Love, Laughter, and Happily Ever Afters Collection (43 page)

“You’re already in it,” replied Tessa sleepily as she too started to drift off to sleep. “In my book, and in Skylar’s, you’re definitely already in it.” She stifled a giant cat-yawn. “Maybe we should stop for coffee. I can’t seem to keep my eyes open.”

“Go on and sleep, babe.”

“No,” she protested weakly. “Then I’m going to be wired when we get home, and I’ll be up all night listening to you snoring.”

His heart leapt up to his throat the moment he heard her say the word
home
. She’d never done that before, even by accident. The only home he’d ever heard her reference was her childhood home that she’d lost to foreclosure because she’d been unable to keep up the payments alone during her father’s endstage. She’d only ever said ‘my place’ or ‘my apartment’ or ‘your house.’ But never, simply, ‘home.’

With an intensity that truthfully stunned him a little, he wanted to hear her say it again, keep saying it.

Forever.

BRIAN WAS STILL closing the front door when Skylar dropped her backpack on the ground and bee-lined it straight for the cordless.

“Hold it!” he called out. “Laundry hamper and shower first, missy. You’re getting sand everywhere and everything you’re wearing is somehow still damp from the ocean.” Could be because the girl had spent an hour driving the quad through the shoreline like it was a jet ski on four wheels. “You can call Becky afterward.”

With a mock salute, Skylar rushed down the hall and called out on her way to her room, “If Becky’s not doing anything, can she come over later?”

“Did you finish all your homework?”

Silence.

Brian sighed and shook his head. “How about you tell Becky to bring her homework with her and then you two can pretend to study while you tell her about the trip. Then, afterward, you two can study for real with pizza as an incentive.”

“Deal!”

Tessa wrapped her arms around his waist. “Nicely done. It’s always impressive to see a hall-of-famer at work.”

So she remembered that. He wondered if she remembered the rest of what she’d said in the car, too.

He brought her in for a kiss. “We should hurry and shower too. Do you want to save some electricity
and
water by—”

She clapped her hand over his mouth and gave him the cutest little scowl. Adorable rabbit. Even though Skylar was ecstatic that they were dating, Tessa was always extra mindful when Skylar was in the house. No showering together—especially not in the dark—no PDAs, and no sleepovers.

Though he was starting to wear her down on the latter two.

As Tessa ambled away to take a shower in his master bath—alone—he noticed a cell phone on the ground near her bag, but not a smartphone. A flip phone that he didn’t recognize. “Tessa? Do you have two cell phones?”

Tessa froze, patted her pockets quickly and spun around to check his hands. Eyes zooming in on the phone, she rushed over to swipe it from him.

“I found it on the ground; it must’ve fallen out of your pocket. Did you drop it while you were riding? It’s got a big crack in it.”

That seemed to alarm her even more. Frantic now, she flipped the phone open and began madly hitting the keys.

“Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

“I shouldn’t have taken it with me,” she cried out softly, sobbing as she fell to the floor. “But I wanted to take her with me.”

That made absolutely no sense to him. But he didn’t think this was one of her cute eccentricities. Seeing tears streaming down her face for the first time, true and real panic filled his veins. He raced over to pull her into his arms.

“Tessa, honey, tell me what’s going on, please. Let me help you. Is it your phone? Because if it’s broken, we can fix it or replace it.”

“I can’t replace it. And it was already broken.”

More incomprehensible answers.

“Talk to me, baby. Please.”

“It was the last thing I had left.”

Oh god.

Tessa was curled in a ball against his chest, clutching the phone to her heart. “It’s an old phone that doesn’t work anymore, but it’s the only thing I had left that still had Willow alive in it.” Tessa opened it again and pressed at the buttons. Slowly, carefully this time, staring at the screen as if it would light up any second now.

It broke his heart when the phone didn’t turn on.

“Now I’ve lost her forever.” Hot tears slipped down her cheeks. “Willow was the
only one
who used to remember my birthday. Did I ever tell you that? The only one. Every year, my mom would forget…or rather, she just didn’t remember because she never bothered to. My dad, on the other hand, would remember when he could, but he was usually bone tired from working all day in construction, and all night as a handyman that it’d usually just end up being an apologetic, belated wish, weeks later.”

