This one was gorgeous, perfectly tailored, a leather belt wrapped around the waist that would cinch me in and emphasis my curves.
But that wasn’t why I loved it.
I flipped it over with my eyes closed, my heart in my throat beating so strong I couldn’t breathe.
My fingers ran over the back, touching silken stitching and the rough texture of a patch.
When I opened my eyes, tears leaked out.
Property of Nova was sewn into the back on two rockers, an upper and lower punctuated with a flower in the middle.
A sob bubbled in my chest and spilled onto the duvet as I hugged the jacket to my chest the way I wanted to hug Nova.
Later, after breakfast, I got the first text message.
Nova: A history of us in pictures.
And then they came, one every hour for the rest of the day.
The graffiti image of los tres Caballeros on the back of Eugene’s bar.
A photo of the blueberries at the Summerland farm I’d first fostered at.
The selfie of Dane and Nova they’d sent me minutes before picking me up, their faces so young and bright with joy.
Another of the three of us at the skatepark, me between the two teenage guys holding my skateboard in the air like a trophy.
The image we’d graffitied together for Dane on the side of Street Ink Tattoo Parlour, then the lotus blossoms we both had tattooed on our bodies.
My first tattoo.
There were photos of us pressed cheek to cheek, wet with rain and smiling so huge you could count every one of our teeth as we posed in front of the Algarve coast on our Portugal trip on a rare bad weather day. I remembered how Nova had forced us all to go to the beach anyway, even in the driving rain, and how much fun we’d had playing in the waves, laughing as we were soaked through to the bone.
So many photos, so many visual reminders of the tapestry we had created together, two lives into one.
When the last one came through that evening after dinner, when I was just giving up hope of Nova arriving in person, it made me want to cry and smile at the same time.
Nova: Admit it, we look damn good together. Six, sixteen, twenty-six, sixty-two…we’ll look good together for the rest of our lives.
“Lila,” Molly’s voice startled me so badly I dropped the phone to the couch and looked guilty despite the fact I didn’t really have anything to be guilty about.
She laughed softly, those hydrangea blue eyes crinkling as she sat beside me on the couch, pressing our knees together.
“You don’t need to look so ashamed. I’m a mother of four men, so trust me, nothing shocks me anymore.”
I bit my lip, staring down at my knuckles as I cracked them. “Not even Nova and me?”
“Honey,” she said, lips trembling as she pressed them together in a bid not to laugh at me. Her hands reached for both of my mine, and she rubbed them absently in that maternal way she had of instantly providing comfort. “I’ve known about you and Nova since before you and Nova knew about it.”
I huffed out a laugh and collapsed back against the leather couch. “You and everyone else in Entrance.”
“Probably,” she agreed easily, making me laugh again.
“I love him,” I admitted, and it felt so good to say aloud. “I love him so much sometimes it feels like an invasive species inside my chest.”
“He can be that way,” she said, teasing me and him both before she sobered and slid closer to tuck my hair behind my ear and cup my cheek. “Lila, my sweet girl, you are more precious to this family than I could ever hope to express. I hope you know that. I hope we’ve been able to show that––“
“You have!” I cried out, horrified she might think otherwise. “I owe this family everything.”
Molly’s sweet, open face shuttered like a prison on lockdown. “No. You do not owe us anything. You’ve repaid us every day you’ve lived in this home with your kindness, you spirit, and your huge heart. We all love you and have our own special relationships with you just like in any family. But Nova, well…” She smiled softly, secretly as she thought of her eldest son. “He always believed he wasn’t good enough for the happiness he was born into. He believed that he hadn’t suffered strife, he wasn’t tested enough, so he threw himself recklessly into every new experience, any bad idea, just to collect scars like most boys collect baseball cards. It was Dane and you that gave him a purpose, that made him feel like a better person just for loving you, for giving you two the opportunity to enjoy the fruits of his life too.”
She stroked my hair again, smiling at me the way one woman smiles at another in a secret, feminine confidence. “If that was the foundation of his love for you, you can imagine how difficult it might have been for him to realize that he was in love with you too. Over the years, I think we all saw it, even sweet, oblivious Hudson, but we left it alone, hoping you two would work it out. It’s taken a little longer than I thought, but I hope now you are.”