It was anyone’s guess as to which of their current mistakes had stopped by.
A few days later, Gavin worked until late afternoon and then went for a run. He went hard around the lake, until his legs were quivery and rubbery, and then sat on the rocks facing the water, watching a thunderstorm move in. A raindrop hit him and then another. He didn’t care. He knew Piper still harbored nightmares in storms like this and he hated that for her. But he wasn’t afraid of storms.
He was afraid of loss.
And now that he’d looked into CJ’s eyes and seen the same sense of loss, loss he’d caused . . . Damn. He’d thought he’d created a shield to protect himself, that he’d be bullet-proof to more pain. But the truth was, life was fucking full of pain.
Feeling sorry for himself, he walked back in the rain, showered, and then made breakfast for dinner. And since he hadn’t figured out how to make up with CJ, and Piper was still at work, it was just him and Winnie. And speaking of his pregnant sister, her little baby bump arrived before she did as she came into the kitchen. She had a toolbelt slung around her hips just below her growing tummy, walking and watching a YouTube video on how to repair drywall at the same time.
“Yum,” she said, propping her phone up on the napkin holder, the one made of popsicle sticks, which they’d been using since Winnie had made it in kindergarten for Piper. She then began to pour syrup all over the waffles.
Gavin took the syrup from her.
“Hey! The Bean loves syrup.”
“Does the Bean love diabetes?”
“The doc says I’m fine, although my jeans are starting to disagree.” She ate for a few minutes, putting away a shocking amount of food. Finally sated, she leaned back, hands on her belly. “The place is looking good, right?”
“Really good.”
“So what’s our next step?”
“You keep growing a baby.”
“Yes, but I really want to keep helping around here too,” she said.
“You’re not exactly quick on your feet right now.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Are you saying I’m slow?”
“No,” he said carefully. “You’re just . . . slower than you used to be.”
“And now I’m fat?”
Gavin sighed. “You know, I’m starting to understand everything we ever put Piper through.”
She grimaced, and he had to laugh. “Just wait until the Bean pulls even a fraction of the shit you’ve pulled.” He stood. “I’m going back to work, I’m planning on finishing up the business plan this week.”
“Which we’ll use to convince Piper to start up the B and B, right?”
“Right,” he said, and hoped that was even possible. It wouldn’t be easy. “She still wants to go back to school.”
“I know.”
“She deserves that, Win. So much.”
“I know that too. I told you, I tried to get us a loan to buy her out.”
“I know, but I’m not giving up. I’m working on an option that might pan out. Has to pan out. Because Piper’s never failed us, not once.”
Winnie nodded. “So let’s not fail her either.”
“We won’t.”
Winnie leaned forward. “So tell me about this option that might pan out.”
Gavin started to tell her his thoughts when Winnie’s phone buzzed with an incoming text, which she read and froze.
“What?” Gavin asked.
“It’s Jenna. She and Piper just left the scene of a horrific car accident. The storm made the roads slick. A family skidded off the highway on the 101, broke through the railing, and rolled down the hill about three hundred feet. The two kids in the back seat survived, ages three and ten. The parents didn’t make it.”
Gavin felt the nausea roll through him and he set down his fork and pushed away his plate. “Piper?” he asked hoarsely.
Winnie shook her head. “Jenna says she handled the job like a pro, but vanished the minute they got back. She just wanted to give us a heads-up.”
Gavin opened the app the three of them had to track each other’s locations. Once upon a time, Piper had used it to keep tabs on him. Now they used it out of sheer laziness, like when Gavin checked to see which of his two sisters was closer to the grocery store when he needed something. “She’s at the tire swing,” he said.
“Where she goes to be alone. What do we do? Do we let her be alone?”
Hell, he actually wasn’t sure, but Winnie was looking lost and he knew he had to at least appear like he had his shit together.
“Should we try to get in touch with Cam?” Winnie asked.
“Do you want to live?”
Winnie sighed. “I know, right? She’d kill us if we worried him while he was gone to God knows where doing God knows what.”
“She’ll come home when she’s ready, and we’ll be here for her.”
But it took her longer than he’d thought it would. It was way past dark, and he was in his room alternately watching TV and eyeballing his phone for both Piper’s location and a call or text from CJ when there came a soft knock at his door.
