“Of course. Take all the time you need.”
After a minute, I felt Parrish’s hands on my face. “Hey. Hey, look at me.” I blinked up at him. “We can leave right now. We don’t have to do any of this.”
“I’m okay.”
“You’re most definitely not okay. Diesel… talk to me. You’ve been in your head about this for days, and I feel like… I feel like I don’t know what you’re thinking. Am I doing something wrong? Am I pressuring you? Because that’s the last thing I want.”
I swiveled our chairs toward each other so I could pull him in for a tight hug. “You’re doing everything right. I don’t know where I’d be without you right now. I’m just so scared of losing her, of letting Beth down. And I… I’ve never had anyone fighting this hard for me before. What if it’s the wrong thing? What if I’m the wrong choice for her? And I don’t want handouts, Parrish. I’ve worked really hard my whole life to not wind up beholden to someone else, and I can’t imagine how much all of this is costing. I can’t… I can’t…” I wanted to say I couldn’t thank his family enough, but the words failed me.
Parrish pressed a kiss into my neck. “We love Marigold. And we think you’re the best choice, even if you don’t. When you’re not feeling strong enough to be the right choice for her, we’ll be standing behind you making you stronger.”
It was the first time he’d implied this wasn’t just temporary—that he’d still be around to support me even if and when I got custody of her. Something about that assurance finally loosened the knots tied up in my gut.
“Promise?” I asked like a terrified child getting ready to jump into water not knowing how to swim.
Parrish pulled back until our foreheads were touching. “I’d pretty much promise you the moon if I had a way of grabbing it,” he said softly. “You deserve love, Edwin Church. And you love that girl, and she loves you. I promise to help support both of you through this, okay?”
I nodded.
“And someday you’re going to explain to me how your name became Diesel,” he teased, holding my hands and stroking his thumbs over my knuckles in a way that was both distracting and soothing, “but that doesn’t have to be today.”
“Oh, that. Dumb story, really. Back when I worked with Stix, he tried teaching me about cars. He’d have me take them apart and put them back together. He taught me to drive. Used to let me gas up his truck, and the wrecker, and the Bobcat, and all the other equipment—”
“Oh, no,” Parrish said, guessing where this was going.
“Oh, yes.” I shook my head, remembering my own stupidity. “I went to fill the Bobcat with regular gas, and he stopped me just in time. I thought for sure he’d kick me out and tell me to never come back.”
“But he didn’t.”
“Nah. He started calling me Diesel to remind me…” I cleared my throat. “To remind me he cared about me and trusted me.”
Parrish smiled his gorgeous smile, and his eyes glistened. “Well, then. I’m glad to call you Diesel.” He winked.
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Parrish Partridge was a miracle worker. He’d somehow brought things around and made it all okay.
I wished in that moment there was something I could give him, something that would mean to him even a fraction of what his help with Marigold meant to me. Maybe I could offer to tune up the Mustang or find out if his home in Nashville needed any handyman work.
I shook my head against those ridiculous ideas. Surely, the man had everything he needed already. I’d never be able to repay him.
“Thank you,” I croaked. “I… thank you. You’re a really good person, Parrish.”
It sounded lame because it was the biggest understatement ever. But I knew now we were going to be fine.
And we were. For about an hour. Everyone came back into the room shortly after my freak-out, and we all got down to business. The attorneys had us sign reams of paperwork, and it got to a point I just signed whatever they put in front of me.
I trusted Parrish. I trusted Beau. More than that, I trusted the reputation of one of Nashville’s biggest law firms. I had to, really. What else was I going to do?
We said our goodbyes and made our way back downstairs and out onto the city streets. Parrish chatted off and on about restaurants he liked nearby, Beau and Marnie’s historic home in Belle Meade, the one-bedroom apartment he’d sublet when he’d moved down to the Thicket, and how strange it was to be back in the city after all those weeks away.
But as he talked, my brain caught up to what it had seen, and I finally began to process what had happened. Parrish led me to a restaurant nearby and got us seated while I began riffling through the papers in the folder they’d handed me. When I finally looked up, there was a Pabst Blue Ribbon in front of me and Parrish was looking through a menu while tapping his lips with his index finger.