“Understand what?” Jett asked, dropping onto Mom’s chaise and crossing his ankles.
“How right he is about Maisie’s wrongness,” Luke said.
“Ah,” Jett answered with a smirk.
“Look,” Kash started, “I get it. I really do. I’d be mad as all hell, but after everything Maisie has done? After all she’s given up, I don’t see how you couldn’t just accept her apology outright.”
“Because,” Luke clarified dramatically, “someone has very high moral standards.”
Jett folded his hands behind his head. “She apologized. Do you really think she didn’t mean it?”
“Of course I believe she meant it. That’s not the point.”
“Then what is the point?” Kash asked.
“The point is, she threw me under the bus the second the wind changed.”
“And immediately apologized,” Jett added.
“Yes, but—”
“What are we talking about?” Laney asked as she entered the study.
“About how Marcus is being a brat,” Kash answered.
“What’s new?” Laney snorted a laugh, stretching out on the floor in front of the fireplace. “Somebody hand me a pillow.”
I handed her one as hard as I could fling it, and it hit her in the face with enough force to knock her back.
“Spoilsport,” she said on a laugh, propping herself up on the pillow.
“Know-it-all,” I shot back.
She stuck her tongue out at me.
“You love Maisie,” Kash said, reeling us back in. “How many women have you loved in your life?”
“Besides Mom,” Luke added.
A collective groan sounded, and Jett flung another pillow, this time in Luke’s direction.
“None,” Laney answered for me. “He’s never even brought a girl home for dinner, but he brought Margaret Bower home to meet Mom. If that doesn’t say commitment, I don’t know what does.”
My siblings turned their gazes on me and, for once, said nothing.
I swallowed hard, wishing they would. “I do love her.”
“Enough to forgive her?” Kash asked somberly.
“Little enough to let her go?” Laney added.
“And here I thought you were violently opposed to the idea,” I said, raising a brow in her direction.
She sighed. Shrugged. “But I’m even more violently opposed to your unhappiness. Maisie makes you happy. Happy enough to whistle.” A chuckle rolled through them at my expense. “She messed up, but I think you know her well enough to know her character, her heart. Don’t make her pay for her mistake too long. And don’t deprive yourself of happiness because of your pride.”
I looked around the room, assessing them. “Not one of you thinks I should be upset?”
“No,” they answered nearly in unison, along with another voice from my shoulder.
Mom walked around the couch and sat next to me. “Did you ever know,” she began, adjusting the pillows to her comfort, “I always worried you would be the child to miss love?”
I frowned.
“Oh, not because you’re unlovable or that you’re incapable—you, Marcus, are capable of more love than perhaps all of them.” A couple of potshots were mumbled, but she continued on, “But because I feared that somehow, it would find you, and you wouldn’t recognize it. Or worse—you’d reject it on the grounds of some defied principle. You’re hurt, and you should be. What she did was unfair and unjust, and she broke your faith. So there’s only one question to answer—can you look beyond that hurt to forgive her?”
“Can you imagine your life without her?” Luke added.
“Or will you spend the rest of your life wishing you had?” Kash tacked on.
“Well then, three,” Mom said. “Three questions with your happiness on the line.”
“And your grandchildren,” Laney popped.
“Yes, and that,” Mom noted. “If I’m not swimming in grandchildren within the next five years, I’m arranging marriages for the lot of you.”
Jett groaned. “Garden club babies.”
But Laney laughed. “Thank God there are no men in garden club.”
“Oh, but there are plenty of sons,” Mom snarked, and Laney put on a spectacular grimace.
I, however, was lost in thought.
It wasn’t so much that I had to consider what they’d said—they were right, and I knew it. I’d known it all before I sat down on this stupid couch. I’d known it for three long and silent days. I’d known it since the second I last saw her.
None of this was news.
As hurt as I was and as unsure as I thought my feelings were regarding forgiveness, there had never been a future without Maisie. Was it just my pride as they’d said? Or was I afraid? Afraid of being hurt again. Afraid of being heartbroken by the only person I’d ever let see that heart, the only one who’d ever held it in their hands.
Was it my vulnerability that scared me most of all?
She had shaken my belief that she’d protect my heart as I would hers. That she would sacrifice anything to protect mine. Because I would.
Except I hadn’t.
The realization struck me like an arrow. She had protected mine. She had sacrificed more than I ever could. She’d given up everything simply because she loved me.
And I’d rejected her first fault just as devoutly as she had accused me without grounds.
But I didn’t realize my mistake.
I didn’t apologize.
I didn’t beg her forgiveness.
“I’m an asshole,” I breathed, leaning into my hands until my face was covered.
“Like I said,” Luke mentioned.
Kash punched him in the arm.
Mom laid her hand on my back, shifting it in slow, familiar circles that made me feel safe and loved. “We all are. What matters is how you make it right.”
“Like I said,” Kash said, and Luke returned the favor with a sock to his arm.
They rubbed their biceps, scowling at each other.
“So, how are you going to make it right?” Laney asked.
“An apology would probably be a good place to start,” Jett noted.
“Not just for making her wait so you could lick your wounds, but for not accepting her apology on the spot,” Kash added.
“Probably wouldn’t hurt to grovel a little,” Luke said. “Always works for me.”
“Just talk to her.” Mom smiled, lips together and eyes soft. “If you’re ever going to marry her, she’d better know you’re good at apologizing. So the grander the better, I say.”
Laney rolled her eyes. “Don’t you ever think about anything other than us getting married?”
“Of course I do.”
“Or grandchildren?” Laney’s brow climbed.
“Oh. Then, no. That’s the bulk of it.”
They laughed, but I didn’t.
I was wrong, and I had to tell her.
I had to show her.
I bolted off the couch so fast, they leaned back as if I’d blown them that direction.
“Whoa, I don’t think anyone meant to go now,” Laney said.
“I think I’ve waited long enough.”