He opened up, not surprised to see Piper in what she called her “birth control outfit”: sweats that swallowed her whole, hair piled on top of her head, no makeup, feet stuffed into rainboots.
“Our parents died,” she whispered.
He pulled her inside and into his arms as she cracked in half. “I know,” he said, throat tight as she shuddered and began to cry against his chest. “I know.”
She let him hold her for a long moment, during which time she got his shirt all soggy with her tears, before lifting her face. “I’m sorry.”
He gave her a small smile. “Because you just slimed me?”
She managed a weak laugh. “No, I’m not sorry about that.” She drew in a deep breath. “I’m sorry I’ve wasted so much time trying to boss you around into a life you never wanted.”
“Hey, it’s never a waste of time if you learn something.”
She shook her head, not ready for humor. “I’ve never acted like your sister. And I don’t let you talk about Mom and Dad, and I’m sorry for that too. Or if I made you feel like I didn’t like taking care of you and Winnie, or that you were a burden—”
“You were thirteen,” he interrupted, pulling her farther into his room, sitting her in the chair by the window, turning for the bottle of Jack he used to keep on his dresser back when he was using. But it’d been tossed long ago. And wasn’t this a first, wishing for alcohol—not for himself, but to help someone with. “You were put into a terrible, tragic situation that no thirteen-year-old should ever have to deal with. Hell . . .” He rubbed a hand down his face. “If I’d been the oldest . . . Christ, I can’t even imagine that responsibility. I’d have lost you and Winnie, or accidentally killed one of you for sure. We were lucky to have you. Now please stop blaming yourself for my problems. I can be a sneaky asshole when I want to be, and I’ve wanted to be. But I’ve learned how destructive that is.” He paused. “Now you.”
“Me? What do you mean? I’m not in the danger zone.”
He just looked at her.
“I’m fine, Gavin.”
“You’re not. You’re still pushing away all emotions and reacting to everything like it’s . . . I don’t know . . . a job.”
“Such as?” she asked coolly.
“See? That,” he said, pointing at her. “I’m asking for feelings and you’re giving me calm logic. Do you know how much it sucks to be someone who loves you but can’t reach you?”
She blinked, and he could tell that her first reaction was hurt, and then resignation.
“I know,” she said quietly. “But sometimes, I just . . .”
“What?”
She closed her eyes. “Sometimes I feel thirteen again, and I just want Mom.”
Gavin felt the ache in his chest for her, for him and Winnie too, because this was way above his pay grade. “I get that.”
“I know you do.” She swiped at a tear almost angrily. “I tried to make it so that you guys wouldn’t miss their presence, but I couldn’t. Mostly because I miss them too, so much.”
He couldn’t speak around the lump in his throat, so he just nodded.
“I need you to know something, Gav. I never minded taking care of you and Winnie. Never,” she said fiercely, making him believe her. “But I wasn’t done being taken care of either.”
He’d have sworn that he was the most screwed up of all of them, but he was starting to realize that the honor might go to his headstrong, irrepressible, smart, prickly, amazing sister. “What can I do to help? Anything. Just tell me.”
“I’m supposed to be the one helping you.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “You did your part. Now I’m grown. And that means we’re equals. You help me and I help you. It’s my turn. So let me help.”
“I’m fine.”
“Really? Is that why you’re freaking out that maybe Cam is coming back to stay? That he wants to? That you probably have a lot to do with that?”
He caught a glimpse of anxiety and panic in her eyes before she turned away.
“You’re afraid,” he realized. “Afraid to let anyone in, afraid to let anyone love you.”
She gave a forced laugh. “That’s . . . ridiculous. I’d have to be pretty damn broken to feel that way.”
“Ah, Piper. It’s okay to be broken. Broken can be fixed.” He stood just behind her, watching her carefully, not wanting to push her over the edge, but wanting to make her see that she was working with his own MO here—survivor’s guilt.
Finally, she huffed out a sigh and shook her head as she turned back to him. “What do you want me to say? That you’re right? That I am freaking out just a little bit?”
“Or you know, a lot.”
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know how to make something like this work. Opening up and letting him see all the corners and the dust in the rafters and the shit I’ve hidden deep in the basement . . .”
He laughed. “Trust me, if I can do it drug free, then you sure as hell can. Just don’t be the you that’s, um . . .”
“What?”
“You know. A little anal.”
She went brows up. “Excuse me?”
