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When we got to the truck, he opened the door for me and gestured for me to get inside.
I did, but left my legs pointing outward and spread slightly as I waited for him to talk.
He set the guitar against the wheel well of my truck and then leaned in between my splayed thighs.
I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and dropped my head down to rest on top of his.
That was when he shattered my world.
“I told you that when we were married—my ex and me—her nephew came to live with us,” he started. “But I didn’t tell you that just before we’d filed for divorce, my nephew had an accident.”
I had a really bad feeling about what I was about to hear.
I smoothed my hand through his short hair.
It was longer than usual, and I had a feeling it would be buzzed back off within the next day or two. He never let it get too long, and this was long for him. At least from what I’d been able to observe in my time watching him before actually being with him.
“Yeah,” I said. “What happened in that accident?”
He shivered.
“He asked if he could go swimming, and I said no. That I was too busy. I had a big case that I was working on, and I was making phone calls and researching. I told him I’d take him in ten minutes, and to go get dressed but wait upstairs until I came to get him. I was another seven minutes, max.” He shook his head. “Well, since he still wanted to go, and I was busy, he went by himself. He drowned, and I didn’t even know it.” He swallowed hard. “My ex came home and found him like that with me two rooms away.”
A tear slipped out of my eyes.
“When they got him to the hospital, they were able to get a pulse back…but his brain activity was almost non-existent.” He cleared his throat and looked up at me, that was when I saw the hurt in his eyes. “He’s spent the last four years in that hospital bed with no quality of life whatsoever. Our divorce went through, and my ex made sure that I wasn’t allowed on the visitor’s list for him. But, I found a way to get to him, and I still come sing to him twice a week. But…the doctors and nurses say that he’s declining. Has been declining since the beginning.”
I saw the utter devastation written clearly on his face, and I wanted nothing more than to wipe that hurt away.
“I think my ex was relieved, to be honest. With her being divorced and having so much ‘work to do’ being the governor’s daughter and it being an election year, it worked out for her. And what a good story it made for the governor’s race.” He shook his head. “The thing is, she’s not even mad at me for it happening. She didn’t cry when it happened. Didn’t get pissed and yell. Nothing. She just looked on like we hadn’t had that boy living with us or that it was her nephew. Just like she was visiting a random sick child in the hospital. One that she decided needed to stay alive by all means. Even if they were extreme.”
I dropped my forehead to his.
“God, Castiel,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”
He squeezed my hips.
“We had a lock on the pool. A childproof gate around it. There were sensors in place—I’d insisted that we get them. Yet all of them failed. My ex had left the gate open that morning when she’d gone for her morning swim. The sensors had also malfunctioned. There was not a thing I could do…yet I still feel guilty as hell,” he recounted.
Seems we both shouldered some guilt when we shouldn’t.
“Next time, I’d like to go with you,” I said, cupping his bearded cheek. “To play.”
He smiled against my hand, then turned his face so that he could kiss my palm.
“I gotta get back to work, pretty girl,” he said. “And you need to go watch some porn.”
I snickered. “I do need to do that.”
His mouth twitched into a small smile.
I gave him one last kiss, and then he was off across the parking lot to his truck.
I was about to back out when there was a knock on my window.
I saw a man—one that looked so familiar—standing there.
I blinked at him as I rolled my window down.
“You have a guitar leaning against your truck,” he smiled.
I poked my head out of the window and said, “Oh!”
Pushing the door open, I hopped out and grabbed it. “Thank you so much. That would’ve been awful if I’d run it over.”
The man hadn’t moved when I’d jumped out and was really close to me since there was a car parked next to me.
