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Just in case. I lost whatever trust I had left in her earlier this year. The day I came home to find my wife partaking in a drug-fuelled orgy with my Bella Bug upstairs, alone after Layla fired all the staff. The whole thing happened whilst I was Stateside doing some Misdirection promo, and even now, we have no idea exactly what Bella witnessed.
The memory still gives me nightmares.
“The last we spoke was the day I served her the papers. She didn’t want to see Bug, didn’t even ask if she was okay after…well, everything, for fuck’s sake. What kind of mother—”
I stop, unable to meet Henry’s eyes, and swallow roughly before continuing.
“I’m an idiot for being so wilfully blind, man. I just wanted to save her, you know? Arch would have wanted that. He would have wanted her taken care of. Happy. He would have wanted me to give her the lifehewould have given her. Instead, I’ve just made everything worse…”
Silence cloaks us until Henry whispers, “At least she gave you Bella, brother. Without all the pain, she’d never have existed. You need to remember that when you begin to doubt the path your life has taken.”
Fuck, DeMarco. Liv’s softened you right up.
Despite my sarcastic mind, I nod stiffly. My collar is suddenly too tight, my eyes stinging with the force of holding back a river of emotion that has no place here.
My best friend rests his heavily gloved hands on my shoulders, forcing me to look at him. He’s a couple of inches taller than my six-foot-one, made more obvious by the OTT boots he’s donned for the occasion.
“Cade. You said it before. You gave Layla as much as you could give—”
I cut him off. Self-recrimination is heavy in my tone. “I never gave her my heart.”
He doesn’t miss a beat. “Because Summer still holds it. That’s not on you, bro. We can’t help who we fall in love with. And you can’t make yourself fall out of love either—trust me, when I thought Peaches was with Alex, those two years of trying to force-feed myself a bullshit lie…it was torture, plain and simple.”
I blink heavily, once, then twice, before I nod and inhale deeply through my nostrils as Henry continues.
“All I’m saying, man, is to cut yourself some slack. Summer isn’t here. She hasn’t been for a long time…”
He trails off, and my stomach swoops uncomfortably in acknowledgement.
She never came back, either. Was it all a lie? Is she dead? Surely my heart would know…
“It’s time to truly leave the past in the past, brother. Forget that letter she left, forget everything it said. You were in a bad place after Archer’s passing, okay? Forgive yourself for not being able to be who she needed then.”
I press my lips together in a semblance of a smile, but fail miserably. The Joker face paint doesn’t help.
“Get back out there, man. Find your happily ever after. You’re a fucking rock god, for crying out loud. You could have any woman you want.”
Just not the one I need.
“Now, come on. Let’s celebrate this little Bug’s big day.”
Henry strides ahead of me, his broad back filling out his ridiculously accurate costume perfectly.
I catch up to him, swallowing down the words that were on the tip of my tongue, but the moment’s passed, so I keep them to myself once more as I reach the door at the same time as my companion.
“Youabsolutewanker!”
Henry’s indignation fills the foyer where Mila, dressed as Wonder Woman, and Henry’s wife Liv—or Peaches, as he calls her—dressed as Catwoman, stand side-by-side.
Striking the most absurd pose, dressed as Superman ala Henry Cavill style instead of Robin circa Chris O’Donnell, is none other than our third Musketeer, Nate.
I shoot the fucker a dark look. “You broke with tradition, man. Not cool,sonot cool!”
Henry and I descend on the traitorous bollocks who’s just grinning broadly, utterly at odds with his usual stoic, stick-up-his-ass demeanour.
I glance in the direction of his happiness, Mila DeMarco, to find her engrossed in conversation with her sister-in-law, and the moment is diffused for me. Just like that.
Witnessing the bond that our found family shares, despite all our ups and downs, it just makes me grateful for what I have. For the life that I’ve been given.
