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I smile faintly and shift my head to his shoulder, curling my fingers against the taut, honed strength of his upper arm. “I just barely agreed to let you be my sort-of person. Now you’re stepping up to be my therapist?”
“I’m not your shrink, just your listener.” He kisses the top of my head, his beard a lovely rasp. “How often does anyone ever listen to you instead of expecting you to take care of shit by yourself?”
That hits harder than I expect.
So hard it’s like someone punched me right in the sternum, socking the breath right out of me.
I don’t want to cry.
I don’t want to, but it’s prickling my eyes, and it makes me realize I never really mourned Dad.
Not for real.
Not when his death came with so many other things to deal with, too many responsibilities that couldn’t be ignored. Other than that first burst of tears, I’ve been too busy running.
“Dad used to listen,” I whisper. “Before he got sick and just disappeared into himself, he’d…he’d listen to me. We’d talk about everything.” I swallow, but it won’t make the tightness in my throat go away. “It was us against the world sometimes. Family. We could always lean on each other.”
“And,” Holt whispers, “you feel like he betrayed you by leaving you alone.”
“You’re not supposed to know that!” I gasp, curling up tighter.
But this time, when I try to retreat into myself, he’s right there.
Sheltering me with this quiet strength it’s taken me too long to figure out he has.
There’s a lot with Holt that’s just surface deep.
Not real.
But you scratch past that, underneath?
There’s a loyal, kind, powerful man who’s a bit of a lunk, sure.
But a lunk who’ll hold me while I fall apart and put me back together in one solid piece until I feel like I can hold myself up again.
No denying it.
Not exactly the sexiest pillow talk ever, but here we are.
It’s not just Dad I’m mourning.
It’s me.
Because I want to be able to lean on Holt, to have something where we trust and hold ourselves up and take care of each other.
But what if I have that with him, what if I want that with him…
…and something just snatches it away from me again?
For now, he stays where he is.
Holding me while I have the ugliest of ugly cries ever, until I can finally breathe again and I’m not just making a mess of myself all over him.
“Sorry,” I mumble. “I don’t think this is how you imagined tonight ending.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” he answers lightly. “Thought it’d end with you in my arms. It did. And I’m hoping me being here made that easier for you to deal with. If it did, sounds like a win for me.”
“I—you—” I scrub at my nose, then scowl up at him. “Quit being so nice.”
He just grins unapologetically, gold-brown eyes nearly glowing with satisfaction.
“You really want that, honey? Because I can be plenty mean.”
“Goddammit, Holt.” There’s no winning, especially when that wicked grin just makes me want to smile right back.
I compress my lips, trying to hold it in, but it doesn’t work.
After a second, I sputter out a tired laugh and thunk my head on his chest.
“I still hate you. A little less, maybe,” I tease.
“I know you do, sweetheart. I know.” He kisses my hair again. “You want to shoot the shit some more?”
“I don’t even know.” With a sigh, I let myself go lax against him. “I just wish I knew more. The first time I went down that road and saw that guy’s body, suddenly it made sense why Dad always kept us away from Nowhere Lane. But realizing that means he was hiding it all this time…it makes me look at my whole life with him in a different light.”
“Should it?”
“How can it not?” I ask. “All this time, knowing he was lying, hiding it from me…”
“Protecting you,” Holt adds. “Listen, I don’t think the love he gave you growing up was a lie. His love doesn’t have to be different just because you know something new about him.”
“It’d help if I knew more.” I lean my head on Holt’s shoulder, letting my eyes drift to the window, a little arcing bay thing that gives me a perfect view of the stars.
I’ve been tracking the whirl of the constellations through that window for years. It hurts to think that gift Dad gave me is tainted.
“I can’t see it,” I whisper. “No matter how I turn it over in my head, I just can’t see him as this cold-blooded killer.”
“We’ll find answers, Libby,” Holt promises, his hand stroking up my spine, soothing and soft. “And when we do, you’ll rest easy again.”
I want to believe him.
But right now, there’s only the darkness and silence.
Too many unanswered questions between me, Holt, and Dad’s secrets.