“But every single year, Willow remembered. Even with everything she was going through, even if she was in the ICU, she’d always, always remember and wish me a happy birthday.” She cradled the phone in her hands and held it up to her chest. “The year Willow’s memory started going, she’d taken my phone from my bag and told me to leave it with her for the day. I figured she was going to have the nurses help her bedazzle it or something so I didn’t think anything of it. In fact, when I found it the next day on her nightstand looking exactly the same, I’d forgotten that she’d wanted it for some reason. I didn’t remember until I got the ping on my calendar the next year. Willow’s dementia had fully set in by then so she hadn’t remembered it was my birthday, and I was prepared for that. But when I got that ping on my phone, I started bawling like a baby.”

Tessa looked up at him, a trembling smile peeking through her tears. “Willow had left me a calendar entry to wish me a happy birthday for the following year, knowing her disease would make her forget. And not just that, but she’d included a little note as well on the calendar agenda. A note she knew I’d love.”

“For years, Willow and I used to dream up these fantastic trips that we’d take together. We’d imagine that there was some miraculous cure for Huntington’s and she’d be all better so we could travel the world. And as the years passed and our dreams got bigger, we started borrowing books from the library and checking out specials on TV and the internet—anything to learn about these far-off places.”

Tessa shook her head, remembering something only she could see. “On that birthday calendar note, Willow had listed Greece as our dream destination of the day and eating our way through the country as the getaway goal we’d discussed.” Eyes closed, she said softly, “And just like that, it was like she was right there with me again, dreaming with me.”

She smiled in fierce, sisterly pride. “The truly amazing part was that by that year, Willow’s hands were almost completely rigid, similar to Jilly’s. So I can only imagine how long it took her to input all of those words.” Tessa’s fingers ran over the phone again. “It wasn’t until the following year that I discovered it probably took her a whole lot longer than I’d imagined. There was another message that year. And then another the year following. Nine years now, and the calendar pings haven’t stopped. I’ve gotten a birthday note from Willow every year since, and for that one day a year, we’ve traveled all over the globe together—boated around New Zealand, visited hot springs in Japan...”

Trailing off, she said softly, “I don’t actually know how many she input. Never wanted to look and ruin the surprise. Instead, I just bought dozens of new batteries and made sure to keep the phone stored safe, even after a lot of the phone’s other functions stopped working five years ago. I usually only taken it out of storage on my birthdays.”

Her voice crumbled. “This Pismo Beach trip… It was the first vacation trip of my life and I wanted her to share it with me. So I brought the phone with me. To keep her close on our first real getaway adventure. I even thought about putting my own calendar note as a new memory. The first new memory we’d have together. ATV racing in Pismo beach.” She buried her face against his chest and wept. “It was stupid.”

Brian held her tight. “No, honey. It wasn’t. She would’ve loved it. For nine years, she’s taken you around the world. And today, you got to take her.”

“But now the phone is broken for good,” she whispered in agony. “When those calendar pings would come each year, for that whole day, I’d be able to see her face crystal clear in my mind, and hear her voice as if she was sitting right next to me. It’s like I had her back, like she was alive again for one day every year in this phone. And it was just for me. My one little birthday present. The only one I’d get, from the only person really who’d ever cared to remember and celebrate my being born.”

Claws of pain and sympathy squeezed over his throat.

“Now she’s finally gone. And even though I’ve had no family for nearly a decade, this is the first time I feel like I’m truly, completely alone in the world.”

The last confession came out as a hoarse murmur and dissolved into broken tears.

He held her tight and just let her cry. Smoothing her hair back, he asked gently, “Tessa, what can I do?”

She answered quietly, almost numbly, “Can you take me back to my apartment please?”

Pain lanced at his heart. “Anything but that, honey. There’s no way I’m leaving you alone by yourself.”

“Please, Brian. I know you think I’m so strong, but I’m not always. Not now. Not over this. I just want to go to bed. Escape for a while. Cry myself into tomorrow and hope it hurts just a little bit less come morning.”

