Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 126602 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126602 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
“What?” I giggled at her reaction. “Okay, no sunbathing then.”
“No. Not that.” She covered her face and groaned.
“Oh, my God, what?”
Lowering her hands, Val blushed in the mirror. “I’d like to look super pretty for another reason...”
My brows lifted.
“I’m sort of crushing on my ex.”
Air left my lungs in a whoosh. “O-Oh!” I stammered. “That’s…cool. I had no idea.”
Oh, shit. Shitshitshitshit.
This was awkward.
“Yeah, it’s been slowly becoming something I can’t ignore,” she said timidly, but I knew it wasn’t because of who she was sharing this with.
Val had no idea about Sean and me. Neither did his girls. We hadn’t gotten around to saying anything because we were too busy enjoying it ourselves. We were letting go and letting things happen. And anyway, we were still pretty new. Unless you saw us together, you wouldn’t know, and the only time Val had seen Sean and me together was at the girls’ dance recital, and that night had been all about them.
Maybe we should’ve said something.
“I mean, I don’t know, to say I’m crushing on Sean is weird when I’ve been in love with him since I was seventeen, but that’s what it feels like.”
My heart began to pound.
I kept my focus on my work—section, paint, fold foil, repeat. Section, paint, fold foil, repeat.
Val was still in love with Sean. Nobody knew Sean and I were together—fold foil, repeat.
“I hated him while he was away,” she said. “I thought I was done, but then I look at him now, and I watch him with our girls…and I’m so proud of him. He’s really stepped up and gotten his shit together.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, not knowing what else to say.
“He’s not just an amazing dad, he’s an amazing human being. He always was,” she added.
That drew my head up. We locked eyes. Hers were holding so much emotion it gripped at my chest.
“Sean has been through so much, way more than any person ever should,” she continued. “I remember when we were younger and hearing about some of the horrible things he went through…It made sense—how he acted, the things he did, the things he kept doing. I would look at him and think, God, you are a miracle. How he survived, I’ll never understand, but I was so happy he did. I was so in love with him.”
Tears stung my eyes. I bit the tremble in my lip and looked away, sniffling.
“Hey, are you okay?” Val asked.
I nodded, playing it off, and wiped under my lashes so my makeup wouldn’t smear. “Yeah, sorry…I’m just super sensitive to stuff right now. I’m about to get my period. And that was just…so sweet.”
One of those things was a lie.
Val smiled gently.
I regained my focus and resumed my work. “Do the, uh, girls say anything?”
“About us?”
Us. Another piece of my heart chipped away. I nodded tightly.
“Fiona asks all the time why Sean lives in a different house,” Val revealed. “Caroline thinks it’s cool having two bedrooms.”
I smiled. It felt strange, like I’d never done it before.
“I don’t really talk about it much with them. I don’t want to get their hopes up.”
God, she was such a good mom.
“Do you think I’m being crazy? Please be honest with me…I know I probably sound insane considering how angry I was at Sean when you first met me, but it’s just so hard to stay angry when you see someone you care about finally getting the life they deserve, you know?”
God…not just a good mom, Val was a good person, which I already knew but now, I knew—she got it.
Val saw Sean exactly how I did, and how everyone should see him.
“I don’t think you’re being crazy,” I answered honestly, my hand holding the brush still as I looked in the mirror. “Making sure someone gets the happiness they deserve is not crazy. And I can’t think of anything better than a life with those girls.”
Val nodded in agreement. “I watch them together, and I remember our family…I miss it. I miss him.”
Section, paint, fold foil, repeat.
“I was thinking about heading over to Whitecaps after picking up the girls at Bridgett’s and asking if he wanted to go on vacation with us. What do you think? Good idea?”
She wanted my opinion, and despite my suffering, I had one, and it was honest.
“Great idea,” I told her.
Val grinned. “I thought maybe while we were there, I’d make my move…” She laughed nervously, then blushed hard and covered it with her hands. “God, I’m terrified. I feel like I’m seventeen again. You gotta make my hair look so amazing, he won’t be able to turn me down.”
I watched Val lower her eyes and gnaw at her bottom lip. She looked lost inside her head, daydreaming about the man I was secretly in love with.
I never told a soul.
I never would.
After Val left with amazing hair and wearing the smile of a giddy teenager, I took the fifteen minutes I had before my next client arrived and spent them crying the tears I’d been holding back.