Gone.
G.O.N.E for this girl.
“Missed you too, sweet girl,” I whisper back.
She takes the seat beside me. “Gimme.” She holds her hands out for Knox, and he smiles.
I hand him over, partly because I want them both in my arms and it’s easier if she’s holding him, and partly because I know she’s attached to my boy. As soon as I have Knox transferred to her arms, I reach behind her, grip her hips, and lift them onto my lap. She doesn’t even yelp in surprise anymore; she expects my caveman antics. It’s not something I can control, or have even tried to. I want them close, always.
“So, what are the two of you into?” she asks Tyler and my sister.
“I asked them to stop by,” I say, rubbing circles on her legs.
“You all want to do dinner?” she asks.
“Actually, babe, I have a surprise for you.”
She looks at me over her shoulder. “You do?”
“Yeah, Reagan is actually going to keep Knox, so I thought we could go away for the night.”
She looks down at Knox, and I can see that she’s also struggling with leaving him. She does at night, but it’s always with me. “We have a date, just us, tomorrow night,” she reminds me.
“I rented us a cabin, up at Thompson Lake.”
“Seriously?” she asks.
I think it’s finally starting to set it. “I don’t have any clothes. We have to stop by my house.” She looks at Reagan. “Are you sure you can keep him? We can take him with us.”
My sweet girl.
“It’s all good, Kendall,” Reagan assures her. “I’ve known for a couple of weeks.”
Kendall hugs Knox closer. “When do we leave?”
“As soon as you feel like you’ve had enough loving from the little man. I had Dawn pack you a bag. It’s already in the truck.”
“Hey, bud, you get to have a sleepover with Aunt Reagan,” Kendall continues to talk to my son. He may not understand her, but he hangs onto every word. His eyes follow her as she talks, never looking away.
“You be a good boy,” she tells Knox, and her voice breaks.
“You okay?” I whisper in her ear.
“Why am I upset? He’s not mine. I mean, it’s . . .” She stands against my attempt to keep her on my lap, hands Knox to me, and walks out of the room.
I stand to follow her and Reagan holds her hand up. “Ridge, stop. She loves him; this is a hard situation for her. Let her have a minute.
I take a step toward the hall and Tyler stands too. “She needs a minute, Ridge. Think about it. She’s been with you since he was, what, a week or so old? She’s here all the time.” “She leaves him with you at night, but no one else. She wears her heart on her sleeve, that one,” Reagan adds.
I wait as long as I can stand it before I hand Knox to Reagan and go in search of her. I knock lightly on the bathroom door and she opens it slowly, silent tears rolling down her cheeks.
“I’m sorry. I know I have no right, and I’m trying to control it, I just . . . I’m sorry. I’m excited about going away, I am. I want time with you.”
I step into the small half bath and close the door behind me. Hands on her hips, I lift her to sit on the counter. I pull a tissue out of the box on the back of the toilet and wipe her cheeks.
“You love him, Kendall. I get that. Hell, it causes all kinds of emotions to swirl inside me. He’s a part of me.”
“I do and he is, but he’s such a sweet baby, and I miss him when I’m not with you. I miss you when I’m not with you,” she says, looking down at her lap.
“Baby, look at me.” I wait for her sad blue eyes to meet mine. “We miss you too. Both of us. We love you.” Shit! This is not how I wanted to tell her. I had it all planned out for tonight—to tell her I’ve fallen in love with her, make love to her, candles, a bottle of wine, all that. I had it all planned and I blurt it out in my bathroom.
Real smooth, jackass.
I need to fix this. I cup her face in my hands so she can’t look away. She hasn’t said a word, and that scares the hell out of me. “I’m in love with you. All of me, every second, every hour, every day that I spend with you, that love grows, and I ache until I can see you again.” Her silent tears continue to fall, but she remains silent. “It gets me here,” I say, holding our combined hands over my heart. “Seeing you with my son. The way you love him.”
“I do,” she says, her voice soft. “I love both of you so much, and it’s been fast and perfect, and I wouldn’t change it for anything. I’m just scared that it’s going to go away. That the universe will fight against me, against us being this happy.”
Not gonna lie, I’m choke up. “You love me?” I ask her.
She laughs. “You caught that, did you?”
“I did.” I kiss her tear-covered lips then rest my forehead against hers. “This is real, Kendall. This is me and you and that little boy in there, living life. Who cares if it was fast or what others might think, even the universe? It’s ours, and that’s all that matters.”
I am such a baby. I know he’s not mine, but God does it feel like he is. I love that little boy with everything inside me. If I lose Ridge, I lose Knox, and I think that’s what threw me over the edge. It hit me that those two have become my world in such a small amount of time.
I wouldn’t come back from losing them.
“I’m sure they think I’ve lost my marbles,” I say into Ridge’s chest. He’s holding me close as I sit on the small counter in his bathroom.