Here we go again. This was important (obviously) and he told me straight out. No game playing, no lies, no avoidance, no subterfuge. This meant something to him (again, obviously) and I had to share.

So I told him, “I wanted kids.”

It was then he started staring at me.

Then I shared, “Around the time we were ready to go for it, Damian started hitting me.”

Brock closed his eyes.

I kept speaking.

“He thought I went off The Pill. I hid it from him and kept taking it.”

Brock opened his eyes.

“You’ve got two great sons,” I said softly. “And I lost my shot. So I’m never going to be a mom. I came to terms with that a while ago. Not easy terms but I had no choice. Something else I allowed Damian to take away from me. But this keeps being as good as it is, I have the shot to be a damned good stepmom and if that comes with four days a month or every other week or every day, I don’t really care.”

I settled deeper into him and kept sharing.

“I had a good stepmom, honey, so I have a good role model. Donna was awesome. She and Dad didn’t have any kids because he was sick. He never knew for sure where that disease would take them and he didn’t want to leave Donna alone to raise a child and he didn’t want to do that to a child because he watched my sister and me deal. So she poured the love she’d have had for her kids into my sister and me. I love her. We’re still close. She means the world to me. So, if my life with you comes with them, since I love you and I’m falling in love with them, however that comes about, it makes me happy.”

His hand slid into my hair, his eyes got soft, and his mouth murmured, “Tess.”

“Convinced?” I asked.

One side of his lips tipped up. “Yeah.”

“Good,” I whispered.

I studied his relaxed face and took in a soft breath.

Okay, since we were having a serious conversation, I decided we might as well continue to have it and also address something Brock and I had not addressed since it happened.

In preparation, I slid my hand up his chest to his neck, wrapped my fingers around, and relaxed my body fully into his before I asked softly, “Will you tell me about Bree?”

His fingers tensed on my hip and he asked back, “How much did you hear?”

“Not sure, but at a guess?” He nodded. “Most of it.”

He stared at me. Then he muttered, “Right.”

“It wasn’t cool to eavesdrop it was just—”

“Babe, with Levi, fuck, with my entire family, you’d hear it one way or the other and bein’ with me, you’d learn it eventually, so it doesn’t matter.”