Page 107 of The Trouble with Flings

“It’s just…I want the baby to have my last name. We can hyphenate it with yours if you want, but it’s important to me that our baby shares my name, too.”

The hits to my heart just keep coming, and I get choked up again. It’s all I can do to tease my way past the overwhelming emotions. “Stone-Silver? It’ll sound like a confused motorcycle company.”

“You’ve got a point,” he says thoughtfully. Then his eyes brighten. “Maybe that’s not a bad thing. It could be a good conversation starter.”

“I don’t want our kid’s name to be a conversation starter. The baby deserves your last name, and you deserve to have every connection with our child that you could ever want. But I want that connection with our baby, too, but because of Jace’s business, Silver-Stone, I’m not sure Stone-Silver is the way to go. Ugh. Now my heart is racing again.” I fan my face. “This is too big a decision to make right now.”

“Okay, no more big conversations tonight.” He takes me by the shoulders and turns me toward the door. “Let’s go, wild girl. I know exactly what you need.”

I half expect him to guide me toward the bedroom, but he heads downstairs. “Where are we going?”

“I’m going to show you how to relax, Silver Island style. The first rule of relaxation is comfort.”

“I’m taking notes.”

I follow him across the living room to a wooden chest near the patio doors, where he pulls out a thick blue blanket so plush I reach out to touch it.

“Now we set the tone.” He flicks a switch on the wall by the doors, and hundreds of twinkling lights bloom to life outside, illuminating an expansive patio bordered on three sides by the glass walls of the house, with a built-in grill and a massive fire pit surrounded by heavy lounge chairs and Adirondacks.

“Wow. You really do have everything figured out.”

“Nah. I just like lights,” he says humbly, and opens the patio door.

The brisk, salt-tinged air hits us. I pull it into my lungs, and it fills me up like something I didn’t realize I was missing. Above us, the sky is a dark, endless blue peppered with stars.

Fitz is gazing up at them like a story is unfolding up there that only he can see, reminding me of the story he told the kids.

“Do you like the lights because they look like stars?” I ask.

He smiles and says, “You could say that.”

“What would you say?” I ask, wanting to know what he’s thinking.

“I’d say they helped me through a lot, and when the stars weren’t out, I hung lights in their place.”

The way he says it tugs at something inside me. “What did they help you through?”

“Remember how I told you that Grant enlisted when he was eighteen?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, when he left, I was sixteen, and I’d always followed his lead when it came to taking care of Wells and the girls, and other things in life. The night before he left, I told him I was worried about whether I could handle things without him. Grant’s always been unshakable. Nothing scares him. He looked at me and said, ‘We’ll still be living under the same sky.’ That was it, like life was that simple.”

“Between that and helping you learn not to be afraid of the dark, it sounds like Grant is a great big brother.”

“He is, but he didn’t tell me about naming three things in the dark. That’s something I made up for Bellamy when she went through a fearful phase.”

“Then why did you say it was Grant?”

“Because he really is a warrior, and it seemed like it would be a bigger deal if it came from him.”

I love that he doesn’t need to take credit and that he still thinks so highly of the brother who took off to join the military as soon as he could. “What happened after Grant left for the military? How did you handle it?”

He glances out at the water and says, “After he left, anytime I was struggling, I’d sit outside and…I don’t know, channel him, I guess. It made me feel closer to him. Keira and Bellamy missed him like crazy. They were fourteen and eleven, or somewhere around there. Keira was all attitude, and Bellamy was weepy but pissed off. So when things got hard, I’d take them outside and remind them that we’re all living under the same sky, and if they talked to Grant, I was pretty sure he’d hear them.”

My heart squeezes. “Did your sisters believe you?”

“I don’t know if they really bought it, but we’d sit out there, and Keira would roll her eyes at first. Then she’d bitch a blue streak at Grant for taking off. Bellamy would get angry, then she’d get quiet, and that’s when the real hurt came out. I’d listen to her talking quietly to Grant, and a day or two later, I’d leave something on her bed and say it was from him. A stuffed animal, a charm, a piece of candy, or a letter that mysteriously showed up for her from Grant.”