Page 45 of Wish For Me

“Actually, please leave Alex,” she cuts in. Expression pained. “You still smell like cigars and this room is too small.”

“Fuck,” I mutter, pulling on my hair. Leaving her alone feels wrong in every way.

But Levi apparently isn’t going to give me a choice. He grabs my shoulder and heads to the door. “We’ll be back in a few minutes, Allie.” Then I’m out in the hallway. Alone with my father-in-law. Fantastic.

“She’s going to be fine, Wyatt,” he says.

“I know that.” But I’m pacing again, and I can’t keep my hands out of my hair.

“It’s a sprained ankle.” The calm in his voice is really annoying me.

“I shouldn’t have left her at the sleepover,” I mutter. “I knew she hurt herself.”

“But then you wouldn’t have been able to be there for Nix.”

That pulls me up short. I turn to Levi and see, for the first time in a long time, that he doesn’t look annoyed by my presence. “How did you—”

“I heard you. I went looking for him and saw you guys out on the porch—the screen door was open.”

“Oh.” I think about that conversation and unease twists my gut. “So you heard me tell him that I kissed her when she was twenty.” This is just what I need right now—another lecture.

“I already knew about that,” he says, like it’s no big deal at all. “Alex told me back when you first got together.”

He clears his throat. “But hearing you describe it that way, hearing you say that you waited for it to be right for her…I guess I hadn’t thought about it that way.”

“I only ever wanted what’s best for her,” I say, anger rising quick in my chest. “I don’t understand why you can’t just believe that.”

Levi sighs, looking away. “I was pissed when you guys got together.”

I snort in derision. Like I need him to tell me that. “You didn’t think I was good enough for her.” There’s no question about that—he literally said those exact words.

“I don’t think anyone is good enough for her,” he corrects. “But mostly I think I was hurt. I always cared about you like you were one of my nephews, Wyatt. It felt like you went behind my back.”

I rub my forehead, tiredness washing over me. “None of this is new information, Levi,” I say. “We’remarriednow. With all due respect man, you have to get over it.”

He chuckles, the sound a little sad. “I thought that I had. After the wedding, I really thought I’d dealt with it.”

It had felt like that, for a while. But eventually he went right back to being annoyed by my mere presence.

“Then I heard you talking about having kids.”

That pulls me up short. I turn to look at him, and there’s anger blazing in his eyes. “What did you hear?”

“You were over at the house for dinner. You were both out on the patio and when I went to bring you a beer, I heard you talking. She was crying, something about wanting a baby. And you were trying to convince her to wait.” His jaw tightens. “You said you had time, that you didn’t need to worry about it yet. And then a week later you announced you were going on tour.”

I blink at him, confused as all fuck. When had I ever told Alex I didn’t want kids? We had gone on tour, a three-month stint playing piano with the Berlin Philharmonic in Europe. We treated it like a road trip, something we’ve always loved doing together. I’d never doubted that Alex and I were right for each other, but that trip only cemented our relationship even more. Because in the midst of our heartbreak about the last miscarriage, we’d leaned on each other. We made happy memories. We kept living, together.

“It was like everything I had worried about was coming true,” Levi continues, practically spitting the words. “I always knew you were going to hold her back. It wasn’t even your age—it was howsettledyou were. You already knew what you wanted in life and my little girl was just starting out, the whole world in front of her. And there you were, shooting down what she wanted so you could focus on your career.”

I hold up a hand. I’m pretty sure if he doesn’t stop talking, I’m going to punch him in the face. “I haveneverput my career before Alex. Not ever.”

“You dragged her off on that tour—”

“To get her out of LA,” I bark. “I didn’t even want to tour with that symphony. But I thought the change of scenery would be good for her. Get her mind off—” I snap my mouth closed. Alex never told her parents about the miscarriages. She told Everly the first time, but after that, she said it was too painful. Especially when she didn’t get pregnant again. She didn’t want everyone wondering when we were going to have a baby, so she brushed off the topic whenever it came up, insisting we were happy being newlyweds. Personally, I thought it would be better to share the struggle with our family, but that was her call.

So no matter how pissed I might be at Levi’s assumptions right now, there’s no way I’m telling him.

“Get her mind off what?” he asks, eyes narrowed.