Her response is immediate.
Tiff:We'll be waiting. Ella's been asking for you all day.
I stare at the message. The adrenaline has started to go, and I’m hit with an overwhelming feeling of happiness. I don’t have to let them go. I can be with them for as long as they’ll have me.
“You good?” Honey asks softly.
“Yeah.” I look up at her. “Thanks to you.”
She shakes her head. “We did it together.”
Silence settles between us.
Honey stares out the window, and I realize neither of us is smiling anymore. The adrenaline has burned off, leaving this raw feeling in my chest behind.
“I don’t know who I am without all of that,” she admits softly.
The honesty hits me straight in the heart because it mirrors exactly what I’m feeling.
“Yeah,” I say. “Me neither.”
I knock her shoulder, giving her a wry smile. “At leastweget to pick what’s next for us. Notthem.”
With tears welling in her eyes, she gives me a small smile back before focusing her attention on her still shaking hands.
I knock her shoulder again.
“Also,” I add, “I like us better like this—unmarried and not resenting each other, even if I still have a lot of shit to make up for.”
“Just make her happy, Jamie. Make this worth it.”
“I will. I promise.”
The words matter more than any vow ever could, because they’re the first promise I’ve ever made as the man my daughter deserves.
Asher interjects from the front, “I think this calls for celebration. I've got a very nice bottle of scotch on the plane—”
“Aren’t you just eighteen?” Honey asks.
“Your point? We’ll be in the air. No one’s going to check.”
She answers with a muffled grumble of annoyance, one that reminds me so much of Zach, it’s a little eerie.
“Suit yourself.” Asher shrugs. “More for me and Jamie.”
“I'm good,” I say. “I just want to get home.”
Asher studies me for a moment, then nods. “Fair enough. So what's the plan now? You gonna lawyer somewhere else?”
“I don't know.” The admission should scare me more than it does. “Maybe. Or maybe I'll do something completely different.”
“Like what?”
“I have no idea.” I laugh, and it sounds almost hysterical. “I have no money, no job prospects, no family name to fall back on. I'm starting from zero.”
“Not zero,” Honey says firmly. “You have Tiff. You have Ella. You have us.” She gestures between herself and Asher. “That's not nothing.”
“You’re right. It's everything,” I correct quietly.