“Want me to bring you back to bed, sweetheart?”
She nodded again, and without waking Aiden, we walked upstairs, and once in her room, I held back the covers on her bed. She pulled the blankets up to her chin and looked over at the picture of Beth. “It’s behind there,” she said. “You can take it out.”
Carefully, I picked up the frame and studied her face. She was pretty. A big smile and laugh lines that told me she’d done both things often.
“Behind the picture?”
Anya nodded.
I pulled the back of the frame off, and a folded-up piece of paper was wedged behind the image of her mom.
When I opened it, it was hard to make sense of what I was seeing. Anya pointed at the side, letters I couldn’t really make sense of.
“She told me I’d know,” Anya said. “Even if you didn’t match the list, I’d know.”
My throat thickened, and I smoothed her hair back from her forehead. “Yeah?”
Anya blinked slowly, sleep pulling at her. “I wrote it on the side of the paper, but I don’t think Daddy could read that part. Mommy said I’d know because she’d make us all happier. And that’s you.”
A tear slid down my cheek as I leaned down to place a featherlight kiss on her forehead. Her arms snaked around my neck in a tight squeeze.
“I love you,” she whispered.
“I love you, too.”
I stood from the bed and turned, stopping short when I saw Aiden watching us from the doorway. He’d tugged on some cotton sleep pants, arms crossed over his chest, and a small smile playing over his mouth. His eyes were red.
“We’re busted,” I whispered.
He held out a hand, and I took it.
“Ready to go back to bed?” he asked.
I nodded.
I was ready for all of it with him. With her. Most of all, I was just ready for our life together to start, and as I fell asleep in his arms, I had a feeling it just had.
Epilogue
Isabel
Six months later
* * *
“It’s not very pretty.”
Under my breath, I laughed at Anya’s dubious expression. We sat on the bed in my bedroom with Aiden, and in front of her was the pink enamel lockbox I’d found online.
“It’s pink, though, so that’s something.”
She gave me a look. “I might have a new favorite color next year. What am I going to do with all my secret stuff then?”
I hummed. “Well, maybe we can spray-paint it if that happens.”
She eyed mine. “You never changed yours?”
With a shake of my head, I fished the key out of the small bag and jiggled the lock until I could finagle the box open. “It was a gift from my nan—Logan’s mom. She knew I needed a place that was just mine to keep all my special things that should be kept safe.”
“What’s in it?” Anya leaned forward.
I showed her each item, explaining where they came from, why I felt they were important. When I got to the letter I’d written to her dad, I paused before pulling it out.
“Now this is something I’ve never shown anyone,” I told her.
Her eyes widened. “Really?”
Next to me was another envelope I hadn’t shown anyone, but we’d get to that eventually.
Very carefully, I picked up the folded paper and shook my head at the sight of my neat penmanship, the doodles of purple ink along the side.
“I wrote this letter when I was a teenager.”
She shifted to her knees, teeth tugging on her bottom lip in her interest. “You never sent it?”
Pulling open the paper, I shook my head. “I decided it should just stay a secret.”
It was a risk to show her. But over the last year, this young lady had become my built-in sidekick, my ride or die, outside of her dad.
When I handed her the paper, the diamond on my engagement ring caught the light.
Anya took the letter, her eyes widening on the first line.
“It’s for my dad,” she whispered.
I nodded.
“And you kept it all this time?” Her finger followed along with the words on the lined paper as she read it.
“Pretty crazy, huh?”
Anya’s eyes were bright with excitement. “How’d you know you were going to meet him?”
“I didn’t,” I answered simply.
When she finished reading, she carefully folded the paper and set it back inside the black metal box.
I knew her well enough now to know she was processing, so I gently twirled my ring while I waited for her to speak.
He’d given it to me a month earlier, tied onto a ribbon, around the stem of a giant bouquet of daisies.
It was the same day I moved in with him and Anya, after five months of trying very hard to pretend we weren’t basically living together.
Anya looked at her metal box again and up at me.
“I’m glad you didn’t send it to him.”
My eyebrows rose. “Yeah?”
“I think maybe he would’ve remembered when he met you at the gym. And he needed you to be someone new.”
A smile spread over my face at how carefully she chose her words.
“I think you might be right,” I said quietly.
She scooted forward on the bed and gave me a tight hug. I kissed the side of her head.
“Love you, Iz.”
“Love you too,” I whispered.
When she hopped off the bed, box clutched to her chest, she looked at mine again. “Are you going to tell Dad about the letter?”
“What letter?” he asked from the doorway.
She looked at me, eyes wide. “Sorry.”
I laughed. “It’s okay.”
Anya scampered off to her room, the pounding of her feet on the stairs had Aiden shaking his head.
As he shut the bedroom door and approached the bed, I studied the way he looked in his button-down shirt and black dress pants.
“I like this look,” I told him.
“Yeah?”
He carefully moved aside the metal box and pushed me back onto the bed. My hands tugged his shirt out of his waistband as he gave me a mind-spinning kiss. Aiden always greeted me like this when we were alone—like he hadn’t seen me in weeks—and I would never, ever get sick of it.
His kisses moved down my neck as I moved under him, unhooking his belt.
“What letter is she talking about?” he asked, tugging the strap of my bra down and placing a sucking kiss over my heart.
“Umm, nothing?”
He lifted his head, spearing me with a look.
“It’s silly,” I told him. “But I wanted her to see what kind of stuff I kept in the lockbox from my nan.”
Aiden rolled to the side, snatching the box with one big hand and tugging it closer to us. “Show me.”
With a burning hot face, I pulled the letter out and handed it to him.
His grin was so pleased, so fricken entertained as he got to the part about the purple dress that he started chuckling.
I covered my face. “Now you know why I literally tripped over nothing when I met you.”
He pulled my hands down and took my mouth again. “I love that you kept it,” he murmured. “Just goes to show you’ve always had great taste.”