Chapter 11

I made my way into the school as my phone buzzed. The message put a smile onto my face, and it brightened further when Maggie spots me. She races through the crowd and throws her arms around my neck as I crouch down to see her. She holds on tight for several long moments, then looks around behind me and her smile falls a bit.

‘Where's Daddy?'

‘On his way…I promise he'll be here.'

A young woman made her way towards us and stated aloud while also signing, "You must be Maggie's nanny."

‘No,' Maggie replies seeing her comment. ‘This is Amelia…Daddy's girlfriend.'

"Sorry," the woman states. Her look grows more curious before she introduces herself. "I'm Elizabeth Johnson."

"Maggie's teacher, nice to meet you," I tell her and her surprise at my signing was comical.

‘Daddy's on his way,' Maggie adds looking up at me as my phone buzzed again. I show the message to her, and she smiles brightly. ‘He's almost here.'

"Why don't you show me what you've created for today?" I suggest knowing she'll likely bounce out of her shoes if she gets any more excited.

She pulls me over to her art project and it's beautiful, completely beautiful and makes me smile. I have no idea how I got to this point. For a woman who firmly denied wanting any of this I've suddenly found myself in the middle of the most amazing world.

I spent the next ten minutes being pulled here and there, being introduced to a slew of people from the school and Maggie was just getting giddier making me smile more. I thought I was going to have to put glue on the bottom of her shoes to get her to calm down when Rafe arrived. He came over to us, picking Maggie up as he slid an arm around my waist and dropped a kiss onto my lips.

"Hi gorgeous," he whispered in my ear.

"Hi yourself…" I reply as Maggie starts to talk a mile a minute. "Slow down Maggie…"

"Amelia's right," he tells her setting her back down. "We have all night."

Maggie simply grinned and drug us around the entire room again before flitting over to her friends.

"I take it you two have had fun the last couple days?" he asks sliding his arm back around my waist

"A blast although we both missed you immensely."

"And why's that?" he inquires letting his hand linger lower on my hip.

"Well Maggie did because she adores her father and me…well, I've missed the pillow blanket combo the past few nights."

"All said without a blush," he teases pulling me back into his arms as we watch Maggie with her friends. "You're constantly surprising me."

"Why…because I blushed the first time?" I ask quietly looking over my shoulder at him.

"You can go into a strip club and be perfectly content but the first morning we woke up naked after being completely together you blushed so brightly it made me want to make you do it again."

"Hush…"

"No one can hear us," he whispered against my ear. "Most of the parents over here are also deaf. It's just us."

"Not for long it looks like," I warn seeing the two couples headed towards us.

"We can make a run for it…" he suggests, and I elbow him lightly in the gut.

"Be nice."

"I can't stand Dennis and Emily," he said motioning towards the couple on the left. "They're only slightly worse than Renee and Bret."

"It won't be long. We can handle it."

"I hope so because if they so much as look at you wrong, I'm likely to put my fist through their faces."

"Violence…shame on you Rafe," I tease slightly comforted by his overprotectiveness. "Are they hearing or non?"

"Renee and Bret are both non, Dennis has slight hearing and Emily is non," he explains as the group reaches us.

‘Rafe so good to see you,' Bret tells us giving me a long assessment.

"You too," he replies, but I could tell how much he was controlling his emotions. He saw their glances my way and reluctantly introduced me. "This is Amelia. Amelia, this is Renee and Bret, Dennis and Emily," he says showing me their name signs as he did.

"It's nice to meet you," I tell them while also using sign language and the surprise is still comical.

‘And you,' Renee claims but I can tell by the look on her face she doesn't mean it. That's when it hits me that the women are all coveting Rafe, discretely but it's there and he's oblivious to it, which makes me feel better.

The four start up a stream of conversation and I know they don't think I can follow along with it, but honestly it's just getting monotonous. It's all trivial dribble and I get bored easily when people talk about the same thing over and over, only changing names and such to make it appear to be a new topic. It's all still gossip, and I detest it.

There's a slight lull and I grab the opportunity. "Rafe…I'm going to go check on Maggie. She's seemed to have finally run out of steam."

"You've worn her out with all the excitement the last few days," he teases. "Why don't you see if you can get her situated while I talk with Principal Howard for a moment? Then I'll take you both home."

"Sounds perfect," I reply giving him a light smile.

"Do we need to pick up dinner or did you manage to get by the store with the little terror?"