“And don’t use that PMS tone either,” he said. “Oh, and while you’re at it, don’t not listen.”
“Hey, I listen.”
“You pretend to, but you don’t, not really. Instead you tell people what to do and how to think.”
Her eyes narrowed, but then she paused, chewed on her lower lip. “Dammit. I really hate when you’re right.”
“The good news is that knowing it is half the battle,” he said.
“Maybe you should try heeding your own advice sometime.”
At the knock on the front door, they looked at each other, Piper as on edge as he. It was anyone’s guess as to which of their current mistakes had stopped by. Piper rolled her eyes at the both of them and they moved to the living room and opened the door.
It was CJ, and Piper visibly sagged with relief. If Gavin hadn’t been suddenly so tense he’d lost the ability to breathe, he might’ve laughed at the stay-of-execution expression on her face as she vanished to leave them alone.
Gavin was having trouble drawing in air as he took in the sight of CJ standing there looking like the best thing he’d ever screwed up. “You come to twist the knife deeper?” he asked, with a calm he didn’t feel.
CJ shut the door behind him and came closer, but didn’t touch Gavin. Instead, he looked him in the eyes and said, “So Axel showed up at the station today.”
This shocked Gavin. Axel hated cops, and probably especially hated CJ, but he’d never say so. “Why would he do that?”
“He wanted to tell me that you’d told him I didn’t trust you, but that I should trust you because you’ve got your shit together. He said he’s a great sponsor, that he takes pride in it. He also said that you don’t really need him, and yet you still make sure to see him every week. Said it was important to you to stay on top of things. For the people you love.”
“He shouldn’t have done that. He probably got hives just walking into the station.”
CJ grimaced and ran a hand over his unshaved scruff that looked far sexier than it had a right to. “He said that he thought it was noble of you to not break confidences, but in this case, also misguided.”
Gavin crossed his arms over his chest. “Did he say anything else?”
“That he was flattered I was jealous, but he’d have to be more than a bipolar addict to date you because you’re too much for him to handle.”
Gavin snorted because that sounded like Axel, but his amusement faded quickly and he looked away. “Yeah, well, most people feel that way about me.”
“Not me.” CJ came close. “And I’m about as far from perfect as you can get.”
“You seem pretty perfect to me.”
CJ held his gaze, his own softer now as he shook his head. “You look at me with rose-colored glasses, you always have.”
“Maybe that’s because I have no idea what attracts you to me.” Gavin spread his arms. “I’ve got literally nothing to offer you. I feel like I get so much from you, and I can’t begin to return the favor.”
CJ stepped closer and took his hand. “For a long time, I’ve been nothing but the job. I need to be more than that. When I’m with you, I am. And I like that person. You asked why I never found the One. It was because it’s you, Gavin. It’s been you all along. You were right. You’ve done nothing wrong. I got scared, and I’m sorry. I’ve wanted to say this to you every day since, but I didn’t know how.”
Gavin felt a rush of something inside him, a mix of relief and hope. “Seems you said it just fine.”
“I love that you’re dedicated to being the best you that you can be. I’m in awe of that.”
“That’s not all I’m dedicated to,” Gavin said in a lighter, more playful tone.
CJ smiled. “The last time you were that dedicated was in my shower a few weeks back, and you bruised your knees.”
“My knees are as tough as the rest of me,” Gavin assured him. “And while I love where you’re going with this, it’s not what I meant.” He drew in a shaky breath. “I’m dedicated to you,” he said. “You once accused me of simply surviving and not really living, and you were right. When I came to Wildstone, I didn’t think I was good enough for the people I loved. That in fact, I hurt them just by being who I was. My parents. Arik. My sisters. You,” he said. “It made me keep myself emotionally distanced. And it’s an easy step from there to not feel connected enough to care. But there’s something about you that blasts away my walls and burrows in. I love you, CJ, I always have. It just took me longer than most to believe in myself enough for this. For us.” He tugged CJ in, intending to lay a long, soul-searching kiss on him that would hopefully lead to the rest of their lives, but CJ put a hand to his chest to stop him.
Gavin’s heart tripped. “What?”
“I brought food.”
Gavin nearly collapsed in relief. “The way to my heart.”
“It’s the makings for tacos.”
Gavin felt the last little pieces of himself fall into place. “A love story in five words.”