Page 77 of The Impact (Parachutes #3)

Chapter Nineteen

Almost One Month Later…

Tahli

“Hey.” Vin’s expression softened. He looked like money. “You good?”

“Yeah. Come in. It’s cold,” she let the money inside, leading the way to her kitchen island. “Doll! Lo! Terran! Your dad’s here!” She called out to the kids. “Where’s D?”

“Scooping him up from football practice after this,” Vin pulled up a stool to the counter. “Oh, that’s what’s wrong wit’ you. You fucking hungry.” He nodded to the lettuce wraps. “That shit’s unnecessary.”

That was all. No sexual innuendos or compliments on her already-appealing body. It had been three and a half weeks since Larry’s office, their final joint session. A tough coparenting few weeks. Awkward, even. But they were breaking ground.

“How are you?”

“Good,” Tahli chirped. “How about you?”

Vin’s eyes moved between hers. He gave a delayed shrug after. Tahli sighed out relief.

“Yeah,” she admitted. Silence lingered. They still hadn’t quite figured out how to fill those.

“I see you ‘bout to get busy,” Vin nodded to the large pumpkin and carving kit on the counter.

“Yeah,” she snickered. “I mean, we were. I’ll wait for them to get back.

” Tahli pulled a loc behind her ear and watched Vin’s expression turn over.

He extended big hands, palms up. A quiet request that Tahli gawked at for a while.

She didn’t trust herself for palm-to-palm contact. But she took them anyway.

“I need to talk to you about something.”

Dalvin Hayes had done enough talking for a lifetime in that office. Making a labyrinth of her mind while obliterating her heart. But Tahli understood it. Respected it, even. Besides, solitude was doing her justice.

“Stop worrying. I can see the little lines on ya forehead already.”

Tahli clicked her tongue to his accuracy.

“Tahli Hall.” He seemed to struggle. “I gotta go to LA for a while.”

A meteor crashed into her kitchen. “What’s a while?”

Vin cocked his head. “Six…maybe seven…months.”

Tahli choked on her saliva; certain weeks was going to follow. Snatched her hand from his to cough into her fist. Coughed until Vin retrieved her some water.

“You know more than anyone that Munch was supposed to man shit out there,” he started once she was collected, leaning his heavy frame on her tall table.

“I’ve been trying to keep it running but it’s too much money being left on the table, Tahli.

My West Coast developments are taking off like crazy.

I’m talking…set our kids’ kids’ kids up type of business.

” Tahli chewed her thumb skin. Maternal abandonment fed her powerful sense of control.

She was working on harnessing that overwhelming fear.

“What about the kids?” She asked the question of her head, not her heart.

“I’ll fly in on weekends.”

“Weekends,” she whispered. “You’re gonna fly from LA to Jersey every weekend?”

“For my kids? Yes. Until you’re comfortable with them flying there, maybe every few months, or so? Maybe I can have them for breaks. Summer even?”

Tahli inhaled deeply. Coparenting with a two-mile-away Vin had spoiled her. A meeting running late, traffic…Dali and her occasional teenage rebellion. Tahli fiddled with her fingers.

“A whole summer?”

“You can come, too. You’ll be off. I’ll set you up out there. Something real fancy you can show off to Paige and Abs. Maybe a beach house in Malibu.”

She peeled skin from her lips. They were in October talking about summers. Vin was moving to California.

“Tahli?” How would she adjust? How would the kids take it? “Tahli?”

“Yeah.”

“I know you don’t like change, baby love.

But we’ll make it work. We got this.” He held out his fist for her to bump.

What was it? The sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Vin would never abandon his kids. She knew he’d make sure he saw them even if he lived on a plane to do it. But…Vin on a different coast?

“Maybe it’s good for us, too.”

There it was.

Her eyes launched to his.

Distance. The catalyst in love’s killer. He wanted it? Was Tahli too close for comfort?

“Maybe it’ll help us set the boundaries. I can allow you to move on without me over your shoulder, having to watch that shit,” Vin chuckled. Tahli did not.

“When is this happening?” She posed instead.

“Two weeks.”

Tahli nodded. “Is…Bianca going with you?”

“What?” He made a face like it was an outrageous notion. “No. I…haven’t spoken to her since…” Therapy. Failed attempts at second chances. Turks .

“What about DJ?”

“I talked to him about it,” Vin folded his thick, inked fingers next to her bowl of fall fruits.

“He’s excited. Trusting the process. He said he’ll miss his sisters and brother, but I let him know he’ll see them as much as I will.

Told him he’d still see you once in a while, too.

Because he definitely asked,” Vin snickered.

Once in a while. How many times can you gut me?

