That’s when I feel it. A tiny, fluttering spark of something that I haven’t allowed myself to feel in over two years strikes me out of nowhere.
Love.
Fucking hell.
I love this kid, and I’ve just met him. I still love Julian. I love Mark and Sierra for bringing this moment to me and giving JJ my name and offering me their forgiveness.
I…I love them.
And I love my own child. My peanut.
More than anything…I love Lynsey.
Fuck.
“Are you guys in town for a while?” I ask, lifting the baby up to my nose to feel his warm head against my cheek.
“We’re here until Sunday,” Sierra replies with a smile.
I press my lips together and gently hand the baby back over. “I have someone I’d like you to meet.”
Mark smiles. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
“But I have to take care of some things first.” I shove a nervous hand through my hair and scrub it over the strands for a moment, trying to clear my head. Trying to think. “Can I call you tomorrow and arrange a time once I sort things out?”
Mark smiles knowingly. “My number hasn’t changed.”
And just like that, I’m running from my dark past and chasing what could be my bright future.
The next day, it’s dark out when I pound on Dean’s front door. His little townhouse on the outskirts of Boulder looks nothing like mine, where Lynsey and the baby belong. Because they’re my family. My everything. It’s why I’ve spent the past twenty-four hours cleaning up the mess I made of my office and transforming Lynsey’s room into the most beautiful nursery I’ve ever seen.
Thankfully, Max, Miles, and Sam were willing to help because after Lynsey left, I’d broken all the shit I had spent hours putting together into a million pieces. I needed help to repair everything I’d damaged physically. Now it’s time to repair everything I’d damaged emotionally.
I’m all in with Lynsey and it took meeting JJ and facing my past to make me realize I’ve been all in for months now. Lynsey is the one who opened my heart and made it possible for me to embrace Mark and his son. To remember Julian with love and fondness not pain and guilt. She healed me so I can give her all of me now.
I want to give her the world.
And if Dean opens this door and says he can give her more than I can, he is dead fucking wrong.
Dean opens the door and stands before me in nothing but a pair of boxers. It’s dark in the house, and he squints at the stoop light just as I catch sight of a familiar brunette behind him wrapped in nothing but a sheet.
Rage sparks inside me, and I pull back my fist and cold-cock Dean square in the face. He drops to the floor like a rock, and I shake out my throbbing hand while stomping past his groaning body to Lynsey.
I stop mid-step when the brunette turns.
Not Lynsey.
Fuuuck.
Dean has blood seeping out of his nose.
“You fucking idiot!” Dean bellows, clutching his face. “I think you broke my nose.”
Moments later, we’re in Dean’s bathroom, and I’m tending to his injury. The strange woman ran upstairs to hide from the deranged man who’s just reset the bone of the person he assaulted and is holding pressure to the bridge until the bleeding stops.
Dean’s voice is nasally when he says, “I’d better not get a fucking bill for this.”
I roll my eyes. “Just tell me where Lynsey is, and I’ll get out of here.”
He jerks his face out of my hands and replaces my fingers with his. “She’s at Kate’s, you fucking psychopath.”
My brows furrow because I was with Miles yesterday, and he never said a word. “She hasn’t been staying with you?”
“No,” he groans. “She refused to stay with me out of respect for you. You have no idea how much she loves you, you dick.”
My chest aches with those words because I’m terrified they might not still be true. After everything I’ve said, everything I’ve done…what if she doesn’t feel the same?
“I love her too.” The words are strange in my mouth. Strange but true.
Dean pins me with a serious look. “You love Lynsey?”
I nod. “I wouldn’t have assaulted you if I didn’t.”
Dean’s brows lift, and shockingly, the corner of his mouth tilts into a smile. “Well at least now I know you’ll fucking fight for her.”
Door number two proves a lot more fruitful because Kate answers with a big smile. “It’s about damn time.”
I exhale a heavy breath and look past her into the house. “Is Lynsey here?”
Miles catches my eye and offers me a guilty smile from where he’s seated on the couch in the living room. “What’s up, Dr. Dick?”
My lips thin at his greeting. “You could have told me she was here.”
He shakes his head. “Always take your lady’s side. If you knew that, you wouldn’t be in your current predicament.”
“Can I see Lynsey please?” My body vibrates with tension over the thought of seeing her again. It feels like it’s been months when, in reality, it’s only been a week.
Kate nods and stares at me while screaming at the top of her lungs, “Lynsey, your grand gesture is here!” Kate’s face morphs as she jabs her finger into my chest and narrows her eyes. “You better have a big-ass speech ready, or I will drop to my knees and junk punch you so hard you won’t get an erection for a month.”
I hold my hands up in surrender, and then my attention is diverted when Lynsey appears behind Kate.
She wears floral pajama pants and a pink camisole, way too beautiful to be so far away from me right now.
“Can we talk?” I ask as she steps closer to the door.
She shoots a nervous look at Kate who rubs her arm encouragingly. With a deep sigh, she steps onto the large front porch. The yellow sconce light casts a dim glow over us in the middle of this hot, summer night.
I glance at Lynsey’s belly, itching to touch it as I hesitantly ask, “How are you?”
“I’m fine.” She rubs her arms and moves by me to stand in front of the porch swing.
“Are you cold?” I ask, hooking my thumb toward the door. “We can go inside.”
She shakes her head. “I’m hot all the time lately.”
“Hormones,” I state by way of explanation.
She pulls her lower lip into her mouth and chews on it. “What did you want to talk about?”
“Us.” I shrug my shoulders. “I miss you, Jones. I miss you like crazy.”
Her cheeks puff as she blows a deep breath out of her mouth. “I miss you too, Josh, but—
“But,” I interject, moving to stand in front of her. My hands itch to hold her. My tongue craves the taste of her mouth. My body is desperate to feel her against me. “But I was a fucking dick.”
She nods sadly. “Major dick.”
“Dr. Dick,” I add in hopes of making her smile.
She doesn’t smile. “None of this is funny, Josh.”
“I know, and I didn’t come here to make light of this. I came here to win you back.”
“It’s not going to be that easy, Josh. I want more than what we were before. I’m in love with you, like crazy in love with you, and I don’t want this fractured version of you. I want all of you—the good and bad. I want you to deal with your past. It’s why I called John Hopkins nineteen times until I got in touch with Kayla, who’s really freaking hard to get in contact with, by the way.”