He chuckled again. “I’ll go start a list.”
He left us, and I took Hannah into the small bathroom where she washed her face, and I used Brady’s comb to brush her hair. It was strangely personal and impersonal all at the same time.
She changed into aGhostalbum T-shirt that hit her ankles. She looked adorable in Brady’s clothes, but my wearing them brought back painful hints of another man’s clothes I’d worn for way too long. But I’d never worn Darren’s bottoms, and I had toroll down the waist and roll up the cuffs of Brady’s sweats to even make them stay on. It would almost be better to go without them at all.
I tucked Hannah into the bed, phyllo style.
“I’ll join you in a little bit,” I told her. “But for now, I want you to try and go to sleep. It’s been a long day.”
“I miss Molly,” she said. Brady had assured me the team was taking care of her, but I missed her too. There weren’t many times since she’d come into my life that we hadn’t all been together. A handful. So rare they could probably be counted on two hands.
“I do too. She’ll need extra treats tomorrow when we get home.” I kissed her on the top of her head and stood. “I love you to infinity and back.”
“Mommy?”
“Yes,Chiquita?”
“I think Grams sent us Brady so we wouldn’t be so sad. Don’t you?”
Her innocent words hit me hard in the chest, making it difficult to breathe. I glanced over at the box on the dresser, wondering if it was more true than Hannah even meant. Had Grams asked him to look out for us the way Darren had asked Nash? Were we just another obligation?
I shook my head to clear the thought before it could fester.
No. Brady felt something for me. For us. I could read it in his eyes and his touch and his smile. Regardless of whatever Grams had said to him, we weren’t that. We weren’t an obligation.
“I think you might be right,” I said softly.
“I love you, Mommy.”
I kissed her on the top of her head one more time and then left, leaving the door open a little so the dim stove light shone into the room slightly. I didn’t want her to wake somewhere she didn’t know without me, but there was also no way I could sleep yet.
When I turned around, Brady was sitting on the couch, a notebook in his hand. He was scribbling and erasing and scribbling again. He was a stunning mix of golden colors that made me ache in an intense way I was still trying to reconcile with my lost love. In the house earlier, he’d held his nephew, feeding him a bottle while Cassidy cooked, and the view had stalled my heart completely. He’d had this adoring look on his face watching the tiny baby, and I’d realized he looked at Hannah the same way.
It made him almost completely irresistible.
I made my way toward him, and the movement brought his eyes up. He shut the pad and slid it onto the coffee table, eyeing me in his clothes. He patted the seat next to him. I was suddenly nervous again. Like I had been on Saturday after Hannah had gone to bed. Before we’d shed our tops and lost ourselves in nothing but touch, and skin, and emotion.
They’d been heady kisses, and just the recollection of them warmed my body.
I sat down next to him, and he pulled me up tight, tucking me under his arm.
“Can I ask you something?” I spoke, tilting my head so I could see his face.
“Anything.”
“Is living the dream worth it?”
He considered my question before replying, “Yes and no.”
“What do you mean?”
“Making music and singing to a crowd…it’s all I’ve wanted since my hands first touched the keys. Elana…she insisted I was good enough. If she hadn’t pushed me to submit my audition tape to Juilliard, I feel like my life would have been totally different. I wouldn’t have met Ava. We wouldn’t have played at Georgie’s salon, and Blake Abbott wouldn’t have found us. None of it would have happened.”
“You didn’t want to apply to Juilliard?” I asked.
“I did, but when my mom found out, she was furious. She told me it was ridiculous to have such lofty expectations, and it made me think she might be right, that I was reaching for stars that were billions of light-years away instead of settling for the moon.”
The thought of his mom putting him down tore at my soul. I could never imagine saying those words to Hannah. To stop her from working toward her dream.
