Page 12 of Almost

I laugh and smile at all the appropriate times during the rest of dinner, keeping my arm draped over the back of Kiera’s chair. There’s plenty of discussion about Kiera’s degree, and of course, the wedding.

My favorite part of the night, though, is when we go home and she takes off her fancy dress to put on one of my old T-shirts that hits her mid-thigh. The makeup and jewelry are gone except for the engagement ring donning her ring finger on her left hand. I’m sitting on the couch with sweatpants, sipping a beer when she comes out to sit in between my legs, resting her head on my chest as the action movie I’d put on plays.

I wrap my arms around her as Zeus’s tail thumps from where he lies on the end of the sectional. “I love you,” I murmur into her ear.

“I love you too.”

I press a kiss to the crown of her head. “I’m sorry about tonight. I know I’ve been a little distant lately, and I promise I’m going to do better.”

Kiera twists in my arms to rest her hands on top of my chest with her chin on top of them. She peers up at me through her long dark lashes, worry consuming them. “Was it the talk about kids? I know that we’ve talked about it before, but I just…I don’t know, Seb. Are you getting cold feet?”

“Not at all. I want to marry you more than anything, Kiera. I want everything with you. A family. All of it,” I promise, playing with the ends of her hair. She chews her bottom lip nervously, and I don’t know how to give her the truth. I feel guilty about Thalia, but I can’t exactly say that. “I know that I don’t talk about my family much. I’m not good at the whole feelings thing. There’s a lot of pain and bad memories. There’s also a lot of good memories too. Mimi and Grandpa were great. I miss them every single day, but I’m not getting cold feet.”

Tears well up in her eyes. “For someone who isn’t very good at the whole feelings thing, you’re doing a pretty great job of making me almost cry,” she admits, and I brush her stray tear away. “I want us to have a really big family, but we might want to consider adopting at least one kid, okay? Being pregnant might sound like God’s gift to plenty of women, but it just doesn’t sound appealing to me to do multiple times.”

“Blood doesn’t make people a family, I mean look at Owen and his parents. They’re family to me. Hell, for all I care, we could adopt all our kids. We’ve got this big house to fill.” I smile widely down at her. Life really can’t get better than this.

“Oh no. We’re definitely going to have a biological kid. They’d get my genius and your athleticism; I hope they’re just like you. You’re going to be the best dad.” And then her smile dims a little. “What about Thalia?”

Wait, I’m confused. Why are we talking about Thalia now? “What about her?”

She’s back to chewing on her lip. “You said Owen and his parents are family. Is Thalia not family too?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that,” I say, choosing my words carefully. This is my chance to tell Kiera.

“Is that why you never talk about her?”

I don’t blame her for having questions, especially given how awkward it was between me and Thalia at the gallery. It’s just not that simple. “Yeah. Things didn’t end well between us. We just…didn’t work out. It hasn’t been the same between us since, and I don’t think Thalia and I will ever be able to go back to who we were before getting together.”

Fuck.

That was my opportunity to come clean and I blew it.

Kiera smiles sadly, and I start kicking myself. She’s so damn nice. “Do you miss her?”

“No. I don’t miss Thalia. We fought a lot, and ultimately we weren’t supposed to end up together.” This is where I should tell her that I proposed to her, because Thalia’s right. I can’t marry Kiera without her knowing how deep the relationship went.

“I’m not talking about romantically. Seb, I’m asking do you miss being friends with her? What if things could go back to where you’d consider her family again?”

I pause to think about it for her sake, but I don’t let my mind go there. I can’t because I know there’s no point inhoping for it. Sixty-four days. “I don’t know. I don’t really think about it all that often. In case you didn’t know, you kind of consume most of my thoughts since I met you.” I try to sweetly distract her, but Kiera isn’t done talking about this.

“I really like Thalia, and I think it’d be really nice if we could be friends with her. She’s doing this really nice thing by agreeing to photograph our wedding, and I’ve wanted her to like me for so long. Blake was telling me that she’s seeing this guy now, giving me the idea that we could invite them over for dinner? What do you think?”

I blink, momentarily stunned. Kiera just threw a lot at me in the span of twenty seconds. She wants me to invite Thalia over here to be a guest with her new boyfriend in the house that Thalia and I lived together in? The house I bought with the intention of sharing with Thalia and only her?Oh my god. No. That just can’t happen. Absolutely not.

She leans up to brush her lips against mine. “Pretty please with a cherry on top?” Kiera kisses me a little deeper, sweeping her tongue over my bottom lip.

“Sure.”

Her face lights up in excitement. Holy fucking shit. I amweak. No sex has made it possible for a simple kiss to turn me into a giant chicken that’ll give Kiera anything she asks for. Thalia is going to kill me. Owen is going to kill me. Maybe I’m going to kill me.Shit. Penelope is going to kill me. She might castrate me first like she’s always threatened.

Fuck.

“I’m going to text her right now. Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Kiera beams, leaving me stranded on the couch with the dog I co-own with Thalia Lewis. I had my fuckingopportunity to tell her everything about Thalia and me, and I chickened out. Pathetic.

I don’t think I’m going to make it the sixty-four days if I keep agreeing to shit like this.

I’m a dead man walking.