Page 69 of Playing With Forever

It wasn’t one of his normal hugs—the good kind of embrace. This one was all wrong. It hurt to see the two men together—no, it hurt knowing why DJ was down in Hollow Point a week early, meeting us in a hospital waiting room.

All wrong.

Ugly wrong.

This was not what Josie had planned.

Dinner was all set, we’d already put together the menu and found the perfect placemats for our family meal.

Family.

We were supposed to be a family.

We couldn’t be one without Josie.

She couldn’t leave my dad.

She couldn’t leave me.

I needed her. I’d waited practically all my life for her.

Mamalious.

I called her that because it was the closest to calling her mom I could get.

But I didn’t want to use Kane’s nickname for her.

I loved it and all, but I wanted to call her mom. I wanted her to know I loved her.

We can’t be a family without her.

I glanced around the room, everyone looked like they were swimming in a fishbowl.

Ugly.

Wrong.

What was wrong with me?

“Lindy?” Kane called.

“We can’t be a family.” My voice sounded funny.

“What?”

“We’re supposed to be a family,” I tried again.

“We are, Lindy. Everything’s gonna be okay.”

I looked back at my dad, he was no longer looking out the window, he was staring at me.

And that hurt most of all. The way his eyes had gone dead.

We’d never recover without Josie.

I squeezed my eyes closed.

I felt my dad’s hands holding mine. I slowly opened my eyes, and God, it was worse up close. It was pouring out of him.