Page 84 of The Impact (Parachutes #3)

“I told you. Best steak dinner ever, Mr. Hayes.” Tahli promised over her shoulder, leading the way to a three-leveled, modern-styled home.

There were bigger homes in Malibu by far, but this was one of the best structured Vin had seen.

A wooden overhead deck on the side of the house with a space to park three or four cars underneath it.

Lots of glass windows. Flocks of trees for cover.

“I don’t think anybody’s home,” Vin noted the lack of lights.

“They’re expecting us,” Tahli replied, taking the stairs, leading to two black double doors. What the fuck was Tahli up to? Vin could only halfway believe she wasn’t a dream.

Tahli rang the doorbell before turning to him. She leaned her head against the frame patiently, warm eyes raising.

“Hi.”

Vin shook off the disbelief. The Earth was turning again.

“This is a nice house, right?” she asked in waiting and it made Vin snort.

“It is. I’d still like to know who it belongs to, so I can deactivate defense mode,” he half-joked. But Vin’s survival tactics were never extinguished, merely rewired. All he thought and prepared for was how to protect what was his.

She mumbled something.

“What, baby love?”

Vin heard the locks turn. Tahli sported this contented smile.

“I said it’s yours.”

The door swung open on his furrowed brows. His Dali was there with Tahli’s smile, only wider.

“Daddy!”

Too much to process with no instructions. His face dropped. Body stiffened as Dali flung long, skinny arms around him, barely rocking his frame. He only brought his bewildered expression to Tahli, as she launched into a celebratory dance.

“I did it. I pulled a Vin on Vin. Aye… I did my big one, baby. Come on!”

Dali and Tahli grabbed each of his hands, yanking him inside as his heart exploded.

“Daddy! You like my house?” Terran twirled in circles in the bare open living area beneath a crystal chandelier. There was no furniture; only a massive, frosted Christmas tree with rose gold décor. Even if it was February. Because he had gifted her a home the same way once upon a time.

“Hey, Dad.” Milo lifted a lanky arm and grinned. “Surprise.”

Vin was stuck. DJ... He needed to call his assistant and check on…

“I got the room with the balcony!” DJ stampeded down the stairs, blowing the roof off Vin’s mind.

Tahli beamed, the way she would when she watched her loved ones open Christmas presents. But for some reason, amidst the overwhelm of joy, Vin’s feet moved backward, away from the scene of perfection.

He backed out the door into the ocean misted air. His mind fogged, brain matter tingling.

“Dali, um…give us a minute, okay?” Tahli tossed seriously over her shoulder, stepping outside after him. “Hey,” she sang. “You okay?”

Vin massaged the cold sweat from his brow, shaking his head.

“I don’t know…” He struggled to vocalize it, chest tightening. “Like, I really fucking don’t know…”

“Hey.” She removed their distance, placing hands onto his hairy cheeks.

“Don’t do that. Don’t run from this beautiful moment, Dalvin. You have amazing children who love you. Who couldn’t wait to surprise you. Baby, I love you. You deserve that love, Dalvin. Just like I deserve the love you have for me.”

Mouth balled, his glazed eyes searched hers for proof of certainty.

“You don’t get it, Tahli. I was coming to terms with this shit,” he sniffed in composure.

“I accepted that I fucked it all up because certain shit was never for me. I accepted that I lost you, as much as it gutted me to, because I deserved to feel that. Now you’re here with the house…

and the kids… I wanna drop to my knees and thank God for his mercy, but I also don’t wanna get my fucking hopes up.

I can’t keep losing you, baby love. I don’t know if I can survive another round of that shit. ”

Tahli was the only person breathing he could be this candid with and not feel weak.

“Baby, we are so much alike,” she confessed, shaking her head.

“We both handled our trauma in different ways…but ultimately, we never knew how to receive love fully. Me? I created expectations for love, knowing many wouldn’t be able to live up to them.

Eventually, someone would make a mistake, and I’d never have to worry about being abandoned. Because I would do the abandoning.

“And you…you never felt you deserved the life you had. So, you gambled with it, then built a web of lies to hold onto it, terrified of me abandoning you. But we’re not there anymore.

We’re here. With a power in knowing the past we’re up against…

and knowing that shit doesn’t stand a chance against our parachutes. ”

Vin boosted his brows. “Damn. Therapy got you talking like Larry.”