"Don't call my girl a terror," I counter with a laugh. "She was great the entire time you were away. We missed you but it was fine. I've got something on for dinner so we're good to go whenever you are."

"Perfect, I'll be right back," he says saying good-bye to the others who seem stunned and can't do more than say good-bye in return.

I move over to Maggie, and she hugs my neck as we head to the other side of the room where a couple of her friends that she wants to say goodnight to were. How that turned into me sitting in the corner with Maggie and several of her friends telling them a story I don't know. It started as a way to keep Maggie awake because I know she was ready to crash and Rafe would want to spend more time with her, but it turned into a mass production that had several of them giggling as it went on.

By the time I finished it'd gotten completely dark outside, and I realized we'd been there for nearly an hour with it. I glanced up and caught Rafe's gaze as he watched leaning against the wall. Maggie scrambled onto my lap and hugged me telling me all over again that this was the only thing I wanted for the future. It was perfect and that spelled trouble.

"You're incredible," Rafe says as he picked up Maggie and held out a hand to me.

"Sorry, I didn't think it'd turn into that long of a story."

"I'm glad it did. You're meant to have a dozen kids around you," he states as we head out.

"Rafe…don't," I warn lightly.

"Why not? It's been almost five months since we got together, four months since I mentioned marriage and you're still running scared."

"No I'm not."

"No? Then why haven't I met your parents? Why don't they know you're living with me now?"

"I'm not. I'm simply staying with you some nights."

"Until next month when your lease runs out, come on Ame, there's no point in signing another and wasting all of that money. I want you with us. Maggie wants you with us. Lorie wants you with us. I don't know what we would have done, again, if you weren't there. I had to go on that trip and Lorie's daughter was in ICU after the car accident, she needed to be there with her."

"I know that Rafe, and I'm glad I was there to help but moving in together, permanently…"

"Scares you," he says with a slight huff. "I know. Everything about a commitment scares you and it's getting old Amelia. How many times, in how many ways do I have to say I love you before you believe me?"

"Rafe please, you're worrying Maggie," I say trying to calm him down as we reach the car.

"Sorry," he tells us both dropping a kiss on Maggie's head. "This isn't over though baby."

"Let's just go home alright?" I suggest, not wanting Maggie upset for the world. Her upset hurts my heart which is far too invested in both of them.

"See…you just said home Amelia. That's how you think of it."

"Fine I do," I admit with a sigh. "I just have this feeling that this isn't going to last."

"What isn't? My feelings for you? Yours for me? Maggie's?" he asks, his brow furled, and it just makes him sexier.

"All of the above?" Minus mine, because I know I'm completely and utterly in love with him.

"Why baby? Have I done anything to make you worry about us and them?"

"No it's just something I have to work out for myself."

"Can we admit that we're together? To the people we work with at least although I'm pretty sure they already know," he teases giving me that look that spells trouble because I can't resist it.

"I don't want people thinking I'm sleeping with the boss."

"But you are Ame, and everyone knows I'm gaga over you."

"I just…"

"Don't want to admit that you love me too," he states, his tone a bit harder and I hate hearing him anything but happy. It's just so hard to ignore this little voice inside me that says to watch out. "I'm trying to not feel as though you're just playing with me, but when you do this hot and cold routine it's hard, Amelia."

"Look at it from my perspective Rafe," I try because I don't want to lose him. It's bad enough that I've been feeling more and more each time that we have one of these discussions that I'm going to one way or another, but to hear it directly from him, hurts. "I barely had my foot in the door before we were together. If we come out now people are going to think the only reason that I have the position is because I'm sleeping with you. Plus if my parents knew I was sleeping with you…"

"You're afraid of what your parents will think? That's why you refuse to acknowledge us? You can't begin to think the others at the office will care. They know how brilliant you are, they've seen your work, so don't try to use them as an excuse, Ame."

"Okay…yes I'm worried that my parents will flip out finding out that we're sleeping together does that make you feel better? Rafe they're my parents," I add when his mouth tightens into a tight line at my response, but he just doesn't get it. The way I grew up was completely opposite as him and I just can't think of sex and discussing it with my parents as some simple conversation. "How would you feel if it was Maggie who was telling you that she'd moved in with a guy she was sleeping with, especially one they've never met, don't know exists?"

