“My mother said that?” I ask, stunned. Mom wasn’t warm last night, but she hadn’t seemed aggressive toward Aria, either. “Are you sure you didn’t misunderstand her?”
“Those were her exact words, Nash,” she says in a voice that dares me to challenge her. “That I was using you to help pay for things for my baby until someone better came along. And that you deserved better than a user like me.”
I shake my head, but not because I don’t think Aria’s telling the truth. I can’t believe my mother had the nerve to go behind my back and meddle in my life like that. I’m thirty-one, for God’s sakes.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask. “Why did you lie and say you overhead some woman talking at a wedding instead of telling me that my mother—”
“I was trying to keep the peace,” she says, her breath rushing out. “I know how much you love your mom, and I didn’t want it to come down to some kind of ‘her or me’ situation. And I guess…” She sighs. “I guess I was worried I wouldn’t be the one you’d choose.”
She crosses her arms again, making her breasts swell above the lacy edge of her red pajama top.
She certainly doesn’t look like a child now. To me she never did. That first day at camp, in that crazy dress, with her hair hanging wild to her waist, she’d been the sexiest thing I’d ever seen. But Bob March is never going to understand that I didn’t see Aria the same way a father would, or realize that, for all my size, I’d only been a kid back then, too.
And I can talk to Mom and make it clear she isn’t allowed to speak to my wife that way, but if Mom dislikes Aria that much, I know it will take time—lots of it—for her to warm up to the idea of us together.
If she ever does.
I inherited my ability to hold a grudge from Mom’s side of the family, no doubt about that.
“Aren’t you going to say something?” Aria asks softly.
“I don’t know what to say.” I look down at Felicity, my heart twisting at the thought of losing her or her mama. They’re already such a big part of my life. The best part.
“But you believe me?” she whispers, her voice breaking.
“Of course, I believe you, baby,” I hurry to assure her, not wanting to be responsible for more tears this morning. “I’m sorry. I just got tangled up in my head for a minute.”
Aria’s shoulders slump and her breath rushes out as she nods, making it clear how worried she’d been that I would turn on her. I cross the kitchen, pulling her against my chest with my free arm. In my other, Skeeter coos around her bottle, seeming to approve of the family hug.
The sound is another knife slipped between my ribs.
“I’m on your side.” I kiss the top of Aria’s wild morning hair, my chest tight. “Mom had no right to talk to you that way. I’ll make it clear she’s not allowed to do anything like that again if she wants me to keep coming around, but…”
“But what?” Aria tenses in my arms, as if she can sense where my thoughts are headed.
I sigh. “I don’t know how to change this. Any of it. Your dad is always going to hate me, and it sounds like my mom isn’t too keen on you, either.” I clench my jaw, hating what I’m about to say, but knowing there’s no avoiding it. “If we stay together, we’ll have to deal with the reality that we may never have the kind of easy, extended family dynamic we used to have ever again.”
Aria blinks up at me, but she doesn’t say a word.
“I know how much you depend on your family,” I continue “How much you love them and how much fun you have together. I wouldn’t want to feel like I was driving a wedge between you and the people who mean the most to you. Marriage should add to the number of people you can count on, not subtract from them.”
“But I love you,” she says. “More than anything in the world, except Felicity. I know it’s only been a couple of weeks, but…” She trails off, biting her lip as her eyes begin to fill. “But if you don’t feel the same way…”
“Hell, yes, I feel the same way,” I say, my voice rough with emotion as my arm tightens around her waist. “You’re all I think about. If I could spend every moment of every day with you and Skeeter, I would. I’ve never been as happy as I’ve been the past two weeks. Never. Not even when I was a kid. But we need to decide—”
“What’s to decide?” She cups my cheek, rubbing her thumb across the stubble I’ve yet to shave away. “Love like this doesn’t come along every day. We’d be stupid to let my dad or your mom or anyone else take this away from us. Or Felicity. She loves you as much as I do, and I can’t imagine a better stepfather exists on the planet.”