“I promise you I know what I’m doing.”
“I’m not sure I believe you.”
“Theyknow what they’re doing,” I tried. “Does that help?”
“Marginally,” he muttered.
“Would it help to meet them?” I asked.
Hunter breathed deep, exhaling into the small space left between our bodies. “Is it already that serious?”
I thought about Sophie’s smooth legs stretched out across my lap, her head nestled on Daniel’s stomach, her hands holding a plate of nachos for him and me to pick from while Daniel tried to find something mindless for us to watch. He’d picked some horrible CGI shark movie and Sophie’s disgusted laugh had sounded like church bells to me.
“Yeah. Yes,” I told him.
“They’re getting married.”
“Yes.”
“To each other.”
I swallowed hard, the reality still much sharper than I wanted it to be. “Yes.”
“And you’re okay with that?” he pressed.
If I wanted to be with them, I had to be okay with it. There was no other way around it and there was also no way I’d ever even suggest or hint that they shouldn’t get married. If that was something they came to on their own, that was another story entirely, but they had so much history and so much love, I knew that wasn’t a possibility.
“They are worth it,” I answered, which was as much of an answer as I could give him in the middle of my office with a workday pressing down at my back. It was true, but the truth sometimes hurt. The problem of course, it hurt less when I was with them, but I couldn’talwaysbe with them.
“Then yes, I want to meet them.”
“I’ll make it happen. And you’ll see it’s a good thing.”
“No more self-destructive decision-making please,” Hunter grumbled, and I turned out my thumb to seal my answer with a kiss.
“I’m mostly back on track. I swear.”
Hunter looked at me like he didn’t believe me, but he kissed his thumb and then let our hands untangle themselves.
“You’ll be good?” he asked, heading for the door.
I nodded before I spoke, the truth of it settling in my bones before the words left my mouth. “Of course I’ll be okay. I am, after all, Marshall’s son.”
Hunter huffed out a laugh, clearing his throat before knocking his knuckles against the door frame in agreement. We were all the product of our upbringings, of our environment, and we owed Marshall more than we’d ever be able to repay him.
CHAPTER 26
FINN
In the end, Andrew had plans Friday and had to pass on dinner, which ended up working out well because I’d planned to stage my own intervention, this time with Marshall as the victim.
Subject.
Whatever.
I made sure to arrive at Cunningham’s first. I’d shared some of my revelations with Smith and Hunter, and the two of them arrived shortly after I’d ordered myself a drink. The whiskey was not enough to calm my nerves, and by the time Marshall strolled in, five minutes ahead of our normal arrival time, I wanted to jump out of my skin. It was one thing to be grateful for him in my head or in the privacy of my own home. It was another to sit across from him and tell him that to his face.
Was it even important?