and throw myself into work I enjoy.
But I don’t want to escape my life anymore. I want to set up shop and stay right smack dab in the middle of it. Watching Vivi walk everywhere and learn new words, watching Theo kick ass every weekend.
Vivi is fussing, tired and irritated from the flight, so Theo scoops her up. “I’m going to go put her down for a bit. You open that. I’ll be back.” He barely looks at me as he gives her kisses and walks down the hallway.
His ass is phenomenal in those jeans.
“Okay,” I murmur, pulling out a stool to sit at the kitchen island.
The envelope addressed to me unraveled us in so many ways, but maybe it untangled us so we could braid ourselves back together. Tighter. Maybe this ordeal has brought us the sort of peace we never would have had without it.
My lips curve up because Theo is nervous about this envelope.
Ever since that one comment, he has never questioned me about Vivi’s paternity. In his heart, heknows,but Rob put a speck of doubt there and he hasn’t quite been able to let it go. He also respects me too much to put that question out again though.
Me? I already know what story these papers will tell. They’re going to tell me there is no possible way Rob got me pregnant through the walls of our separate rooms. It’s going to tell me that the hottest night of my life spent in a hotel with a man I barely knew lines up perfectly with the day Vivi was born.
Perfectly imperfect. That’s Theo and me.
Sometimes I wonder if we’d have ended up where we are today if things hadn’t played out the way they did. If he’d known about her right away, would I have taken my fresh start? Would I have cut people out of my life who needed cutting? Would I have found the sense of freedom I did in those months I spent living on my own? Or would I have dragged Theo into the maelstrom of my family drama? Would I have felt I went from being under one man’s thumb to another? Would Summer and I be where we are now?
So many what-ifs. But it feels like everything worked out exactly the way it was meant to.
“Well, she fell asleep in about ten seconds.”
