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He doesn’t know how to ask Heather for this first. With Heather, this is the first time he’s wanted to meet someone’s family. Not her dad, who barely registers as family, or her mom, who he’s seen around town before, but Lily. Lily is the most important person in Heather’s world. Ray knows until he meets Lily, Heather won’t know if she can trust him. Won’t know if he’ll be permanent.
[Ray doesn’t know if he’ll be permanent either. He knows at some point he will fuck something up. He’ll have to make a decision then - to run and let the fuck ups swallow him until Heather won’t know what she saw in him anymore or to face it head on and fix whatever mess he’d caused.]
It isn’t that she’s actively keeping him away from Lily, Ray knows that. But she wants to keep Lily safe. Lily doesn’t need more disappointment in her life and if Heather can shield her from another person that will let her down, she will do her best to do that. Ray understands, yet every time she goes out of her way to avoid an introduction: driving from his place into town to grab Lily, to Anne’s with a quick stop inside to get Lily settled, and back to see him, he wants to open his mouth and say something stupid and needy. The words choke his throat and he’s just left nodding along to a goodbye with a faint see you later.
When Lily’s library camp wraps up at the end of summer, they invite family to come see the play the kids have been working on, to see all the arts and crafts they’ve made during these weeks. Heather is excited about it, happy to see Lily happy, but she only mentions it once to him, in an off-hand matter like she doesn’t want to be disappointed by his lack of interest. She changes the subject quickly and Ray can’t seem to work up the courage to bring it up again.
——
Two days before the play, Ray had brought Heather out on the boat and they’re lying on the floating dock in the sun, Heather curled up against his side. Her eyes are closed, her lips turned up into a quiet smile. He traces his fingers down the soft skin of her back, fingers tangling just for a second in the strings of her bikini. Letting himself feel her heartbeat against his skin, he takes a few breaths and whispers her name. She hums back, eyes still closed.
“I don’t have any work I need to do Friday and with Tyler still gone, no one’s feeling up to hanging out, so I was wondering…” He pauses as he sees her eyes flutter open slightly and her head lift to look at him more directly. Her smile has stilled - not disappeared, but like she’s pressed the pause button. Ray wants to rewind to go back to the simple sunshine of a moment ago, but he has to go forward. “Would you want me to come with to the play? Then maybe if Lily’s okay with it, we could go out and grab some milkshakes at Dot’s?”
[He’s not bribing the kid into liking him with ice cream, but he remembers being young and not having much to look forward to in his life. Luke would come by the school to pick him up from detention with a styrofoam cup, one ribbon of chocolate shake leaking down the side, and they would drive to the Point and lay in the bed of the truck until it got dark and they could see the stars. It was in those moments that he remembered that the world wasn’t always so fucked up.]
Heather is still staring at him. He wants to open his mouth again make a comment to show he isn’t being serious, to stop the potential of a no before it leaves her lips, but he pushes that down and waits. A few seconds later and her eyes seem to shine. “Yeah,” she says back.
“Yeah?” His tone betrays his incredulity. Despite his hope, he didn’t think he’d earned this trust yet, he hadn’t felt like he’d done the work to deserve to be let this close.
“Yeah,” she says, leaning her head back down to his chest. “I would love that.” Then with a smirk she says, “Make sure to actually wear a shirt.”