Page 98 of Level With Me
Jack beamed.
Jude turned toward him. “At least I’msomeone’sfavorite person, right, buddy?”
“Who’s favorite?” Jack asked earnestly, and this time, we all laughed.
“I’m honored,” I said into Cassandra’s hair. “But you don’t have to pick me over your siblings.”
“Of course I do,” she said. “Or at least, they can think I do.”
I laughed softly this time, even as a deep, almost painful love for her ran through me.
My heart had never felt so full. But it had only been a week since Cassandra had held it in her hands, when Griffin had ferried her across the water to our island.
That morning I’d held my breath as the boat pulled up and I saw her take in me and then the words I’d spelled out. I’d still been unsure if the gesture was too much. It didn’t feel like too much. I’d felt like I could writeI love youon the surface of the moon and it wouldn’t adequately express how I felt about her.
Still, I’d willed my damn hands not to shake as the boat crunched up onto the sand and she’d gotten out.
Cassandra had told me she loved me before I left. But I still didn’t know if I’d taken too long. And while the words had buoyed me at first, after a time over those months apart, they’d worried me too. While I was shifting every piece of my life around to make being with her possible—if she’d have me—I’d had to consider the very real possibility that she’d said the words in the heat of the moment. What if once real distance was between us, both time and miles, she’d realize I wasn’t worth loving in the first place?
But each time I thought that, I’d remind myself that it was my old shit talking. I still might falter, but I knew now that my dad’snever-good-enoughrhetoric wasn’t true.
“It was his shitty, harmful-as-hell way of trying to make men out of us,” Connor had said when I’d visited him and Art last month. I’d spilled my guts about everything that had happened in Quince Valley, and all my plans going forward. Running Harrington on my own. Selling my share of everything Lila and I co-owned—the apartment, the house, the business.
“You got the brunt of his shit,” Connor had said.
I had, I realized, now that I was shining a light on it for the first time. And I hadn’t taken all that heat by chance, either. I hadn’t wanted Dad pulling any of that shit on my brothers. I’d been the one to go to business school. I was the focus of Dad’s critical energy because I’d followed his path. I’d had a minor crisis after meeting with Connor. Had I even wanted to go into business? Or had that been something I’d wanted to do first to prove myself to Dad, and then to beat him at? I decided Ihadwanted to go. I’d enjoyed it, and I was good at it. I loved what I did now. Dad may have influenced my decision, but in the end, it was a good one. And it was mine.
A few days after I got home from Connor’s place, I’d heard Dad had hired Goldman to help with his hotels. Before everything, I would have taken that as a victory. I would have gleefully raised a glass to his failure, the hurt still burning in me like something molten. But now, having forgiven him—and finally understanding that my real happiness and love don’t thrive on his or anyone else’s failures—I just felt sad for him. He didn’t know what real happiness was like. He’d destroyed his chance at having it with his sons. He’d lost it with Mom, long before she lost her memory. He didn’t have what I had.
The love of a brilliant, beautiful, kind woman who loved him back.
So on that island, standing there with my overworked heart going off like a jackhammer in my chest, my arms aching from hauling logs, all I could see was Cassandra. All I knew was Cassandra. My beautiful, fierce, windblown-Kelly-McGillis-hair Cassandra.
And when she came to me and told me she loved me too?
That was it. I was a goner.
Hers was a love I wasn’t going to squander.
“I love you,” I whispered above her head now, too quiet to hear.
Still, she leaned into me, nuzzling my neck with her hair as if she understood anyway.
Until Chelsea sucked in a breath.
We both followed her gaze to a couple of guys at the end of Jude’s row. They were standing, their foam seats and cups in hand.
“They can’t leave!” Chelsea exclaimed. She sounded indignant. “Liam! Tug!” she called. “It’s only the third inning! Don’t give up on them so fast!”
The pair of guys, who’d started making their way across the bleachers toward the steps, looked over at us. The one in behind grimaced. “It’s too painful.”
“Why do you care so much?” Cass asked her sister.
“Look at Eli and Seamus,” she said. “They’re so upset.”
Over on third base, Eli tossed his hat on the ground, not even trying to hide his displeasure. His friend Seamus, who Eli had dragged along last week when he helped me hook up the banner on the bridge, was a little less dramatic. He stood at second, head hung low for a moment as the next guy came up to the plate. I got the feeling if Seamus’s baseball pants had pockets and he wasn’t wearing a glove, he would have shoved his hands in them.
“Boo!” Jude said to the guys trying to leave. He threw a piece of popcorn at them as they passed us, which the guy at the back batted away, looking guilty.
