“I guess it’s because, for a while, she was the closest thing to family I had.”
“You don’t have parents?” He looked up at me from his position on the grass.
“I do, but we haven’t spoken in a long time. We don’t…get along well.”
“That’s too bad,” he said. “I don’t have a mom. I mean, I guess I do, but I think she hates me.”
I stepped forward as the protective instinct in me took over, wanting to shield him from such thoughts. “What makes you say that, Noah?”
“She left right after she had me. She must not have loved me much.”
I knelt down, so we were eye-to-eye.
“No one could ever hate you, Noah. Whatever reason she had to leave had everything to do with her and her own problems. It had nothing to do with you. Like you said, adults are weird. But kids? Kids are easy to love. You are probably the easiest one of all, so please don’t think she left because something is wrong with you, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Ready to head back now?” I brushed the dirt from my skirt before helping him up.
He nodded, and we made our way back to the trail.
“Oh, and, Liv?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re pretty awesome, too.”
~Jackson~
“That’s just disgusting,” Liv said, pointing and shaking her head.
I used the tongs to gently lay the two steaks I’d been marinating all afternoon onto the hot grill.
“No,” I argued, “this is culinary perfection. When I’m done, this meat will melt in your mouth. It’ll be so tender that it could make babies weep.”
She gave me a wry but amused expression.
“A little overboard?” I asked.
“A little bit, and that definitely won’t be melting in this mouth.”
Her laughter filled the backyard as I finished up putting the food on the grill. I took care when I placed her veggie burger down, making sure it was far away from the meat. I might not understand how she could choose a life without steaks and bacon, but I certainly respected her decision.
Setting the grill’s lid down over everything, I walked over to the wicker chairs that had definitely seen better days. My grandmother used to love the outdoors. Her backyard had been a testament to that—at least, when she’d had the energy to keep it up. In the end, I’d been told she had barely been able to venture across her own house, let alone go outside to tend to her plants. If it weren’t for Liv, everything would have died. The worn, unused furniture was proof of that.
“I think I need to go furniture shopping,” I said, sitting down and looking at the blue paint that had mostly faded to a dull gray. I ran my fingers over the textured pattern, wondering what Nana must have thought about when she’d sat in this same chair.
“She loved to sit out here and watch the fireflies in the summer, and then she’d wait out here for the first snowflake in the winter. I’d yell for her to get inside before she froze.” Liv paused and rested her hand on mine. “But she’d want you to make this house your own, Jackson. It’s why she gave it to you and not anyone else.”
“Out with the old and in with the new?”
“How about a mixture of both?”
Nodding, I looked up and found her brown eyes in the last few remaining sunbeams of the day. “I think I could live with that.”
Rising, I moved back over to the grill and checked on our food, flipping the steaks and veggie burger over.
“Noah was quiet when you two came back today. Was he okay?” I added the vegetable skewers Liv had brought over onto the grill.
“Yeah.” She smiled. “I think it was good for him to go. He was curious about her, and it gave him a chance to get to know her through my eyes.”
“He’s never had much family besides me,” I said, joining her once again.
“What about your parents? Aren’t you close?”
I grabbed a beer from the cooler at our feet and offered her one. I popped the top, and she took it.
“We are.” I grabbed another beer and popped the top. “They adore Noah, but right around the time he was five, my dad was eligible for early retirement. They always dreamed of living somewhere different. So, after giving my blessing, they moved to Washington. They have a beautiful house, right on the beach, and my dad owns a boat. They’re in heaven.”
“Good for them,” she commented.
“Yeah, I just wish we saw them more often. Washington is a long flight.”
She was silent for a moment, her gaze set on the horizon, as the sun slowly faded away, giving in to the impending night.
“Noah talked about his mother, too,” she finally said.
At the mere mention of her, I stiffened instantly, a knee-jerk reaction even now after all these years.
“What did he say?” I asked hesitantly.
“Not much. Just that she left when he was a baby.”
She paused, and I felt her eyes on me.
“Jackson, he thinks something is wrong with him.”
“What? Why?” My head jerked up.
“He assumed something had to be wrong with him for her to leave,” she said softly.
Shaking my head, I let out a shallow breath. “Jesus.”
“I think I set him straight.” She smiled warmly.
“It should have been me.” My hands moved up to my face and through my hair as I leaned forward in my chair.
“Sometimes, kids need to hear these things from someone else.”
“You’re an amazing woman, Liv,” I said, looking up at her.
Her smile widened. “You’re not the first person to tell me that.”
Edging closer, I reach out to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “But I’m the first man, right?”
Her lips were so close that I could feel her warm breath against my own.
“Would it make you feel better if I said yes?” Her tone was light and flirty.
“Sweetheart, please keep joking. It’s water off my back because soon, every other man who has had the pleasure of paying you a compliment, touching this skin, or kissing these lips will be nothing more than a distant memory.”
Just as my lips touched hers, finally doing the one thing I’d been dying to do all night, the screen door creaked behind us as Noah pushed through it.
We broke apart, and I looked up to catch the end of his eye roll. His attention quickly turned toward the grill, and he took in a quick sniff as his mouth curved upward.