“I… wasn’t ready.” Her eyes are wide, and she shakes her head. “I don’t understand. What’s the rush?”
“We won’t get married right away,” I assure her. “He proposed, but it was impulsive. He didn’t even have a ring. I guess that’s how he proposed to his first wife, too. Once Hayden makes his mind up to do something, he just does it, to hell with proper form.”
“Okay… So you’re engaged but not getting married.”
“Well, I mean, he wants to get married eventually. He’s just not in any rush to the altar. But he is hoping we’ll move in with him. With them,” I correct, my heart flipping over in its cavity.
“Them,” she echoes woodenly.
“But we don’t have to,” I tell her quickly. “We don’t have to do any of this. Nothing has to change. We can do senior year right here, just like we planned. If you’re not comfortable with it, I’ll wait. From the beginning, I told him he’ll have to take a rain check if he wants to go out with me and wait until next year. We can still do that if you’re not comfortable with this.”
“I’m not going to tell you not to get engaged, Mom. I just…” She looks down at her lap. “I mean, you know how it is with Landon. How could we possibly live in the same house?”
“Well, I haven’t seen it yet, but I have it on good authority it’s a pretty big house.”
The corner of her mouth tugs up at my attempt at levity, but my stomach knots up because she isn’t comfortable.
“We—we don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. Wewon’t.I don’t want to if you don’t want to. But if it changes anything, Hayden swears that if Landon acts up and won’t get along with you, if he makes you feel uncomfortable or unsafe living there, he’ll make him move out.”
Her eyes widen to approximately the size of saucers. “He’ll kick Landon out of his own house?”
I nod. “Obviously, he doesn’t want to, but if Landon can’t behave himself, yes. Yes, he will.” I watch her face as she grapples with that new piece of information. “Really, it gives you power over him instead of the other way around.”
“He won’t like that,” she mutters.
“I don’t know if he knows the precise terms. We can talk to Hayden more about it for clarification, but… that’s the reality. Hayden wants us to resolve this and move on if we can, but your comfort is our utmost priority.”
I sit there with her and go over all the facts until she’s made a decision we both feel comfortable with. I know it’s probably unconventional going to my teenage daughter for approval on my engagement instead of the other way around, but I don’t care how other people do things.
Hayden isn’t in the living room or the kitchen when we come back downstairs.
I start to panic that maybe he came to his senses and left, but we find him sitting on the front porch, watching the Hartley house.
Parker and I join him. Brent is piling luggage into the back seat of his car, and Lisa’s standing in the driveway yelling something about custody.
“What’s going on over there?” Parker asks tentatively.
“I forgot to call off my dog,” Hayden says simply. He shrugs, apparently not too concerned about it. “Oh, well. He might not have littered your lawn with condoms, but he still behaved inappropriately toward you in the garage.”
It’s my turn to smirk. “Now who has to put a quarter in the inappropriate jar?”
Hayden rolls his eyes good-naturedly, but he’s more focused on finding out how our talk went than pocket change. “Any news?”
I nod solemnly, then walk over and sit down on his lap.
He lifts my legs and drapes them over his, then links his arms together around my waist. “Good news?”
I sigh heavily. Keeping my face as serious as I can, I tell him, “It looks like you’re stuck with me.”
A grin splits his handsome face, and he looks at Parker for confirmation. “Yeah?”
Parker smiles. “I guess you’re engaged. And we won’t talk about how crazy that is, so… congratulations. I guess you get me for a daughter, after all.”
I glance back at Parker, my gaze questioning.
She rolls her eyes good-naturedly. “Just something he said to me when we talked at the police station.”
“Well, I am a man who goes after what he wants,” Hayden says deviously, leaning in to kiss me.