I know that got to him because he grew quiet, pensive and let it drop, until after we'd gotten home. Maggie crashed the moment her head hit the pillows and I loved tucking her in with Rafe next to me. The idea of losing her along with Rafe was enough to send me hiding under the covers but I resisted knowing that Rafe wasn't about to let go of the argument completely.

He walked me down to the living room and we curled up on the couch turning the TV on to watch the news. This is one of the things I loved most about being with Rafe. This quiet contentment of just being with him but it wasn't my favorite. That's when we're in bed and he's just holding me against his bare chest. The connection there is what I can't let myself dwell on for too long because if I do then it's bound to go away.

"I'm sorry," Rafe says as he flips the TV off and lifts my chin to look at him.

"Sorry for what?"

"Being pushy, again. I love you, baby. There is no doubt about that, but I get what you're saying. If Maggie was moving in with some guy I didn't know, I'd probably go find him and pound his face in. I tend to forget you're someone's daughter as well as a gorgeous woman."

"Flatterer," I tease because I know I'm not gorgeous but him calling me that makes me smile all the time.

"You are Ame. I noticed it the first time I saw you and now I can't go to sleep without at least hearing your voice."

"You say the sweetest things sometimes, but it's usually because you're angling for something," I state seeing the look in his eyes deepen.

"I am but it's also the truth baby."

"So what do you want?"

"I'll hold off on telling the world you're mine if you'll introduce me to your family. Maggie has Spring Break coming up soon. We can go see them and maybe then figure the rest of this out," he suggests and my heart races with worry. "I want you here with us Amelia. I want you as mine for forever."

"Rafe…"

"No baby. You have to at least give us a real shot Amelia. If you constantly try to assume that we're going to lose what we have, then we are going to lose this. I don't want that baby. I want you, Maggie, and me to be a real family. I want us to have brothers and sisters for Maggie no matter if they're hearing or not. We can do this Amelia. If you'd just give us the chance to, you'll see that we can do this."

It sounds so good, so sweet, and the majority of me is ready to just jump on it and float along this river of sweetness forever, but it's the end of that river that scares me, keeps me from saying yes. The end of that river could be cold, dark, and dangerous. It could drown me without warning when we reach it and that terrifies me, because you have to reach the end of the river, don't you? "What will meeting my parents do?"

"It will let them see how much I adore you. How much Maggie adores you. It'll let us find the way to do all of this together out in the open."

"My parents won't like us living together," I warn, my breath catching at the glint in his eyes.

"So-what? Think they'll insist on me marrying their little girl?" he teases, and I try to control the look that passes across my face, but I don't think I'm completely successful because his eyes brighten a bit further. "That's why you haven't told them about us, isn't it? They'll want to know if I intend on marrying you and they'll figure out that I want to. Then it'll all be on your head, and you'll have to finally admit why you keep pulling away when this gets too close to being forever."

"Rafe…"

"No Amelia. It's time you make a choice. We stop hiding this, you introduce me to your family, or we're done. I won't put Maggie through years of questioning because I know what I want."

"I'm going to my place," I state, getting up because telling him isn't an option. It'll just cause more questions that I don't want to answer.

"No, you're not. You're not running away until you tell me your decision. I mean it Amelia. If you walk out that door there's no coming back. Maggie loves you too much to have you seesawing about your feelings. If it was just me, I'd give you more time…room but it's not and I won't let Maggie get hurt in this more than she will be if you walk away now."

The look in his eyes tells me that he means every word of it and what's the harm in introducing him to Mom and Dad? They'll fall for Maggie and him as easily as I have.

Then it'll be up to me again to make a decision. Maybe going back will be a good thing too. I can sneak away and go visit someone I desperately need to talk to and maybe, just maybe, I can figure out how to admit everything to everyone.

"Alright, we'll go see my parents," I tell him and the next thing I know I'm scooped up in his arms and we're heading to the bedroom.

It reaffirms my decision to go talk to Harrison. I need answers to questions that have been seven nearly eight years in the making.

It's not an easy choice to make but I know I have to. I have to finally decide if I can take this chance, if loving him is worth the risk of getting my heart broke again. I do love him and if I lose him it'll be horrid but telling him and the world…is that something that I can really do? Is that something I want to do?

I don't know yet, but I do know that the answers have to be back home. It might be the only way to finally be happy, fully and completely happy. Something that I haven't been since I was sixteen and in love. At least until he died, leaving me to navigate a tide I never knew existed.