Page 71 of From the Embers
I laughed and lifted my hands in surrender. “It’s the truth.”
“No, it is not. Eason, when we made this agreement about you keeping the kids, it was so you could have the time at night to pursue music. The opportunity that was just laid out in front of you was literally the goal. All bets are off now.”
“I still have responsibilities. I have a daughter who—”
She stabbed a finger toward the covered tattoo on her hip. “We have a daughter, Eason. And I am fully capable of handling the responsibilities while you are gone. But you have to go. Taking care of our family means taking care of yourself. After all these years, this is your time. Don’t you dare ignore it in the name of responsibility. We’re a team, remember? You do your part in San Francisco and I’ll do my part at home, okay?”
My chest got tight as I stared at her in the middle of an A-list afterparty, feeling every bit of the imposter I was but still knowing I was the luckiest man in the room.
Circling my arms around her hips, I pulled her flush against my chest. “Okay, but what am I going to do without you for two weeks?”
She smiled and ran her hands up my arms to my neck. “Now that I’m not sure about. But just think of how much fun we can have when you get home. All that—”
A man’s tenor interrupted our conversation. “I’m sorry. Are you Bree?”
My head jerked up and she spun in my arms. And sure as shit, Shawn Hill was standing in front of us, his bare chest only covered by a leather jacket. Long, flowing, blond hair and the bluest eyes I had ever seen, and not looking at all like the geeky college kid I had at his age, but like a grown-ass male model who had never heard the word no from a woman in his life.
“Uhhhh,” my girlfriend who was not at all drooling mumbled.
He smiled down at her, so hypnotizing that for a second I feared she was planning to throw her bra at him.
“Hi, I’m Shawn. Levee sent me a text saying I should come talk to you.”
I wanted to be jealous. After Jessica and Rob, my ability to trust should have been nada. But it was Bree and she was hilariously star struck. Yet I still knew that Shawn could have dropped to his knees right then and there and it wouldn’t have mattered one bit.
Bree was mine.
The way it always should have been.
We spent the rest of the night making the rounds. Meeting people. Making friends. Taking pictures and sending them to Jillian. We left around four in the morning and thankfully Bree bypassed the gift bag in lieu of making love until the sun came up.
She flew home the next morning, exhausted, sated, and alone, while I made my way to San Francisco, my dreams at my fingertips and my entire heart in Atlanta.
BREE
“Ewwww!” Luna laughed, pushing the slime into a small plastic cup to make a loud fllllarp noise.
“Mom, mom, mom. Listen to mine!” Asher exclaimed.
They all giggled hysterically. Seriously, it didn’t matter how old kids were, apparently fart sounds were always funny.
Never one to be left behind, Madison frantically started shoving hers into the container, yelling, “My turn!”
“Okay, hang on, Mads. Everybody get together so we can send a picture to Eason. Come on, Luna. Daddy needs to see your beautiful smile.” Leaning on the counter with my elbows to steady my arms, I aimed the camera on my phone at them covered in school glue and food coloring. Their shirts were ruined and I had a feeling I was going to be wiping down the counters for days, but they were happy.
And because they were happy, I was happy too.
In the almost two weeks since Eason had been gone, we’d been busy. We’d made slime, painted suncatchers, and used potatoes as stamps. We’d spent almost every afternoon at the park and our nights teaching Oreo to fetch a little felt mouse. I bought a trampoline for the backyard and we’d gone through more sidewalk chalk than I’d known was possible.
And I loved every single minute of it.
The day after I’d gotten home from LA, I’d loaded up Madison and Luna and gone to the office while Asher was at school. I spent a few hours tying up loose ends while Jillian entertained the girls. Once that was done, I emailed the entire company to let them know I was taking a vacation for a few weeks—effective immediately. I must have gotten fifty responses in the first two minutes: emails, phone calls, the heads of departments stopping by my office with a laundry list of questions. I answered exactly none of them. Instead, I closed my computer, gathered my girls, and went to get Ash from school, and the four of us went out for smoothies without a single regret.
