“I thought you might come home if you’d known.”
“I had my own life.” What on earth would make him possibly think I’d come back here? He’d successfully ruined my life in this city. There was nothing left for me here.
He nodded.
“You didn’t answer my question,” I said. “Are you divorced?”
“I’ve told you before. I’m stuck in this relationship. But we are no longer living together.”
“Okay.” So they were separated?
“I’ve been making arrangements for this day. I knew you would come home to me eventually. To take over what’s rightfully yours.”
“What’s rightfully mine?”
“The family business.”
He was delusional. I wasn’t a mobster. And I wasn’t here to take over something I despised from a person I despised even more. “I didn’t come home to you.”
“Then why did you come?”
I swallowed hard. It was a ridiculous question. Didn’t the gun I’d put to his head make my intentions obvious?
But I’d punched him instead. And now he had an icepack pressed to his bloody nose. I hated that I felt bad about it. I wasn’t a monster like him. But I needed to be a monster for just a few minutes. I owed it to Miller. I had to do it.
I gripped the handle of the gun tighter. “I came back to kill you, dad.”
Homecoming - Chapter 3
Saturday
Matt
I held her until she finally stopped shaking. Until her breaths evened out. I was scared to say anything. I just wanted to freeze time with my arms around her. Because I was worried that as soon as I spoke, the spell would be broken. That she’d push me away again. Tell me to go. Tell me we were done.
And she was wrong. About all of it. We weren’t done. This was only the beginning. I could picture it all with her now. The house I’d been renovating was a home. I didn’t want to sell it. I wanted to fill it with our children. I wanted Mrs. Alcaraz to teach our kids Spanish. And our home to smell like empanadas for Sunday dinners. I wanted to start our family.
But I needed to know what was going on. Why she’d suddenly decided to push me away. I needed to help her see what I saw. How great we could be. She had to see it. I couldn’t be the only one.
I lifted my hand from her back and let my fingers run through her hair, tilting her head up to mine. “What happened tonight?” I whispered.
She opened her mouth and then closed it again. “I can’t tell you. I wish I could, Matt. But I can’t.”
“You can tell me anything.”
She shook her head. “It’s not…it’s really complicated.”
I wanted to kiss away her frowns. Instead, I just dropped my forehead to hers. “I can handle complicated. Just tell me. Let me in.” Kennedy had seen every side of me. The good, the bad, and the really bad. I remembered how much I’d relied on her after Brooklyn’s death. How much she helped me keep going. But I didn’t just want her smiling face at a high school lunch table. I wanted her. All of her.
She took one deep breath, like she was breathing in my exhales. And then she took a step back from me. “I can’t tell you. Not this.” Her voice was so firm. “I’ve made so many mistakes in my life. And I’m done making them. I’m done.”
I knew my face fell. She was talking about us. Datingmewas the mistake.Wewere done. I wasn’t sure how something that felt so right could possibly be wrong. We’d had this conversation already. We were on the same page. Brooklyn would have wanted us to be happy.
“I’m going to go back in there, Matt. And you’re going to go home.” She hugged herself again. “And we’re going to go back to being friends.”
I shook my head. “No we’re not.”
She picked the tulips up off the ground. She started blinking fast like she was about to cry again. “These are beautiful. Thank you.” She grabbed the French fries too. “And I need these. So I’m keeping them.”
