I look at Holden, whose smile fills all the empty spaces left by the pain I’ve finally let go of, and I laugh through my tears. “He told you that?”
Tammy nods. “He tells me everything about you. He adores you with his whole heart.”
“It’s true,” Holden says, nodding, his eyes and his stare illuminating his pride for me. I see it there, can feel it inside my soul, lighting up the darkest parts of me.
Tammy points to the iPad. “Have you thought about the song for your first dance?”
I shake my head. “It hasn’t even crossed my mind.”
“May I make a suggestion?”
“Of course.”
“’My Girl’ by The Temptations.”
“Oh, that’s a good one,” Joseph says, and he’d been so quiet I’d almost forgotten he was here.
Tammy ignores him, reaching up to cup my cheeks. “It was your mother’s favorite movie, right? That’s why you used to wear all those mood rings? That’s why Holden got you that pendant?”
I stare at her, my tears flowing fast and free. “Yeah, it was. Maybe you and I can watch it together one day?”
“Oh, sweetheart,” she coos, and she hugs me again. For minutes, she just lets me cry on her shoulder, and I wish I knew where all these emotions were coming from.
I’ll be sure to ask my therapist on our next call.
“Your rings!” she almost shouts.
I hold my hands out between us.
“They’re so beautiful,” she says, her touch gentle on my fingertips. “And so you… at least, what I remember of you.”
“I haven’t changed all that much,” I reply.
“Yeah, she has,” Holden says, and just when I think he’s going to bring out more emotions, he adds, “She’s gotten even hotter. Her ass—”
“Holden!” I groan, pushing on his shoulder until he falls back, having to stretch his arm out behind him to catch himself. “What is wrong with you?”
Joseph’s body shakes with his withheld laughter.
And Tammy—Tammy watches our exchange, her head angled, smiling like parents are supposed to smile at their children. I remember that smile…. in my mother. Before everything else, I remember her love for me.
I push back my heartache, my longing, and look down at my fingers. “This one’s my favorite,” I say.
Tammy lifts my hand, inspecting it closer. It’s a turquoise rock that’s in two pieces, braced by separate fork prongs and displayed one on top of the other. “You know what I like most about it?” I ask and don’t wait for an answer. “It reminds me of Holden. Of how he feels about me… that just because something’s broken, it doesn’t mean it’s not perfect.”
55
Holden
Jamie and I wave at Mom and Joseph as they reverse out the driveway, Mom’s grin matching my own. Once they’re no longer in view, I turn to the girl beside me, my forearms on her shoulders as I drop my gaze to hers. “You’re pretty special, you know that?”
She rises to her toes and kisses me once. “You make me feel pretty special.”
I hug her to me, leaving no space between us. “Thank you for doing that, and I’m sorry if I rushed you or pressured—”
“You didn’t,” she cuts in, rearing back. “It was time.”
“You didn’t have to invite them to the wedding.” We haven’t even set a date yet. “You could’ve just taken your time and gotten to—”
“Holden,” she laughs out. “I have zero regrets; I promise you. But I’ve had quite a day, and I’m tired, and—”
“Okay…” I take her hand in mine. “There’s just once place I need to take you, and then we’ll come straight home.”
“Where the hell would you want to go now?”
I’m already opening the car door when I answer, repeating the words I’d said the first time she got in my truck, “Shut up. Get in.”
Her shoulders drop as she puts a hand to her heart. “Aww, the nostalgia of Dickhead Holden. Makes my heart so happy.”
“If you’re taking me somewhere to bend me over a bench and bone me, then can we wait a bit?” Jamie says. “I’m so full.” She shifts in her seat so she can unbutton her skirt, then lifts up her top to reveal her bare, curved, full stomach.
She runs a hand over it, moaning, and I focus back on the road and say, “Question.”
“Yes?”
“How long do you want to wait after the wedding to have babies?”
“What?” She sits up, glaring at me. “You think I look pregnant?”
“No!” I laugh out. “But you were rubbing your belly, and it was the first thing I thought of, and now I’m wondering if there’s an incessant need in males to plant their seed—”
“Plant their seed?” she mocks. “I’m not a garden, Holden!”
“Answer the question!”
She removes her shoes and brings her feet up to sit cross-legged. “Not for a while. Years. Maybe ten,” she says. “I still want to travel and discover who I am, who we are as a married couple, you know?”
Ten years? “Five,” I counter.
“Seven,” she returns.
I nod. “I’ll take it.”
She reaches over and grabs my hand, placing it on her lap, and I know what she’ll do next. She’ll open the glove box, pull out a marker, put that marker to my skin and create magic with her fingers. Every time she does it now, it feels exactly like the first time, only back then, she was barely my girlfriend. Now, she’s my fiancée. “It would be pretty cute though,” she says, distracted by the lines she’s creating. “A little me running around.”
“Oh, God, no. A little you would be such a pain in the ass,” I joke. “A little me on the other hand…”
“A little you would drive me insane. I can just imagine that little shit terrorizing the town, walking around as if he owns it.”
We glance at each other for one second. Two. “Yeah,” I mumble, “we should definitely hold off on the kid thing until we’re both ready.”
“Agreed,” she says, moving the marker from the back of my hand, over my wrist, and up my arm.
“How’s that full sleeve design going?” I’d asked her to come up with something to go with what I already have, and she said she would—on one condition. I wasn’t allowed to see it until it was on me. Permanently. She thought she was being so smart, as if I care what’s on there. She could design a giant dick and balls with a backward cap, aka my self-portrait, and I’d happily walk around with it just because she drew it.
“It’s definitely a work in progress.” She pauses with the marker on my skin, letting dark ink float in the creases of my flesh. She looks up and around, trying to work out where we are. “We’re going to your grandparents’?”
“Yep.” I tap her leg, a reminder to keep going, and she rolls her eyes, does as I ask.
“What are we doing there?”