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I pull the thing away before his gums start chomping down. “Good hustle, but not the best way to pick up yards.” I move his little hands to either side of the ball and he likes this game enough to shake out a belly laugh.
“Look at that.” I feel proud. “The boy’s a natural. Practically born with a football in his hands. Like me.”
Micah looks like he’s getting a kick out of Dash’s football enthusiasm. “Nah, football wasn’t your first choice. You never went anywhere without your basketball.”
Hearing this hits kind of funny. On one hand, I don’t remember playing basketball as a kid. On the other hand, I’m positive that what he says is true.
Micah notes the long pause and realizes his mistake. His mouth pulls into a grimace. Long ago he and Gage assigned themselves as my shields, trying to protect me from the reality of my own flawed brain.
I should be used to the hollow feeling that comes from hearing the news about something I’ve forgotten. In the months after my accident those revelations happened everyday. And it got to be fucking overwhelming, like being told about a movie of your life that you don’t remember starring in. The only times I remember having a basketball in my hands was the handful of occasions when I played pickup games in high school and college.
“That must have slipped my mind.”
A casual comment in just about any other conversation. Micah understands the deeper meaning. He looks through the glass sliding doors with a shadowed expression that he’s trying to hide. His left hand rests casually on one side of the chair. His right arm sits on the other. When he refuses to add the prosthetic, which is most of the time, he usually wears an elastic sleeve, like he’s wearing right now.
And there is no fucking way I am going to sit around and feel sorry for myself after what he’s been through.
Dash gives the moment some comedy by burping and laughing at the sound he just made. Tess returns and Micah seizes her around the waist, hauling her into his lap. They slobber all over each other for a minute before Tess reclaims the baby so she can nurse him.
Since I have no need to witness that, I wander out to the backyard. While checking the pool chemicals my thoughts turn to Haven. This is getting to be a familiar theme. Anytime she’s not in my sight I’m impatient to change that.
The sex is white hot and it’s fucking constant. Daring and reckless. Before her, I thought I’d done it all and had nothing else to learn. In reality, I’d only ever played it safe. All that history went out the window the first time we fucked. The hunger to have her was consuming and for the first time I didn’t play it safe. Every time I touch her, my appetite only grows stronger.
Yet that’s not the reason why I’m buying up flower shops and knocking myself out hanging birthday banners.
No doubt the girl can be challenging. She’s practically married to that club of hers and some pieces of her life are sealed behind a cinderblock wall. Every inch of ground I gain has been hard won. Not that I have any complaints. The reward is always worth the effort.
She’s just in a category by herself. On sex appeal alone she wins against any stacked combo of the world’s most tempting women. But there’s something far deeper going on when I’m always counting down the minutes until I see her again.
Haven gets my blood pumping and my mind running in places it never goes. I start thinking about how it would feel to win her for good, to wake up with her every single morning and turn her happiness into my permanent job.
Something just clicks into place when we’re together. No one else has even turned my head since the day of the wedding and I have zero interest in changing this.
I’ve shared these thoughts with no one, although the people who know me best can guess something unusual is happening. Tess thinks the whole situation is adorable. Micah gives me shit. Dani is skeptical. Gage remains neutral about Haven and when he says to keep my head up and my elbows out I know it’s not her he’s worried about. I spend most nights on the east side these days, a daily quest to earn smiles from a girl who doesn’t smile easily and conquer her body while also hoping to conquer her heart.
Haven’s motley crew of an extended family are mostly still a mystery. Her dad is locked up in prison for something to do with taxes. One of her uncles is out of the country and I don’t know what the other one does but he never shows his face at the club. Neither do the two cousins she doesn’t like to talk about. The only family member I’ve had more than one conversation with is ditzy Sophie and Haven seems to regard her as something of a charity case.
Last night I stuck to my familiar pattern and hung out at Back Door, waiting for the opportunity to grab some of Haven’s attention. We fucked in her office twice and got a little too carried away when we abused her desk chair. The damn thing broke into four pieces. Someone really ought to make chairs strong enough to withstand an energetic fuck without cracking. The next one better be sturdier. This morning I told Angela to find the best luxury chair on the market and send it over. If my assistant had some questions about why I was shipping high end office furniture to a strip club then she didn’t ask them.
Usually Haven and I spend the night in her bed after the club closes but last night was different. Her mood changed as the night deepened I don’t need to be a genius to figure out she was thinking about Lita.
Haven’s endless purgatory isn’t something I can relate to. As close as I am to Micah and Gage, I understand that’s not the same kind of bond as an identical twin. Haven and Lita met the world together and now Haven walks alone. When the clock ticked past midnight she became distracted. Quiet. Sad. My heart cracked and I would’ve have fallen on my knees, done anything she asked. Slay a dragon. Walk over lava. But it’s not within my power to grant her the one wish she wants more than anything.
She wants her sister back.
I couldn’t intrude on her private tradition. I walked her to her car and watched her drive off alone to go sit at Lita’s side, as she always does on their shared birthday. There are visiting hours at the care home but the staff knows Haven very well by now. For her, they let the rules slide.
I thought she might say no when I invited her to hang out here at the house this afternoon. It’s Sunday and the club is closed. But she seemed pleased, maybe even relieved, to have something to do besides remember happier birthdays she spent with her twin.
Still, I didn’t warn her that I threw together a surprise birthday celebration and maybe I should have. Too late now. She’ll be here any minute.
As if to answer my thoughts, the doorbell chimes and immediately chimes again. And again. That’s definitelynotHaven’s style.
The sliding glass patio door is wide open. I can hear the buzz of multiple voices, along with a joyous bark. I’m unsurprised when Charlotte prissily marches outside with Total tethered to a red rhinestone-studded leash.
“Hi, Conner.” She leads her scrappy little furball of a dog around the far side of the pool.
Total keeps an eye on me while he lifts his leg in the rocks.
