Page 43 of Just Our Secret
“A lot.”
“Clearly. How did it go with Connor?”
A brighter smile touched his lips then, and he reached up with a wince to run his fingers through his hair. “It was good. Really fucking good. I can’t believe we’re finally going to be able to move past all of this.”
“Yeah, same here. We’ll finally get that future we keep talking about. No drama, just us, out in the open. I have to admit it’ll be strange to date you in front of my brother. He’s probably going to give us shit. But hopefully he won’t be too obnoxious about it.”
“Oh, shit. Yeah.” Wade shook his head with a laugh. “He’s gonna be annoying as fuck. I can already hear him telling me to keep my damn hands to myself if I so much as look at you when we’re all hanging out.”
We both chuckled, then his face grew serious, and he tightened his grip on my hands. “Andi, I love you.”
My breath caught in my throat. “You do?”
“Yeah. I’m pretty sure I always have.”
Even though I’d already felt that love in the way he held me and looked at me, hearing him say the words had momentarily stunned me. Finally, I closed my eyes, not wanting another tear to drop down in case he misunderstood its meaning.
Opening my eyes to smile down at him, I gave his hands a little squeeze. “I love you too, Wade Baker.”
I punctuated my statement with a kiss, feeling lighter than I had in weeks. And since I knew Wade loved my son just as much as if he were his own, I knew the three of us were about to start on a seriously amazing life together. No more secrets, no more lies, and no more pretending that my brother’s best friend wasn’t the love of my life. And I couldn’t wait to get started.
EPILOGUE
WADE
“Ready bud? Lips sealed, right?”
I eyed Liam through the rearview. He radiated energy, and I hoped Andi would chalk it up to the after school excitement he often had.
“Yep. Sealed. I’m ready.”
Just in time, he beamed back at me, and Andi opened the passenger door. “How are my guys? How was your day, Liam?”
“Good! Great! Really good, Mom.”
She gave me anisn’t he cute?look, and I scrambled to cover in case his little fountain of excitement bubbled over.
“How was your last day?” I asked, signaling to turn onto the road and hoping she didn’t immediately notice this wasn’t the way back to her apartment.
“Good. So ready to be done with my junior year. Senior year, here I come. I have a whole week until my internship starts, and I have about five months until I need to get serious about applications to the PhD program for the following year.”
I chuckled, a burst of love detonating in my chest. “I love that my asking about your last day just rocketed you into the next two-to-seven years of your life.” God, I loved her.
She smiled over at me. “This is not new.”
“No, it’s not.”
“But hey, where are we—”
“Did you see the young mom today? Get a chance to talk with her?”Please take the topic change. Please take it. I needed five minutes to get us to where we were going and then I could relax. Well, no, then I could maybe lose my shit a little, and depending on how things went,thenI could relax.
“I did! I got her name and we chatted. Not anything real deep, but I told her I have a son, and I could tell it made such a difference to just know someone else on campus has a similar situation. It gave me an idea.”
I glanced at her to see that particular look on her face that meant this wasn’t just an idea in its infancy. This was something she’d conceptualized and whatever happened today had pushed it to a full-blown child of an idea. “What’s that?”
“There should be a club. Like a single moms club. A place for people in my situation to meet others like me. It would be so helpful to sit and talk with other women who get it. I don’t know if I’ll be on campus enough next year to spearhead it, but I’m going to make it happen someday, even if it’s when I’m faculty.” She bit her lip, logistics and nuances to the idea no doubt filtering through that brilliant brain.
“That sounds like it’d be helpful. You know better than anyone how hard making connections can be. I hate that you dealt with the extra challenge, but I love that you’re trying to make a difference for other women.”