She looked like she was hanging on by the thinnest of threads. When another heartbreaking tear slid down her cheek, he finally relented, “Okay, sweetheart. Just let me make a quick call first.”

A half hour later, he was in Tessa’s bed, holding her under the covers and silently providing what little comfort he could until she eventually fell asleep.

He’d asked Abby to watch Skylar for the night so he could stay with Tessa. That was the only way he was going to let her stay here. But if it were up to him, they wouldn’t be here at all. Her bedroom was worse than her living room. It wasn’t a home. The room was perfectly functional, yes, but it lacked the warmth that a home should have, the warmth born and bred by family.

Thinking of Tessa’s family brought him right back to the one person in her family that wasn’t plagued with HD. Tessa’s mother. God, his stomach felt like it was being sent through a meat grinder every time he thought about what her mother had forced upon her when she’d been even younger than Skylar was now, how she’d treated Tessa then and continued to treat her now.

The fact that Tessa had turned into the strong, amazing woman she was just made him all the more impressed with her, in awe of her.

That much more in love with her.

And that fact was what made bringing her back here so much tougher. She didn’t belong here in this apartment. Not anymore. She deserved a
home
. She deserved a family so she didn’t feel like she was alone in the world.

And more and more, he wanted that home and family to be one they shared together.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

TESSA WAS BEAT.

It’d been a grueling week—one that she hadn’t been ready to face after her meltdown last weekend. She’d had three grant proposals rejected on Monday, and discovered that one of her freelancers had submitted an ‘accidentally’ plagiarized piece on Tuesday. The clean-up for that had been hell. Then to add insult to injury, she’d caught a nasty bug midweek that had made the entire rest of the week move at a snail’s pace. Now that it was finally the weekend, part of her just wanted to crawl into bed and sleep the day away, but thankfully, the rest of her was running on fumes and excitement as she finished up the dish she was taking over to Brian’s house for the picnic Skylar had planned for today.

Tessa had never been to a picnic before, and the invitation had been the one bright point in her week. Plus, spending the whole morning making one of the desserts that could always make her smile—even when she felt she couldn’t—had actually left her feeling almost like her old self by the time afternoon rolled around.

After parking in the driveway behind Connor’s Charger, Tessa went around to the side gate to head out into Brian’s backyard. The sizzle of the grill and chorus of chatter greeted her like a warm summer wave.

“Ooh, ooh, she’s here!” Skylar jumped up to give her a runaway-train hug. “Okay, now we can officially start the picnic!”

Brian came over and slid his arm around. “Skylar apparently has an announcement she wants to make before we start eating. And she didn’t want to start until you got here—she said she wanted her whole family to hear it.”

Family. Tessa looked around at the sea of happy faces. Brian and Skylar, Skylar’s grandparents, Connor and Abby, Becky and her parents and siblings.

Yes, this was definitely a family. One that Tessa would be honored to be a part of, in whatever capacity.

“Alright, kiddo. You’re up,” called out Brian, giving the floor to Skylar.

“Hi everyone!” Skylar waved. “Okay, I know everyone’s been really worried about me so I wanted to make a small announcement. Over the last couple of weeks, I got to talk with so many amazing, inspiring kids and adults who are living with HD.” A small smile was directed Tessa’s way. “All of them are out there living, dreaming, and fighting. Making the most of their lives...more than I’ve been making of mine lately.” Her voice sobered a little. “Here I am, spending so much time thinking about what
might
happen
if
I have the HD gene when there are kids out there who’ve told me they only dream about having everything that I have. The ‘normal’ life I haven’t really appreciated.”

She took in a deep breath. “That’s why I don’t want to do it anymore. I want to focus on living, and being a kid. It doesn’t make sense to waste a whole lifetime being afraid of my disease instead of being happy with my life. These kids I met can’t have a ‘normal’ childhood but so far, I can. I’ve just been to stuck on the what-ifs to see that. And I don’t think it’s fair to all my new friends—or myself—if I didn’t live my life to the fullest, without worrying about the HD gene until I absolutely have to. So”—a strong smile spread across her face—“
for now
, I’ve decided
not
to do the genetic testing.”