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I stare at the center console. Almost six in the morning. Apparently that middle of the night escape thing is off the table for a while. How did I lose track of time like this?
We drive through and pull up to the big house, the house where we were raised, where Pop still lives, to see Willa, propped in a rocking chair out front. A mug of coffee balances on the basketball of her belly. Well, half a basketball. She’s so tall, compared to most of the women in my life, that she could be carrying twins and wouldn’t look like she swallowed a balloon.
For one fleeting moment, my mind goes to Livy. Petite Livy, carrying a baby. She’d probably show early and be unable to see her feet.
And she’d probably still be able to twist into wild shapes and balance her new body without problem while she stood on her hands.
I shake my head, trying to clear my head of her face.
Livy is in Florida, not Texas.
Sweet Livy needs an easy life, not to fix a broken man.
Sexy Livy deserves a dick to ride from a man who can perform.
Smart Livy should know better than to be with the likes of me.
And Livy is not here.
Willa rises as we park and walks to Exton as he exits the vehicle. She slides a hand around his neck and presses her mouth to his, whispering something I cannot hear against his lips.
I avert my eyes. Mere months ago, I stood next to him as he married her, and he’s just as happy as he was then. Maybe more so now that he has everything.
I wait for Pop to bring my walker and hold onto it with the love of an addict and the hatred of the bound. It is my captor and my freedom, my savior and my crutch.
When I see Brighton walking from the barn, Luna ahead of her and Sola at her heels, I feel something entirely foreign to me. Shame.
Pop was there in the hospital. Exton knew, and then he saw. He’s my brother and has seen things in the military that make this look like a cakewalk. But I’ve been taller and stronger than Bright since I was ten and she was twelve, maybe even before that. She was no weakling, but I was on a mission and wouldn’t be denied.
I might be the youngest, but I wasn’t going to be the weakest. No way in hell.
And now my sister, shorter by almost a foot, stutters in her steps to see me, the look on her face breaking my resolve.
She runs the last of the way and wraps me in a hug, burying her face in my chest and falling into sobs. And that’s saying something. Brighton isn’t a crier. It takes a lot to break her, and fuck if it’s not my appearance—my weakness—that’s doing it.
Fuck my life.
Luna, her lab mix, circles me. Her tail goes ninety to nothing, shaking her whole blond body as she looks up at me. She whimpers and waits, and I reach out a hand for her. She nuzzles her snout under my hand and leans into my side.
Sola, a Bernese Mountain dog who still had puppy teeth and puppy breath at Christmas, is now a substantial dog. He head-butts me and nearly takes my legs out from under me.
“Fuck.”
“Sola, down,” Bright admonishes without stepping back too much, but she looks into my eyes, worry etched in hers.
She scrubs her tears inside her tee and looks back up into my face. “You’re too thin, Lay. Are you eating?” Her voice comes out on a whisper. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m glad you’re home.”
She takes a big step back and plasters on a fake smile. “You scared the shit out of me, but I’m so glad you’re home.” She stares at her boots and draws a trail in the dirt at Pop’s front driveway.
Pop comes from behind me and begins ushering me to the house. The stairs might as well be a gauntlet, and I can feel my pause as it weighs heavy in the air.
Exton comes to my other side, and Willa slides my walker from me, bounding up the steps to place it at the front door. I grit my teeth fighting the pain, the agony, the shame of how far I’ve fallen, and lift my right leg to bear as much weight as possible, letting my left fall into place.
And again.
And again.
And again.
