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But he’d said everything I’d needed to hear when he’d closed the distance between us with a few long steps and then he’d been in my arms. I couldn’t say how long we’d clung to each other before he’d made one more request.
Take me home, Lincoln.
So that was exactly what I’d done. When we’d arrived at the house, we’d stopped long enough for Theo to say his hellos to Nacho who was still huddled under the house. Between me and Theo and the rest of the family, Puddles’ boy toy had been given multiple bowls of food, water, and scraps. I hadn’t said it but at the rate things were going, Nacho would very likely be too chunky to fit through the hole when he was finally ready to come out from the crawlspace and be in the house with the rest of his family… both the four- and two-legged kind.
After that, we’d gone to say our goodnights to the rest of the family who’d all been in the living room. Puddles had been sitting on Walter’s lap while her tiny puppies had been in a blanket-lined box that Ford had cut up in a way that Puddles could easily get into it but none of the puppies could roll out of it. Cam and Walter had been bickering about Puddles getting fixed the second Sawyer gave the all clear that it was safe to do so. I doubted Walter really had any issue with his little princess getting her tubes tied… he just enjoyed needling Cam. The one thing Walter was sticking to, though, was his belief that Nacho couldn’t be Puddles’ baby daddy since all the puppies were white. The old man still had his eye on Loki as the culprit even though Loki had been missing the necessary equipment to knock Puddles up since he’d been a puppy himself.
Theo and I had wisely escaped the conversation before we could get sucked in too deep and we’d been lying on our bed ever since then, just holding on to one another.
“How did you figure it out?” I asked.
“I could see you were holding something back when you told me about Rabbit. When you mentioned your dad not talking to you anymore, I figured that was something you knew would happen when you helped Rabbit. When he was gone, you knew you’d not only lost your brother for good, but your father too. Despite the way he treated you after he married your stepmother, you loved him. You love him still.” Theo’s fingers were twined with mine. He kept rubbing his thumb over mine in a soothing manner.
“Not a choice,” I murmured, then admitted, “I miss him so fucking much, Theo.”
“I know you do,” Theo responded. He clearly knew that for the first time I wasn’t talking about Rabbit because he asked, “Have you tried reaching out to him? Does he even know what really happened that day… that he almost lost both his sons?”
I shook my head. “He made himself pretty clear when he told me not to show my face at Rabbit’s funeral.”
“Did he ever see the video message from Rabbit?”
“No. I tried to send it more than once after the funeral, but I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want him to see his son like that.”
“Which son?” Theo asked gently.
“Both, I guess,” I admitted. It didn’t surprise me in the least how observant Theo was. “After Rabbit said his goodbyes, I left the phone running. I guess maybe my heart knew what I was going to do before my brain did.”
“You were saying goodbye too.”
I hadn’t expected the words to hit me so hard. Tears stung the backs of my eyes. I managed a nod but nothing more. It took me a while to catch my breath enough to continue. “I knew how hard it would be for him to hearandsee Rabbit say in his own words how ready he was to die… how he would see us all again in the next life. My father was so focused on trying to save his son that I think the message would have made him finally realize what he’d put Rabbit through. My father is a good man. Despite everything, I know he loved Rabbit with all his heart.”
“So you wanted to spare him the guilt. You gave him an alternate outlet for his grief,” Theo murmured, then pointed out, “But he would have seen the video if you hadn’t survived.”
“Pretty fucked-up thinking, huh?”
Theo shifted so he could stroke my cheek. He dropped his head to brush a soft kiss over my lips. “No, not fucked up. You thought you were going to die. You thought he’d see the whole message. You wanted his forgiveness. For Rabbit. For yourself. But you survived.”
I tore my eyes from Theo’s, but he forced me to look at him.
A move I’d done to him countless times.
“You survived. You couldn’t forgive yourself for that, so you needed your father’s anger. You still haven’t forgiven yourself, have you, my love?” he asked.
I closed my eyes and covered them with my hand so I could hide from the truth just a little while longer. Theo’s thumb had moved down to the pulse point in my neck, so I knew he could feel how hard my heart was beating.
“No timers, Lincoln. No compasses. No conditions,” Theo said gently.
He was giving me a pass by repeating my own words back to me. My secrets were my own untilIwas ready to confront them.
“Can’t,” I said brokenly. “Can’t forgive myself.” I shook my head hard. “Not yet.” I managed to pull my hand from my eyes. Theo’s mouth immediately closed over mine. The kiss was soft but demanding at the same time.
Theo broke the kiss. “I’m not going anywhere, Lincoln. A minute or a lifetime. I’ll be there when you’re ready.”
I managed a nod. Theo continued petting me in different spots all over my upper body as he rested his head on my chest.
“You asked what happened after I injected the rest of the morphine into myself,” I said. “I called 911 so our bodies would be found. I didn’t count on their response time or that the morphine might not be enough to end my life as quickly as Rabbit’s. I woke up in a hospital bed. I’d written the code for Rabbit’s phone on a piece of paper so the authorities would know what happened.”
“Were you arrested?” Theo asked. I could hear the fear in his voice as he connected the dots.
