Page 41 of I Choose You (Wilder #2)

I ate, chatted, and laughed all through dinner, but my mind was on Claire.

Seeing my father settling down with Sheila was great.

I couldn’t deny that I wanted that for myself too.

Not just to settle down but to settle down with Claire.

She had seen the broken pieces of me, the jagged fragments and sharp edges, and smoothed them out like sea glass.

She was the best damn thing that I never wanted, and I wasn’t ready to let her go.

We all left Dad’s—and Sheila’s—house together. The idea of sitting in my house, alone, was less than appealing. For a long time, that was exactly how I wanted it, but after having Claire in my space for months, I didn’t like the quiet quite as much anymore.

“You guys busy? Want to come by my house for a drink?” I asked.

“Yeah, sure. I’ve got some time,” Luke said with a shrug .

“Doll?” Wyatt turned to Maeve. “Whatever you want to do is good with me.”

“I’m exhausted, and I want to get Jane settled for bed. But you go with your brothers,” she said, giving him a quick kiss.

Wyatt wrapped his arm around her, hauling her to him. “You sure?” he asked, his voice low.

“Only if you promise to wake me up when you get home,” Maeve said, looking at him with undisguised heat. Wyatt tipped her chin up with his fingers, wasting no time before capturing her lips.

“Jesus. You’ll be apart for like two hours,” I grumbled. Was I jealous that my brother was making out on my father’s front lawn with the love of his life? Absolutely.

Wyatt hopped in my truck while Luke followed us to my place. I unlocked the front door and strolled in, my brothers right behind me.

“Christ, brother. Your place looks like Dad’s,” Wyatt laughed when they walked in.

“Did Claire move in with you?” Luke asked.

I looked around my house. Claire’s things had migrated to my house the more time we spent together.

Her favorite blanket, her slippers. The ficus tree she had bought to cheer up Wyatt’s house.

She’d asked if she could bring it over to my house since she was afraid she wasn’t home enough to water it. Of course, I had said yes.

Signs of Claire were everywhere.

“No, she stays here a lot though.”

“What do you think about having someone in your space? That wasn’t really a thing with you and Kayleigh, was it?” Luke asked.

“I love it. I love waking up to her. I love making her coffee in the morning. I love falling asleep beside her.”

“That’s a lot of loving things…” Wyatt trailed off.

I grabbed us each a beer from my fridge and brought them into the living room.

Luke popped his brow, waiting for me to respond.

“Yeah,” I sighed. “I wasn’t supposed to. But fuck me if I didn’t go and fall in love with that woman.”

“Have you told her that?” Luke asked.

“She’s leaving in a matter of weeks. I don’t want to put this on her and make her feel like shit when she packs up and takes off.”

“Yeah, but maybe she’ll consider staying if she knows how you feel.”

“She won’t. She talked to her boss yesterday about her next job. She’s building a life for herself. What will she have if she stays here? There isn’t anything for her here.”

“You,” Wyatt stated.

I huffed out a laugh. Claire DeLuca was made for big things. Small-town living, saddled with a construction worker, no job or money of her own. None of that sounded like Claire.

“What about you?” I asked Luke. “Where’s Jules tonight?”

Luke took a long pull on his beer before responding. “She had some yoga class, apparently. I told her I was coming by here after Dad’s, and she hasn’t answered, so I guess it’s still going on. Some of those classes take hours.”

“Is yoga good for pregnant women?” Wyatt asked.

“I don’t know, probably,” I said. “Why? Everything okay with Maeve?”

Wyatt lit up like a Christmas tree talking about Maeve’s pregnancy, making me chuckle quietly to myself.

“Everything is going really good. Maeve’s morning sickness is pretty much gone, and even that wasn’t too bad.

She feels great. Baby is growing like crazy.

The doctor told us at the last visit that the baby was the size of a mango.

A fucking mango,” Wyatt exclaimed, putting his hand out like he was holding an invisible piece of fruit.

“I wonder what type of fruit it’ll be this time,” I said.

“Actually, while we’re talking about it… Luke, are you working Friday afternoon? We could use someone to watch Jane, and I forgot to ask Dad.”

“Yeah, no problem. I’m off on Friday. I’d love to have her.”

My dad, Luke, and I had taken on a lot of babysitting shifts in the earlier days. The instability of the foster care system had put Maeve without daycare for a few weeks, so Jane bounced around with us. I kind of missed my days snuggled up with the little girl.

“Thanks, brother. We have a doctor’s appointment right after Maeve gets out of work, and I wanted to take her to dinner afterwards, but then we would be too late to pick up Jane. I can grab her from daycare and drop her off with you before Maeve and I go to the doctor’s.”

“Works for me,” Luke said distractedly as he was looking at his phone. “Hey, Jules just got home, so I’m going to head out.”

“Yeah, can you give me a ride on your way?” Wyatt asked.

“Yeah, hop in,” Luke said before turning to me. “Night, man. Thanks for the beer.”

“Yup. Have a good night.”

The two of them left together, leaving me in my empty house, alone. And just like that, I was missing my girl again.