Kristen Ashley - Own the Wind

“I’ll wait for your call but tell me now, is everything okay?” I asked.

“Yeah. Everything is good.” She smiled a small, knowing smile. “Hop is willing to do anything to make his woman happy. He’d walk a tightrope with no net if she was on the other side, cheering him on. And he just proved what we already knew, and he did that in a big way.”

This, I’d noticed watching those two, was the God’s-honest truth.

This, I noticed right then, made Tyra Allen happy.

“Though, Lanie feels the same about him,” Tyra added.

I’d noticed this too.

“Back to you, though, just to repeat, it’s crucial that you and Shy agree about important life stuff.”

She was right about that.

Tyra hooked her arm in mine, got close, and moved us slowly down the hall toward the kitchen.

“You don’t have anything to worry about,” she said. “I know another man who’d walk a tightrope. It’s just, you seriously butted heads over crushed ice. You may need to share your thoughts about holy matrimony and what you foresee with building your family.”

She was right about that too. There had been heartbreak and drama, and now Shy and I were coasting on a wave of goodness broken only when we fought about fridges, or his bossiness hit the danger zone and we had to have words. We hadn’t talked about any of this, and it was important.

“He wants to build a family,” I told her.

She stopped us before we hit the kitchen and looked at me. “I know that, honey, but he could be thinking six kids while you’re thinking two.”

Yes, Shy and I needed to have this conversation, because no way I was having six kids and he missed his family so much, this was a possibility.

I nodded. “You’re right, Ty-Ty.”

She grinned and we both moved down the hall.

Once there, I saw Dad and Shy in the kitchen, both taking pulls off their beers. Both wearing black tees, faded jeans, and motorcycle boots. Both exuding badassness. Both beloved by me.

It was a happy sight.

It had been said, repeatedly, that women found their fathers in their men.

Luckily, when I did just that, I had a good man to find.

It had also been said that men found their mothers.

I hoped, with the way he talked about her, Shy felt the same.

I hoped this for about a second when he dropped his beer, his eyes came to me and his chin dipped, saying nonverbally I was to go to him.

I went there, he curved an arm around me, pulled me in close, and bent to put his lips to my hair. “You ready to go home?” he asked and I melted into him.

I loved it when he held me and spoke into my hair.

I loved it when he called the house we shared our home.

And I loved it that he finally had a home.

“Yeah,” I mumbled into his throat, and he kissed my hair.

I looked to Dad and Tyra and saw Tyra had a small smile playing around her mouth, her expression warm.

Dad wasn’t smiling. I saw his eyes were intense but they were not conflicted.

He was happy. He was happy I had someone and he was happy that person was Shy, a man he understood, a man he could trust, a man who would go all out to protect his daughter.

A man who would walk a tightrope for me.

A brother.

“You have a good night, Dad?” I asked, and his eyes moved from Shy’s arm around my shoulders to me.

“Yeah, darlin’,” he answered then, “Come here and give your old man some love before you go, yeah?”

I moved out of Shy’s arm into my father’s. He tucked me close and kissed the top of my head.

“Thanks for lookin’ after the boys,” he murmured into my hair, I closed my eyes and nodded.

“Anytime,” I whispered.

“Love you, Tabby,” he said, giving me a squeeze. He curled me out and back to Shy before he looked to Shy and said, “Safe home.”

“Right,” Shy said, leaned in, kissed Tyra’s cheek then, amidst waves and good-byes, we went out to my car.

We’d pulled out of the drive and were winding through the curving roads that led down the wooded mountain from Dad and Ty-Ty’s house when Shy announced, “Three and, babe, firm on that.”

I looked from the wooded darkness outside the car to my man.

“Three what?” I asked.

“Kids,” he answered then continued. “And marriage. Firm on that too.”

My stomach flipped.

Shy went on but when he did, it wasn’t an announcement. It was soft.

“I know you lost it all right before the big event, sugar, and you said you weren’t gonna do it again. I’m just sayin’, it means somethin’ to me so you are.”

“Shy—” I tried but he kept going.

“You lost that guy, that’s always gonna sting, I get that. But that is not gonna happen again and I want a ring on your finger, my ring. I wear yours. I want every time you look at your hand to remember you belong to me. I want every time I look at mine to remember I belong to you. Same when we see each other’s hands. You want a small shindig, I’m down with that but I’ll say now, I’d rather have a blowout.”

I was stuck on something he said earlier.

That guy.

That guy.

He always, but always, called Jason “that guy”.

“His name was Jason,” I said gently and carefully.

Shy glanced my way before glancing back to the road and asking, “What?”

“His name was Jason,” I repeated. “He wanted two kids. He’d never own a Harley even though I had schemes of finding ways to get him to buy one. He loved me. We were getting married and now he’s dead.”

Shy reached out a hand, found mine, and squeezed. “Tabby—”

“He loved me and would want you for me.”

The air in the car went still.

Then Shy started again, “Sugar—”

I squeezed his hand and interrupted, “That’s how much he loved me. He’d want you for me. He’d want me to be this happy.”

Shy was silent.

I let the car be that way for long moments before I looked to the road and told him, “Three kids is perfect and I want a big shindig, so it’s all good.”

“I wouldn’t want that,” Shy declared, and I looked back at him.

“Pardon?”

He glanced my way, his hand tightened around mine then he looked back to the road and stated, “No other man. Not anyone but me.”

“Shy—” I began but it was my turn to get cut off.

“I get you believe that. I get why you need to believe that. It might be wrong that I tell you this but I also saw him with you that night at DCPA, and I know you wanna believe it but it’s not even a little true. He would not want me for you. He wanted only you for him and he wanted to be the only one for you. Now, baby, you’re right. Jason’s dead. He doesn’t get to want anything. But I’ll tell you, I love you so much, I’m selfish and I only want me for you, not you with anyone else, if I’m breathin’ or I’m dead. And Jason felt the same fuckin’ way. I know that might suck hearin’ it but the truth is, there’s beauty in that. He didn’t love you enough to sacrifice you to another man. He loved you enough to want there to be only him for a lifetime ’cause that’s the way he felt about you. He didn’t get a lifetime. But, I’m tellin’ you now, I want a lifetime.”

I felt a stinging in my eyes as I admitted, “Shy, I don’t know what to do with that.”

He kept holding my hand tight when he replied gently, “Nothin’ to do with it. We don’t always get what we want, Tabby, and life goes on. I know you’ll always love him. I know you’ll always feel his loss. I gotta live with that. But luckily, love doesn’t have limits and you’re you, you got a lot of love to give. So I’ll take what I got since it’s everything. But, Tabby, baby, the point I’m making is, this is the only conversation we have where to me, that guy is Jason. He’s that guy. I am not bein’ a dick. I’m giving this to you real. I need that and I need you to give it to me ’cause he has a piece of you I’ll never have, so let me take what I need from him.” His voice dropped to low and sweet. “Do you get me, baby?”