Beckett was quiet for a moment, and then he was moving, lowering himself to the step below me. “It’ll take nine months if I’m lucky. We’ve got lots of time.” He ran a hand up my jeans-clad thigh to my waist. “But I’d like you to think about moving in there with me when it’s time.”
My mouth fell open. “But we just started…” I couldn’t even find the right words to describe what we were. Dating? Sleeping together? Friends with benefits?
Beckett pinned me with a stare. “This might be new, but I know one thing for sure. I don’t want to go to sleep without you. I want to get you a million different kinds of takeout to try. I want to make fun of dumb commercials with you. I want to rub your feet while you read. What I don’t want is a life without you in it.” He opened his mouth as if he would say more and then closed it again.
Tears burned the backs of my eyes, a few slipping free. Beckett wiped them away with his thumbs. I leaned my forehead against his. “I don’t want a life without you either. And that terrifies me. I’ve been pretty determined to make a life I’m happy with all on my own.”
“And you’ve succeeded at that. But a life with others is so much richer. That’s what I’ve realized by coming back home. My life these past years has been good, but it wasn’t truly full. You don’t get that without letting others in. There’s risk, sure, but there are so many more rewards.”
“I’ll move with you when it’s time,” I whispered.
Beckett jerked back. “You will?”
I let out a laugh. “You sound shocked.”
“I am. I thought I’d have to bug you about it for the next however many months.”
I leaned in and took his lips in a long, slow kiss. “No convincing required.”
He grinned against my mouth. “Maybe I could convince you to go upstairs and—”
The sound of an engine cut off his words. We both looked up to see an unfamiliar truck pulling to a stop in front of the house. Beckett pushed to his feet as a familiar figure hopped out. Ginny was in another of her long, colorful skirts, and I thought there might be even more necklaces looped around her neck.
She gave us a wave as she hurried up the walk. “I’ve got a little something for Addie.”
Beckett looked down at me in question.
“I’m good.”
“Do you need some privacy?”
Ginny waved him off. “No, I’m just making a drop-off.” She extended the old cigar box to me. “I’ve been keeping these to give to you.”
I took the box on instinct. “Should I open it now?”
“Whenever you’re ready. I wanted you to remember just how much your mother loved you, even if she wasn’t always perfect.”
A lead weight settled in my stomach as I stared at the box, but Ginny was already walking away. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I registered the sound of an engine starting up, and a vehicle driving away, but I was focused on the box. I slowly raised the lid.
The first photo was a sucker punch to the stomach. I was probably three or four, and my mom was swinging me around in a circle. We were at my favorite park, the one we were only allowed to go to on our rare trips into town.
The next one hurt just as much. I was perched on Mom’s lap, curled into a ball as she read to me. She had given me my love of reading. “You can go anywhere in the pages of a book, Little Mouse.”
I slammed the box closed. I couldn’t do this. I set it on the steps and pushed to my feet. I needed to move. To do something that didn’t involve me circling the drain of my brain.
Beckett followed as I paced. “Want me to get rid of them?”
I shook my head.
“Hide them?”
I paused. “Maybe.”
“You just let me know what you need, and I’ll do it.”
I wrapped my arms around his waist and burrowed my face into his chest. “Why is it never simple? She was a good mom. I have these wonderful memories…”
“But she left.”