I’d found her still teaching English in Japan. A few months after Gil’s imprisonment, I’d requested local authorities to file an arrest for her if she ever came back to England. To get justice for what she did to Gil.
Maybe one day I’d tell him, but not now.
Not when the past had been dealt with and the future beckoned bright.
God, I’d missed him.
I wanted to talk to him, but I didn’t know what to say. How to say things. How he’d take them.
Almost as if he sensed my reluctance to share, Gil asked, “O...you still working at that place...Status?”
“Status Enterprises.” I shook my head. “No. I quit not long after you were—”
“Incarcerated. I get it.” His tone held no malice or meanness, but he couldn’t hide the ache of loneliness. “Where do you work now then?”
I swallowed a mouthful of white wine. “Well, after giving up my lease and moving in with Justin and Olive...I still planned on travelling. I just couldn’t stand going back to that office though. So...Justin had an opening for a personal assistant and...offered it to me.”
Gil coughed. “You live and work together?”
Justin winced. “Yeah, O’s become rather fundamental to our office. She basically runs my life and the other partner’s.”
“That’s great.” Gil looked as if he’d lost something all over again. “Sounds like a perfect fit.”
I rubbed at the lacerating lightning inside my chest. I felt guilty all over again. Upset for upsetting Gil. Confused as to why he looked at me as if he wanted to stab himself through the heart.
He was the one who acted as if we were over.
He was the one who told Justin he could be with me—just like high-school.
Justin hadn’t wanted to tell me what’d happened on the phone a fortnight or so into Gil’s sentence. He’d come home steely-eyed and tense, hiding the truth until I kept bugging him for answers.
I’d been pissed off that Gil thought I would jump into Justin’s bed the moment he was gone. Furious that he’d given his ‘permission’.
What happened between Justin and I was our business and ours alone.
Silence became strained, growing tighter as a waitress came over with big bowls of fries, onion rings, and a basket of fish bites.
Olive stuck her hand into the onion rings straight away, oblivious to the stress between adults. “Yum.”
This is stupid.
I wouldn’t let tension ruin the celebration of having Gil back.
Reaching over the table, I placed my hand on Gil’s, squeezing the heat and strength of him. “We missed you so much.”
I.
I missed you.
He flinched but turned his hand up so we linked fingers. “I missed you guys too.”
You.
I missed you.
Olive put her head on his shoulder. “But we never have to be apart again so that’s the good thing.”
Gil tugged his hand from mine.
I couldn’t breathe through the pain still alive between us.
He grabbed a fry and grinned as wide as he could. “Exactly. We’ll be together. Always.”
Justin chewed a fish bite. “And that brings us back to living arrangements.” He held up his hand when I went to remind him that we didn’t need to rush, adding, “Decisions don’t need to be made now. But...if Gil is okay with it. How about we head over to his place, check it out, and go from there.” He smiled at Olive. “What do you say?”
Olive tapped her fingers against her mouth, thinking deeply. “Sure. That sounds good.” She looked at Gil. “That okay, Dad? Can we go see your place?”
Gil nodded quickly. “Of course, that’s okay. More than okay.”
“Great.” Justin wiped salt off his fingers. “It’s a plan.”
Gil went still, his gaze shifting from Justin to me, pinning us to the velvet bench. “Just so we’re clear, I’m not going to demand or expect anything. Olive is yours as much as mine. I’m happy if you want to keep her, and I’ll see her when you’re free. Or vice versa.”
The thought of not seeing Olive every day. Of not making pancakes with her or experimenting with other cooking with her. Of not watching her laugh and scream at the TV with Justin when he watched football. We didn’t own Olive. We hadn’t created her. But we had grown into something that meant a great deal to all of us.
“Of course.” I nodded. “We’re together now. That means all of us.”
Us.
That pesky, damning word.
Gil’s green stare shot right into my heart. “I love you.” His cheeks pinked as he hugged his daughter and glanced at Justin. “All of you. We’re family.”
Those three little words wouldn’t stop colliding in my chest.
I love you.
I
love
you.
I love you too.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
______________________________
Olin
“WOW, THIS IS super cool.” Olive drifted forward, inspecting Gil’s new apartment.
Tiny in size but cosy.
Newer than my old apartment, the walls were a fresh white and the floors bamboo planks.
Gil’s paints rested in a big box on the dining room table, reminding me that he still had a bunch of belongings in storage at Justin’s.
The kitchen was modern with nice pendant lights, the bathroom with a shower over the bath, and two bedrooms: one with a queen bed, black sheets, and Gil’s signature scent of citrus and paint, and a second with a king single, rainbow bedspread, and a huge stuffed owl waiting in a rattan chair by the wardrobe.
I moved toward the quaint lounge.
Olive would be very happy here. Happier than anywhere because she’d be with her father. Justin and I had been a temporary fix. We’d been there to nurse her nightmares and help her feel safe again, but there’d always been something missing, something we could never be.
“Did you want to stay the night here, Olive?” I asked softly. “We can go back to Justin’s and pack a bag if you want?”
Olive paused, yet another huge decision for such a young girl to make. I hated putting her on the spot and I hated that all our lives would have to change from this point on, but I also refused to keep daughter and father away from each other.
“It’s the weekend tomorrow.” She frowned. “I have dance practice.”
Gil’s head snapped up. “You dance?”
Olive nodded proudly. “O showed me a few moves when we stayed with her before you went to prison, remember? I was too busy with school to learn more, but last month she taught me a few new steps. But now I go to a fancy place because she said I have talent.”
Gil looked at me, disbelief and awe in his gaze. “Are you dancing again?”
I blushed, hoping he didn’t mind that I’d added an afterschool activity to Olive’s life. I would continue paying for the lessons. Now I worked for Justin, I’d been able to squirrel money away. He overpaid me really but I was good at my job and worked hard.
We both did.
It was probably rare that we could live together, raise a child that wasn’t ours, and work together without trying to kill each other.