Page 37 of Just Our Secret

Wade came into the kitchen a moment later and wrapped his arms around me. “You still haven’t heard from him, have you?”

“No, I would have told you,” I said gently. “I promise he’ll come around, Wade. It’ll all be okay.”

I felt him sigh heavily against me. “I’m not so sure.”

Pulling back to look at him, I squeezed his middle. “Hey. Stop it. We knew he wouldn’t react well, but I really don’t believe Connor will shut us out forever. First of all, he loves Liam too much to stay away completely. And he also loves us.”

“You, maybe. But look at how he talks about Chad now. He didn’t come around with him.”

I rolled my eyes and shook him slightly. “That was different.”

“Connor doesn’t seem to think so.”

Realizing this wasn’t going to be solved tonight, I tucked myself against him again. “Just give it time.”

His phone buzzed in his pocket then, and he fished it out, both of us with wide eyes. I could tell we were thinking the same thing. Then he read the screen and frowned. “It’s my mom.”

I stepped back while he answered the call.

“Hey, Ma,” he said. He listened for a moment, then he sighed and let his head fall back. “Great.”

I bit my lip, wondering what this could be about. Feeling uncomfortable with just standing there that while he mumbled one-word responses to her, I turned to load the bowls in the dishwasher.

“Love you, too. Bye,” Wade said, getting off the phone and jamming it back in his pocket. “Ugh, that was awkward.”

“What happened?” I asked, closing the dishwasher.

“Tonight was book club.”

I gulped. “Uh-oh.”

“Yeah. Looks like we were right to worry about Sandy. She told them all she’d seen us kissing at the festival.”

I closed my eyes as my shoulders slumped. After the big explosion on Thanksgiving, obviously, my mom already knew about us. She hadn’t been totally thrilled with the idea since it had caused such a big riff between her children, but she told me she understood that being with Wade wasn’t the same thing as what happened with Chad. My hope that Connor would come around was largely thanks to her and the way she’d talked me off the ledge for the rest of the holiday weekend.

Wade had told his family about it the next day during their belated Thanksgiving meal. His parents were concerned about him dating me because of Liam. They loved my little guy, and they were worried that if something happened between us, it could hurt him. I loved them for that.

They didn’t understand why Connor felt the way he did since they knew their son wasn’t the kind of man that Chad was, and they didn’t get why Connor couldn’t see that. But I wouldn’t say they were unsupportive, per se. We were adults and we cared about each other. That should be the only thing that mattered.

“Well,” I said, sniffing, the emotions of the last week threatening to catch up with me, “at least that wasn’t how they first found out.”

He made an exaggerated eye roll and laughed, but the sound held no humor. “Right, because a Thanksgiving brawl was so much better.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle even though my stomach turned at the memory. “Yeah. Guess not.”

“There was probably no good way for them to find out if the end result with Connor was going to be like that though. Fucking hell, this sucks.”

“I know.”

Looking at the time above my stove I leaned in for one last hug. “You should get going before you’re late.”

“You’re right. Sorry I’m such bad company right now.”

I rose up on my tiptoes and pressed a firm kiss to his lips. “None of that. You’re not bad company. We’re in this together. We have to be there for each other in the times that suck the same way we are in the good times.”

In typical Wade fashion, he reached down and cupped his hands around my butt and squeezed. “Deal. Cuz I really like the good times.”

I grinned up at him. “You know, someone really smart told me once that maybe in life there had to be bad in order for us to really appreciate the good.”