Vaughn sat on River’s couch, his hands loosely clasped between his knees, staring straight ahead. Because holy shit. Dinner with a toddler was no joke. He could hear the low strains of River’s voice upstairs as she read Marcy to sleep, and it wrapped around him like a down comforter, fresh from the dryer.
He didn’t remember a time when River didn’t occupy his heart. His mind. All of him. Her sophomore year at Hook High, she’d passed him in the school parking lot, and magic happened. He’d been a rusted lawnmower forgotten in the shed until River yanked his cord and brought him roaring to life. She’d stopped and stared at him, blonde hair flying around her in the wind, books clutched to her chest—a glowing angel in a gray planet—and he’d lit a cigarette.
God, what an unworthy piece of shit he’d been. Still was. Being in awe of River was a given. She was smart, compassionate, and beautiful. Saw right through him and embraced him anyway. Loved fiercely and took chances. Yeah, he respected River like hell. But watching the way she handled Marcy? He’d only known the half of River’s capabilities. He’d sat there like a stool pigeon, frozen in the face of actually doing what he’d set out to do. Be a parent. Help River.
He’d thought winning his family would be the challenge. Turned out, that would only be where it started. Learning to be a…father. That’s where he’d need to put in the work.
Vaughn stood and turned upon hearing River descending from above, his breath growing shallow at a sight he never expected to see. River with a finger over her lips, tiptoeing down the stairs so they wouldn’t wake their child. She still wore the soft pink T-shirt and form-fitting jeans, but might as well have been wearing a dress made of diamonds for how she sent his pulse flying. And God, goddamn, he finally understood the saying “You could have knocked me over with a feather.” If a flock of seagulls had been passing by, he might have been toast. Too much good.
When the finger fell away from her mouth to reveal a frown, when she advanced on him looking worried, Vaughn finally heard the wheezing breaths he was dragging in. It was the same thing that had happened in River’s bed the night before, almost like he’d ignored anything resembling feelings for too many years, and now they rushed in to drown him, dragged him to the bottom of the ocean. He’d left her. He’d left his girl crying on the floor, while life swam in her belly, making their child.
“I…uh.” Vaughn tugged the hair on the back of his head, until he felt pain. “I’ll never be able to do what you do, Riv. Eating with one hand, minding Marcy with the other. Two conversations at once. Having the answer to everything. You…” He stabbed the air with his finger, trying for a casual smile and failing. God, his voice sounded so unnatural. “You’re something, doll.”
“Hey.” River approached him slowly, and he could see the girl breathing side by side with the woman, identical postures forty-nine months and five days apart. How many times had she been required to ease his wild side? “Come here.”
A humming noise buzzed in his throat. “I’m making things even harder for you, coming back here. I hate knowing that. But I can’t go. I’m sorry.”
River finally reached him and the earthquake beneath his feet stilled, those blue eyes firming up the ground. His pulse still sounded like a thunderstorm raging in his ears, but cooling rain had begun, trickling down onto scorched earth. “I know dinner seemed crazy, but it went really well.” Her hesitant palms pressed against his stomach. “And I don’t want you to go anywhere. This is…good. It’s going to be good.”
“You don’t want me to go?”
“No.”
His rough exhale picked up those tiny strands at River’s hairline and made them dance. “I just sat there. Didn’t know how to help.”
Her hands slipped higher, up to his sensitive pectorals and back down. “You’ll learn. You’ll catch up.” A smile teased her lips. “And no parent knows what they’re doing all the time, but it’s good to know I had you fooled.”
Lord, she was being so sweet to him, her palms chafing up and down, that mouth husking words meant to calm. Reading him, knowing exactly what would work to clear the wildfire in his mind, the same way he knew her signals, her needs. River’s attempt to ease him might have worked on an emotional level, but certainly not on a physical one. The more she stroked his torso, her bottom lip caught between her teeth, the heavier his groin grew. Without any kind of mental consent, he began pushing his chest into her touch, maybe harder than he should have, because River fell back a step.
But she didn’t stop. Thank God for that. No, she added the heels of her hands to the mix, raking them down the bumps of his stomach, pressing at his waistband, before dragging them back up to his pecs.
“I should stop.” River’s breath hitched when Vaughn arched his back, pressing his upper body into the provocative massage. “I’m…it’s probably just the memories making me…remembering…”