She chuckled. “Vin, there’s no hopes to get up. Because I’m here . I want to do the work. Do you?” Her soft voice questioned, and Vin caught the concern in it.

“Of course I do. I told you a long time ago, Tahli…I just want to fuck you for the rest of my life and make you smile.”

“And pump me full of your babies?”

“At least I got that right,” he snickered, feeling lighter.

“And you can do the other two,” she assured. “If you want to badly enough.”

“More than anything,” he uttered, barely audible, taking her hands into his.

“I get it now, Vin. The house had to burn down.”

“What?” He cleared his throat.

“The house,” she insisted. “Our house literally had to burn down, baby. So, we can rebuild it from the ashes.”

This woman. Created to rule his being.

“I wrote a line in Munch’s vows, but I meant it for you.”

“Poor Wynter,” Tahli uttered.

“I know,” Vin snorted. “But I said… I didn’t earn your love, but you gave it to me anyway. It wasn’t anything profound, but it was real. Tahli…I’m ready to earn your shit. Seed by seed.”

Vin’s lids sprung open from the deepest sleep.

A sinking feeling in his chest as he was met with an empty bed.

Brushing his hand over the bare space beside him, he frowned as the sweetest dream turned into a gray truth.

Swiping his sore eyes, Vin gazed out of the balcony window where the moon witnessed his uncertainty.

“I needed something to bring into bed and rub my feet together.”

His head snapped from the window to find a smiling Tahli entering the bedroom. A second later, her vanilla scent and decadent dessert climbed into bed next to him.

“I gotta sit down slow because somebody put a beating on my little pussy like a pedo in Gen-pop,” she joked, like she knew anything about Gen-pop. Vin only gaped at her, mind spinning.

“You’re here.”

“What?” She queried with fixed eyes, scooping up a piece of brownie drenched with vanilla cream.

“You’re back for real? No bullshit?”

“Vin… you’re scaring me. That was like two weeks ago.”

His eyes bounced back at the moon.

“Dalvin…Did you smoke that weed that Paige gave you? Because you know her shit will have you–” Tahli twirled a finger at her temple.

Vin inhaled enough oxygen to chase away the fog. Remnants returned. Robert, Vanessa, Paige, and Abby visiting their new home. Lots of laughs.

“Yeah. I smoke so much, I guess I ain’t think that shit was gonna fuck with me.”

She placed her brownie plate down on the bed. No, it wasn’t a dream. Tahli already had brownie crumbs falling onto the bedding. For once, it was welcomed.

“I was thinking of a promise I made while you were asleep,” she got a little serious.

“Oh, yeah? Which one?” He leaned over to kiss her bare knee. The knees were back. “‘Cause I remember all your promises. Like that thing…with the Pop Rocks. You promised you were gonna do that again.”

Tahli squinted. “I thought you said that felt weird?”

“I mean,” Vin shrugged a broad shoulder and Tahli snickered.

“Not that. Not any promise that has to do with sucking your dick.”

Vin frowned, making her giggle.

“The promise…wasn’t to you,” Tahli went in delicately, and he lost his humor from her sobriety. “It was to Lola.”

That jolted him, in a way only Tahli knew how to. Feed him tidbits in a reveal. He’d become addicted to all of her little ways.

“On our wedding day. She made me promise her something.”

Vin’s forehead lined. “What?” Because what the fuck could Lola make somebody promise? When she couldn’t even keep the silent promise when you give birth to someone not to leave them?

Tahli leaned in, her hand on his wooly cheek. The silk of her nightie grazing his naked chest. That shit felt so damn good.

“She made me promise to give you all of the love that she never could.”

Vin hated the way Tahli blurred in his vision for a second.

“Get the fuck out of here,” he muttered, barely managing audibility before laughing it off. But Tahli nodded grimly. No way Lola gave a fuck about the love he didn’t receive. Still, it put him in a place.

“That’s outrageous.” Vin scraped his lip with his teeth. “Because when I went to your pops to ask for your hand…he made me promise him something, too.”

Tahli waited. “He said one day you would try to run. But to promise him that I was man enough to chase you.” That parted her supple lips. They sat in that heaviness until his baby love started the skipped laughter. A second later, Vin joined it.

“I mean…they really were trying to set us up for failure,” Tahli shook her head. “Those two combined? Talk about pressure. Don’t stop loving him. Don’t let that bitch run away,” Tahli mocked.

