Page 51 of Finding Hayes
I’d had too many bad examples in my life, and I knew how easy it was to fuck a kid up if you didn’t step up to the plate. I’d never take that risk.
“Oh, man, Uncle Hayes. You got married, and it sounds like your wife wants to have babies.”
Yeah, probably something we should have discussed, even if we knew this would be over in three months. We should at least be on the same page right now.
But that wasn’t going to happen if we couldn’t get past this dumbass argument.
We weren’t married for real.
Sure, we’d had an epic make-out session in the car, and I knew she’d been on the brink of coming, but she’d pulled back.
Just like she was doing now.
“Well, I guess my wife and I have a lot to discuss tonight, don’t we?”
Savannah sighed and changed the subject. She and Cutleragreed to share a milkshake, and I just listened as they talked and laughed for the next hour. There was a reason that she wanted to be a mother, and it was probably because she knew she’d be damn good at it.
Any kid would be lucky to have Savannah Abbott as a mother.
Or… at the moment, Savannah Woodson.
She’d agreed to take my name, as we thought it would make things more believable to get her driver’s license changed and go through all the normal steps a newly married couple would go through.
After we took Cutler home, we made our way back to my place, and she padded down the hallway to her bedroom without saying a word.
So much for making progress.
I took a shower and slipped into my gray joggers and a tee before going into my closet and finding the box on the top shelf. I pulled out the envelope on the top of the pile in the box and thought it over.
What did I have to lose? We weren’t speaking at the moment, and after we staged our fake divorce, she’d be selling the farmhouse and moving out of Magnolia Falls.
So why not at least put this shit to rest.
I made my way down the long hallway to her room and knocked on the door.
“Come in,” she called from the other side.
I stood in the doorway, and my gaze traveled over every inch of her where she lay on her stomach on the bed, reading a book.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hello, husband.”
“Listen, Sav, I’m not a dude who wants to talk about every little thing; you know that.”
“I do.”
“But this shit that you’re carrying—this anger toward me, I don’t know what it’s about.” I crossed one ankle over the other as I leaned against the door frame. “That’s the honest truth.”
She pushed to sit up, legs hanging over the side of the bed now. “It doesn’t matter. None of this is real anyway. I think it’s just being back here—it’s bringing up all these memories that I thought I’d tucked away.”
“This marriage is the only thing that isn’t real. Our history. Our friendship. That was all fucking real.” I stepped forward into the room and tossed the letter onto the bed beside her. “I never got a text or a message from you the day that you left. You blocked my number on your phone, so I wrote to you after you left. The letters got returned. But I did try, Sav.”
She looked up at me, honey-brown eyes with pops of amber and gold, wet with emotion. “Why? Why did you care that I left?”
I shook my head in disbelief. “How the fuck can you ask me that? You were my best friend. The guys are like brothers to me, you know that. But you and me, Sav, we were always different.”
She swiped at the single tear running down her cheek. “I’m sorry for being an asshole at dinner. Beefcake deserves better.” Her lips turned up in the corners, and I barked out a laugh.
