Page 89 of Do It With Me

I stayed quiet, letting him talk. He refocused on me, wincing before he continued. “This might make you think less of me, but the kind of lifestyle we had during the early years of our marriage was super indulgent. We traveled and stayed in the best hotel suites, we chartered yachts and partied on them, and the parties? They were on a whole different level.”

He shook his head. “Shannon loved that life. She used to say things like, ‘You can’t eat sushi when you’re pregnant,’ or ‘You can’t get hammered when you’ve got a baby.’ It became all about what she’d lose, never what we’d gain.”

He rubbed the back of his neck, the muscles in his jaw tightening. “We just became different people, I guess. I grew up and she didn’t.”

A soft, self-deprecating laugh slipped out of him. “I guess I started wanting something real. Someone to come home to, someone who didn’t care if we ate takeout on the floor instead of getting room service on a yacht. She wanted champagne and flashbulbs. I wanted quiet and privacy.”

My heart ached for him. I could picture it so easily, Holden in some glossy penthouse, surrounded by everything except what he really wanted. “So you let her go.”

“We let each other go.” Those blue eyes skipped to the window. “The divorce was awful. Really messy. Every time I thought that was it, she’d come back with another demand. She just kept wanting more, but it was still worth it in the end. Better than watching her grow to resent me for not being glittery enough and better than me spending the rest of my life miserable, being dragged to places I don’t want to be.”

I wasn’t quite sure what to say to any of that. It sounded terrible. “Well, for what it’s worth, I hate yachts.”

He laughed, reaching for me and hooking his little finger around mine to pull me to him. I went willingly, smiling against his lips when he kissed me. “I’m not mad about flashbulbs either.”

“I figured.” He lowered his forehead to mine after the kiss slowed to an end, those eyes intent but sparkling with a serene kind of joy that made me feel all warm and tingly inside. “I love you for exactly who you are, Ella. Shannon is my past and it was a god-awful chapter in my life, and I get why you asked. Why you were curious. But I need you to know that you’re my future.”

My heart skipped about a million beats. “Do you still want kids?”

Holden held my gaze, his palm lifting to cup the side of my throat and his chest rising and falling evenly against my own. “I haven’t thought about it for a very long time. After the divorce, I didn’t think it would ever be in the cards for me again. I’m thirty-five, and until I met you, I didn’t even think I’d ever want to be in a relationship again, let alone raise children with someone. Do you? Want them, I mean.”

“I do,” I said, deciding to be honest despite the fact that this might still be a sore subject for him. “I suppose this is a conversation we were going to have to have eventually anyway, so I don’t want you to feel like I’m putting any pressure on you, but I would like to start a family someday. I’m only twenty-five, so there’s time, but yeah. In the long run, if this is as serious as it’s starting to feel, then that’s something you’re going to have to consider.”

“Consider it considered,” he murmured against my lips. His grip on me tightened. “I suddenly can’t wait to start putting babies in you.”

I laughed, but then his mouth sealed over mine again, and this time, the kiss didn’t break a few seconds later. Before I even knew it, we were being full-on disgusting, wrapped up together on the floor between paint cans and drop cloths, making out and smudging little streaks of blue paint on each other’s faces.

The bell over the door practically exploded.

“I got it!” Bree’s voice infiltrated our bubble just after.

She came bursting into the store, her cheeks flushed, and she waved a piece of paper over her head like Charlie with the golden ticket. I blinked up at her, still on the floor in Holden’s arms. “Got what?”

“My fellowship!” she said, breathless and beaming. “They said yes. The hospital fellowship. I can start working there while I finish my Nurse Practitioner program. Oh my god, I’m in!”

She started jumping in place and I scrambled to my feet, catching her in a hug so tight, she squealed. “Bree! That’s amazing. You did it!”

“I did it!” she echoed, laughing with happy tears in her eyes. “I’ve been dreaming about working in that hospital since the day I decided I wanted to be a nurse.”

Holden grinned and climbed to his feet, paint streaked across his face, forearms, and shirt, and his sandy hair tousled after having my hands in it. God, he’s so freaking hot. Even when he’s looking adorable, all covered in baby blue paint.

Oblivious to my thoughts, he came over and hugged her too. “Congratulations, Bree. That’s incredible.”

I wiped at my eyes because apparently this was what we were doing now, crying over good things for a change. I hadn’t even realized there were tears until I’d felt the moisture rolling down my cheeks. I’d cried so much the last few months, it had become as natural as breathing.

“Okay, that’s it,” I said when I realized that those days were behind me. I would always miss my mom. That would never change, but everything else? That already had changed. The stress, the crying over the store and the neighborhood, that was all over. “We’re celebrating. Dinner is on us.”

“Us?” Holden asked, eyebrows sweeping up.

“Yes, us,” I said, grinning at him. “You’re not getting out of a night of cheap champagne and happy tears.”

“How about if dinner is on me, and we get proper champagne for the happy tears?”

Bree practically danced in place. “Fine, but I’m ordering dessert first.”

“Perfect,” I said. “Actually, I’m doing that too. We deserve it.”

After everything we’d been through, the heartbreak, the losses, and the fights, it felt like life was finally giving us all a win. Bree had her dream, I had my store, and Holden, well, I had him too.

Right now, today, the future didn’t scare me anymore. It looked brighter than ever and dessert for dinner felt like the perfect way to celebrate it.