Page 86 of Trusting You
I watch his actions with sadness. “How do I know there’s not more?”
He leans against the sink, his forehead nearly touching the cabinets above. I can practically see the fury draining off him in waves. “Trust.”
Now it was my turn to guffaw. “After all this, you think I can trust you?”
“You did last night, and what I showed you was true.” He clears his throat, as if uncomfortable he’s admitting as much, and turns. “How I’m feeling about Lily is true. How I’m feeling…about you…is true.”
“Locke,” I groan and bury my face in my hands, elbows on the table. His voice alone has created visions of us on the floor last night, how I bared myself to him even though my clothes stayed on. How every worry, each piece of grief, the weight of pressure, all spiraled outside my body before centering their energy at my core, until there was nothing but pleasure. My mind was coated with it. My shoulders were eased by it.
It was a mistake. It’s all a mistake.
I stare at the empty pill bottle. It’s evidence he won’t ever let me know him the way I allowed him to know me last night.
“I’m not trying to appeal to your weakness,” he says. “So, let me prove it. Come to meetings with me, search this place up and down, talk to my buddies. Do everything you need to do to become comfortable with me again. Just…please…” His expression wrenches before he schools it. “Don’t take Lily away. Not until you do everything in your power to prove she’s not safe.”
I’m torn. I’m ripping apart in a way I didn’t think would ever happen again, not after Paige. The conflict, the terror and worry, all come to the forefront as I look into Locke's eyes and want to believe him.
I still see the Locke of last week and how prioritized he is with Lily. The eagerness to learn so he could raise her well and the determination to become a better man. A few nights, I assumed he was out banging women, letting loose his frustrations with mindless, nameless sex before coming home again revitalized and ready to take on a burgeoning toddler.
Instead, he was going to NA meetings and teaching himself the meaning of a better life. I can’t ignore that, as much as I want to with this jerk—I can’t disregard his patience, his love, his commitment to growing the hell up.
CPS looked him up and down. Social workers have been in and out of his apartment ever since I let him know he had a daughter. I have to believe I was right to track him down, to give Lily a father.
I got it wrong once, assuming Locke was out being his old self with his buddies. I could be…
I keep his stare, but I ball my hands into fists. “You have three weeks to prove me wrong.”
Locke’s shoulders sag as he releases a long-held breath.
“Three weeks,” I repeat. “If you so much as swallow a Tylenol, I’m taking her and never coming back.”
“Deal,” he answers without hesitation. “I swear, I haven’t taken any—”
I hold my palm up. “I’m here to observe. That’s all. I don’t need any more excuses.”
His eyelids lower like he’s coming to a brutal realization. “Carter…”
“That’s all I’m going to be to you,” I say as I stand. “No more…nothing like what happened last night is going to happen again.”
I can’t look at him while I say it. I’m staring at the floor, at Lily, readying to turn, when he does the most unexpected thing.
Locke pulls me into his arms. I’m slack, my arms dangling, but he holds me tight.
I don’t return the hold, but I can’t fight him off, either. God help me, I don’t want to.
Lily’s delighted by the action and pulls herself up on my pant legs and then smacks Locke’s bare calf. He grunts when she latches on to a few leg hairs, but he doesn’t loosen his hold.
“Thank you,” he says, and his heart’s beating so hard, it’s ramming into my temple.
“I don’t expect you to bare your soul to me, Locke,” I whisper into the fabric of his shirt. My breath is hot against my cheek. “But please, no more secrets.”
“No,” he says, resting his chin on the top of my head. Lily’s babbling in the background during this disarming family moment. “No more secrets.”