“Word,” Vin grumbled, staring at the crumbs. She scooched into some section of him carved by God for her to fit, and Vin brushed his lips tenderly over her forehead. Fingertips sweeping her soft hairline. Inhaling her smell.

“It’s not a thing I wasn’t willing to try to get you back in my arms. Including walking away,” he confessed guiltily. Tahli squeezed him, and he heard her sigh.

“This has been the hardest two years of my entire life, Dalvin. I only hope when they say for better or worse, this was that.”

“It was,” he breathed, securing her in his strength.

“But honestly, Tahli. I’ve been walking around with this fucking pit in my stomach for what feels like forever.

Now, I can finally love you properly,” Vin admitted into her skin.

“The man I am now. The man no longer operating solo trying to control our destiny…the man no longer deceiving and hiding…this man can love the woman you are now.”

“I believe that. Like Larry said…we can work on truly learning and loving these versions of ourselves. I love you so fucking much,” she looked up at him to declare.

“I love you , baby love.” They had another Zoom session with Larry in two days. Vin anticipated learning more of her; more of himself. Rebuilding with honesty at the foundation. No deadlines. No talks of remarriage. No racing time. Just two people committing to effort.

A knock cut the intimacy short.

“Yeah?” Tahli called out before mumbling. “You got draws on, right?”

“Yup,” Vin raised the sheet to confirm, just as the door swung open and Dali darkened the hallway.

“Just wanted to make sure the room wasn’t rocking before I came in.” Then she smiled and ran, pirouetting her 16-year-old self right between them. More crumbs on the bed as Dali stole a piece of Tahli’s dessert.

“Can we talk about my car?” She propositioned through a mouthful of chocolate. “I was thinking a Porsche.”

“What kind of bougee-ass kids we raising, baby love?”

“I don’t know,” Tahli snorted at his question. “I had a purple Acura.”

“Yuck,” Dali grimaced. More rapping made them all glance up. DJ didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. He still had nightmares and would wake Vin often. This time, he beelined for Tahli’s open arms.

“Oh, you gonna go to her?” Vin teased.

“Leave him alone,” Tahli taunted, as DJ climbed into their California King, laying his head on Tahli’s fluffy chest.

“Told you about being in my spot, boy,” Vin teased him.

“DJ, you woke me up,” Milo groaned from the doorway.

“You know, you two have your own rooms,” Tahli reminded Milo. “Y’all don’t have to share a room.”

Milo ignored her, but dragged his long legs across the room, laying across the bottom of the bed.

“Can I have my parents for two seconds? Gosh!” Dali complained.

“They’re not just your parents.”

“You just want a stupid car,” DJ said on top of Milo, already comfortable enough to bicker with his siblings. Of course, that roused the princess.

“Hey! Why you all in the bed without me?” Terran pouted from the door as if it was some conspiracy.

“Come here, baby,” Vin held his big arms out and she brightened, jogging over to him. He picked her up, laying her on his chest as Dali grabbed the remote, channel surfing.

“Ooh, brownie,” Terran chirped, as Milo and DJ had a foot fight. Across their sea of children, Vin met Tahli’s smiling eyes.

“We got money… and pretty babies…” She mouthed, singing a tune she’d concocted on a Moorea bungalow.

It lifted Vin’s lingering disbelief and distrust of the happiness.

He roved eyes over his four children before meeting hers.

Ruler of his thoughts, loins, heart, and still a little fucked-up mind.

Tahli shocked him and raised two fingers near the strap of her nightgown before tapping them against the parachute tattoo. A wordless vow.

Their parachute had blown every which way, rocked by winds, and thrown into turbulence. But somehow, they survived the impact. They had landed safely.

So, Vin took two fingers, the ones etched with the “A” and “H” of her name and acknowledged his own.

Too painful to have been a dream.

Too outrageous not to have been a miracle.

Real life. Real love.

The kind made for parachutes.

A blur of fur flew between their gaze, cutting the connection short.

“Louie!” Tahli and the kids screeched.

“This fucking dog,” Vin cursed, still petting him as he got cozy on Dali’s legs. Only for a second, before a stench wafted across them, frowning Vin’s face.

“He farted!” Terran declared, breaking DJ and Milo out in giggles.

“He farted on my leg!” Dali jumped up, and Tahli’s mouth stretched in a cringe.

“I think I left the brownies on the counter.”

Vin swiped his closed lids. Not a-fucking-gain. “Aw, shit. Where’s the closest vet in Malibu?”