Page 116 of Lost In The Lie Of Us

The house was quiet now, or as quiet as it got with the family having just left. I took Timea upstairs, and she barely moved while I wiped her face and hands, changed her, and put her in bed. She grabbed her stuffed bear without opening her eyes, turned her face into it, and went right back out.

When I came back downstairs, Tink was exactly where I left her, except now she had a throw blanket over her legs. Her eyes were half closed, but she still reached for my hand when I sat beside her.

“You good, Tink?”

She nodded, moving my hand to the side of her stomach. “He finally settled down a little.”

Our son pressed against my palm a few seconds later, and I kept my hand there while Tink leaned into me. She didn’t say anything for a minute. Neither did I.

I had spent most of my life chasing loud things. Crowds… wins… contracts, but none of it compared to my life now.

Tink yawned against my shoulder.

“You tired?” I asked.

“No,” she lied.

“You lying,” I laughed.

“I’m resting my eyes.”

I stood and held my hand out. “Come on, Tink.”

I helped her up, one hand at her back while she took her time. She complained about our son sitting low, then held onto my arm all the way to the stairs. I didn’t say anything about it. I just kept my hand where she needed it and moved when she moved.

We finally made it upstairs and were now in bed. I slid closer behind her and moved my palm where she wanted it, rubbing slow over the side of her stomach until our son shifted againstmy hand. She had finally got comfortable with one pillow under her stomach and another between her knees.

I kept rubbing her stomach while she settled back against me, her hand resting over mine after a few minutes. The house was quiet now, but not empty quiet.

“We were supposed to be a look,” I said. “That was all. A couple pictures, some headlines, a few events, and everybody minding their business once they believed it.”

“It worked.”

She tried to turn enough to give me a look, but her stomach stopped her from doing it how she wanted, so she settled for squeezing my hand. “You’re still annoying.”

“And you still here.”

“I married you. That don’t mean you stopped being annoying.”

I laughed against her shoulder, and she relaxed again, her fingers still locked over mine. I thought about the first time she looked at me like she had already decided I wasn’t getting anywhere with her. Thought about all the times she checked me, challenged me, pushed me, and somehow made herself the only woman I wanted standing beside me when the cameras were gone. We had started with something fake, but nothing about the life around us felt fake now. Not the ring on her hand, not our daughter sleeping down the hall, not our son moving under my palm, and damn sure not the way Tink fit against me like she had always been meant to end up there.

I kissed the back of her shoulder and kept my hand on our son until he finally settled down. Tink’s breathing slowed, but she was still awake when I said, “A lie put us in the same room, but it didn’t keep us there.”

Her hand tightened over mine. “No, it didn’t.”

“It just made enough space for us to become real.”

She was quiet after that, and so was I. There wasn’t much else to say. The world could keep whatever version of our story itthought it knew. The headlines… the pictures… the rumors, the beginning that wasn’t supposed to mean anything. I knew what it had become. I knew what I had found in the middle of it.

I got lost in the lie of us and found my forever.

THE END…