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Chapter Two
As the evening had been taken over with unforeseen events, and Colby was now at home, we ordered pizzas like we had sometimes done on previous family nights. While we were waiting for them to arrive, Billie became quiet.
“Are you okay?” I probed, thinking Logan had upset her again.
“I wish I hadn’t been so impulsive with our engagement. I should have spoken to Colby first.”
“I agree, we were caught up in the moment. We may have gone about this all wrong, but I’m not sorry you went with your gut and dared me,” I told her. “Do you want me to ask for Colby’s permission to marry you? I’m a rookie at dealing with this stuff, but I know we should have done this first. I’m confident he’ll say yes, so I think for him at least, we should make him feel he had a choice.” Billie looked touched. Tears immediately filled her eyes as she leapt forward and hugged me tight.
“You’re such an amazing man, Sawyer. I’ve been thinking long and hard about how quickly we made such a massive decision, one that will affect the rest of our lives, but I think I got overawed by the whole experience, during our visit to your parents’ place.”
“What does that mean?” I asked suddenly, my heart stalled in fear she’d been about to call our engagement off.
“You have no idea how it felt to be so readily accepted, not only by your parents, but your sisters and dare I say, your brother as well? Being an only child with an absent father, I had no idea what I’d been missing. My mom was an only child too.”
“Missing?”
“Yeah, that feeling where someone’s got you just because of who you are to them, no matter what the situation may be. I’ve never had anyone be that for me before ...”
“Well, my brother definitely didn’t have my back—”
“I’m not talking about that, I’m talking about how your family worked together to protect me against Charlotte, because they knew what had happened was wrong, but also how James spoke about you. He sounded genuinely happy that we were together and again when he’d heard we’d gotten engaged. Until I was placed in that situation, I hadn’t realized the impact on Colby’s development of not having relatives.”
“He’s had Logan’s parents up to now.”
“He has and I’m so grateful he has them, but they’re getting older. What I mean is there hasn’t been any children in the family for him to relate to.”
“That part is going to change for sure,” I agreed, nodding. “He’s going to be overwhelmed by the girls, and it’s great that Brock will have another boy in the family. So are you happy for me to speak to Colby about us?”
“I am, but we need to be delicate. I don’t want Logan to find out by chance. Information this loaded needs to be handled with care. If we tell Colby now, we’re going to need to ask him to keep our secret a little longer. Just until he comes back from his next visit with his father. I’d rather he didn’t learn of our plan from his son, I need to be the one to break the news to him.”
“Break what news?” Colby asked, coming around the corner from the stairs his face looking puzzled. Fortunately, the doorbell rang. I was glad for the interruption of the pizza delivery, because I felt eating first would help us establish some dialogue before I dived in with the question, which would ultimately change his life as well.
Watching Colby eat his pizza, I noticed how ‘off’ he was and my heart clenched when he repeatedly asked my opinion about something. It told me he wanted me to like him, and this fueled my confidence for what I needed to ask him. I hadn’t thought what I’d do if he said no, just hoped he wouldn’t let us down.
After we’d eaten our food, I left Billie to load the dishwasher and took Colby over to the couch by the fire.
“Hey, buddy, do you think we could have a chat about something?”
Staring at me like he was surprised by my request, he appeared a little unsure when he met my gaze and nodded. I glanced over toward Billie, and she instinctively looked up at me like I had spoken to her. When I winked she knew I was about to talk to Colby about marrying her and immediately made excuses to leave the room.
“I’m going to empty your suitcase and gather up the laundry. You two behave while I’m gone,” she joked.
Colby tucked his hands under his thighs and rocked back and forth. My heart squeezed at how nervous he appeared. I gave him a smile in reassurance.
“All right, buddy, I wanted to say how sad I was that your vacation with your dad and grandparents didn’t finish well. Sometimes kids behave better than adults,” I stated in very simple terms.
“You mean like how Poppy didn’t behave?”
“I wasn’t there, but from what you’ve said, yes, she should have managed her feelings better.”
Colby nodded, but sat quietly.
“It wasn’t okay for Poppy to ruin your vacation, but that’s not what I wanted to speak to you about.”
“Okayyy,” he replied, stretching the word out, his anxiety instantly displaying itself when he bounced nervously on his toes making his knees shake.
“I’m going to ask you a few questions man-to-man, and I’d really like if you could be honest with me.”
