“Okay. Are you hungry?” Brianna asked.
“Yes!” Katelyn bounced. “Is Thomas staying for dinner? Please?”
“Sure. As long as Thomas is okay with pizza again. I promised Cody.”
“And I promised Cody I’d work on his tree house.” Thomas stood. “I think I’ll take a hack at that until dinner.”
“I’ll help!” Katelyn beamed. “Let’s go downstairs and find some tools.”
She grabbed both Thomas’s and Brianna’s hands and led them out into the hallway, but Thomas tugged free.
“I’ll be right down,” he said, and watched his girls skip down the stairs.
Then he went back into the bedroom, picked up the picture of Michael, and set it back in its rightful place by Katelyn’s bed. “I’m sorry you aren’t here anymore but I’ll do my best to make them happy.” He stared at the picture, as if he was actually waiting for an answer from the beyond, and then left the room feeling a little bit more welcome than he had before.
…
Two days later, Brianna curled up against Thomas’s side. He still smelled like fresh pine and a hint of sweat. She’d watched him into the early evening as he put in a new floor for the tree house, after treating Katelyn to ice cream on an impromptu trip to the hardware store. He’d seemed so easy and sure of himself out there working with his hands, balancing on the tree’s branches with an agile grace that made her want him all over again. By the time he’d come in, he’d been dirty and covered in bark, nothing like the slick executive she’d met over lunch in the restaurant.
But every inch like her Thomas.
He hit play on the remote and wrapped his arms around her. She snuggled closer and murmured, “I bet this isn’t how you envisioned your Friday nights in Vegas when you asked me out the first time.”
He chuckled and hugged her close, his lips on her temple. “Nope, but I like it. Vegas is all party and booze. I like this quiet home life better.”
Hope surged in her chest. She opened her mouth, about to promise him the world if he would only stay with her and take the job in the Vegas office, but she closed it just as quickly. He had to make that decision on his own. She wouldn’t give him any pressure or place any thoughts in his head. Their time was running out, but she wouldn’t say a single word about that.
She’d just…be happy. Not stress over the future for once. “I thought Katelyn would never fall asleep tonight. Why is it that the two oldest kids fell asleep before the little one?”
He chuckled. “She’s too excited about the playground tomorrow for sleep.”
“I know. Especially since you’re coming, too.”
“Are you kidding? You said we could have ice cream. I wouldn’t miss this for anything.”
“Watch it with the ice cream. That’s half the reason she wouldn’t go to sleep tonight.”
“She asked for cookies and cream. How could I say no to that face?”
Brianna groaned. “She owns you already. Don’t give in to that face. It’s pure evil.”
“It’s pure adorable.” Thomas paused. “I’m…I’m not used to this. This family thing. Any of it. I—I kind of screwed things up with my own family.”
“With Nicole? She was an idiot.”
He fell silent, staring at the TV; its babbling nonsense noise was too loud between them. Brianna took the remote from him and stopped the movie. The look on his face was painful, a wretched struggle that said he wanted so much to go further but couldn’t. Not without her help.
She rested her hand on his chest. “You have a sister,” she said—prompting him quietly. He’d refused to talk about his sister before. Maybe he would now that they’d spent more time together. He seemed to like it here with her—and she liked having him here. All of him.
“Yeah. Erica.” He looked at Brianna, then looked away again, focusing on the wall. “It was just me and her growing up. Our parents were always busy, but we looked out for each other. Jeremy, too.”
“Who is Jeremy?”
“Her husband. He was my best friend. I guess he is again.” He gave a little shrug, but the tenseness of his body gave away the motion as a cover-up. “I don’t know why he would want to be my friend, though.”
Her heart twisted at the look of abject failure on his face. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”
“No,” he said sharply, then stopped. He practically deflated, sighing and giving her an apologetic glance. “Yes.”
She only smiled and leaned into him. This moment was fragile, and she wouldn’t pressure him. He’d only close up. Instead she let him take his time; she could almost see the wheels turning behind his eyes, thoughts gathering. Finally, he took a deep breath and began.
“I’m still not completely sure how Jeremy and I became friends. We got in a fight over something in junior high, beat each other up…and became best friends in the way only boys could be. We were different in a lot of ways. Yet the same.” He let out a brief laugh. “He didn’t have much family, either. So we were like brothers. But Erica…I think they fell in love the moment they met, even when she was still young enough to be following me around calling me Tommy.”
“Tommy,” she repeated, arching a brow.
He winced. “Yeah. I hated it. Still do. She still calls me Tommy. So does Jeremy.” The smile on his lips was fond, distant. “I guess while they were busy falling in love, so was I. With Nicole. We were stupid. Got married at eighteen. I was so love-blind that I let her mold me into the man she wanted. I got the job she wanted. Bought the house she wanted. Did anything and everything she wanted, even turning a blind eye to the men she brought home when I wasn’t there. And there were a lot of them.”
Brianna’s breath caught. How could any woman do that to someone who loved her—who was capable of the kind of raw, real love that even now she could hear in Thomas’s voice? “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
“I’m not. It’s what gave me the courage to walk away from her and realize how miserable I really was. But not before I screwed a lot of things up.” Pain hardened his voice. He looked away from Brianna and stared fixedly at the wall. Each word was clipped, forced. “She said she’d slept with Jeremy. Worse, that he’d forced her. That was back when I was still making excuses for her, when she’d pretend to be sweet and swear she’d never do it again. Deep down, I didn’t believe her. But I reacted badly. I beat the hell out of Jeremy and told him never to come back to my house. Our friendship ended the way it began…only he didn’t hit back. He just looked at me, like I’d taken the most important thing in the world from him.”