Vin could do this? This was easy for him?

“Seems like you have it figured out.” Tahli tried not to sulk, pulling at lettuce.

Mind clouded with memories of easier times.

Better times. How did they get here and why wasn’t it an evolution?

Didn’t people look back and say stupid shit like ‘everything happens for a reason. I’m happy xyz happened’?

But so far, it had all been pointless bullshit. No lessons. Just pain.

“If you’re not okay with this, then I can’t do it. I’ll have to…I’ll have to make a choice and it’ll always be them, so…”

Tahli wet her lips. What was the East Coast without King Kong in the Empire State? All for Ann. Her King Kong was jumping coasts. She fucking hated LA. Now LA was stealing him.

“Okay,” Tahli muttered. “We’ll make it work.”

Days later, Tahli clicked through her lesson plans, a frown aimed on her computer screen.

“Mom. Pop Pop’s here.” Dali posed in the doorway of her office.

“Okay. Tell him to come here.” Tahli only briefly glanced up. Dali spun, then abruptly pivoted. She ran over to Tahli, throwing slender arms around her.

“What was that for?” Tahli smiled, embracing the embrace with one arm.

“Just because,” Dali kissed her cheek.

Then her oldest bounced natural curls away, and seconds later, Tahli heard her father dragging feet up her stairs.

“Why you make my old ass come up here? You know my knees cracking, and shit.”

“Gotta keep you young, old man.” Tahli gave him a light smile as he leaned down to hug her.

“How you feel?”

“Daddy, I’m good.” A little annoyed. Scars barely visible, body healed from trauma, and her father and Vin still acted like the accident was yesterday.

“What you doing?” Her father took the seat at the sofa in her office.

“Working.”

“What else is new?”

Tahli rolled her eyes. “What’s up?”

“Nothing. I was um…cleaning out the garage and I found something. But before I give it to you, I wanted to talk.”

Tahli frowned at him.

“What’s wrong with you? You better not be sick or nothing.”

He snorted before scratching his head.

“Nah, I’m healthy as a horse. I just… How are the kids?”

“The kids are fine.” Tahli could sense the direction. He’d gifted her his sense of discernment. Fifteen years with Vin sharpened it.

“How are you?”

It wasn’t such an easy answer. So, she tuned back into her work.

“Fine.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.” As Tahli clicked through the excel boxes, her sinuses burned. Maybe if she said it enough, she’d start to believe it.

An email popped up at the bottom of her screen from her dean.

Tahli, these test results are from last semester. Please send the correct files. Her brain was mush. One conversation had turned common sense into oatmeal.

“I can feel you staring at me, Daddy.” She dashed her eyes to him, and Robert sighed.

“I’m worried about you.”

“Don’t.”

“Vanessa says you don’t want to do the Christmas Eve party this year.”

“I didn’t say that. I just said that she could plan it,” Tahli shrugged. “I’ll take a break from that aspect.”

“That’s not like you.”

“What is like me? Sometimes I feel like there is no me to be like, anymore. Which…whatever. Don’t we all change?”

The silence that Robert allowed her to elaborate in made him a terrific lawyer. People usually hung themselves in that silence.

Tahli sighed heavily, drawing fingers from her keyboard again.

“I’m fine. Let’s check the boxes. I’m not drinking or doing drugs or crying or depressed or overeating or starving myself.

What am I doing that has you worried? I go to work, I come home, I cook for my kids, I do my lesson plans, I watch TV, I work out, I take a shower, I go to sleep.

Repeat. I’m alone. I’m healing. I’m going to therapy.

I’m not jumping into another relationship.

I’m not abandoning my responsibilities. Isn’t this what I’m supposed to do? ”

Her father frowned. “You know…you were never all the way like her.”

“Huh?” Tahli snapped her eyes to her father, heart stuttering.

“Your mother. You got enjoyment out of your life. Your kids, your marriage, your work… No matter how much I tried, I couldn’t make her love that.

I would see this shell of her pretend to…

for as long as she could…but like, at a barbecue or Christmas dinner, I’d catch a glimpse of this emptiness in her eyes, and I tried to ignore it.

I missed the signs. Her leaving wouldn’t have taken me by such a surprise if I hadn’t. ”

“I’m not leaving my kids, Daddy. You don’t have to worry about that. Is that what this is about?”

“It’s about recognizing the signs…of your unhappiness.”

Tahli rolled her eyes.

“I don’t think your fix is running away and joining a band.

But I’m afraid you wouldn’t even know where to begin to look for yours, which makes it scarier.

It’s been two years since this thing with Dalvin, and I don’t know if I’ve seen you genuinely happy since the day those cops showed up at your doorstep. ”