Chapter 14
Sab
I’ve never been to the Everwyld Christmas parade before.
Neither has Tam. And even though he’s been knee-deep in festive calligraphy since October, as the sun goes down, the sheer level of forced Christmas joy is too much for him.
“The fuck is that?” He jabs a moody finger at a car-sized paper-maché reindeer shimmying past on a flatbed truck, a Dubois scowl etched deep and pure on his face. “And what the hell is that noise?”
It’s a brass band murdering We Three Kings and losing pitch with every wavering step, the tubas honking half a beat behind the rest. Truly terrible shit, but I can hack it for as long as it has Tam stomping around like an angry snowman, kicking boxes instead of hoofing them around when he has me to do that for him.
Tiny hands tug at my coat.
Esme’s at my feet, watching the lead floats of the parade get ready to set off. “Papa, pourquoi tonton il fait la tête?”
I crouch to her level and straighten the stolen hat she’d wear to bed if I let her. The one that reminds me green is my new favourite colour. “Uncle’s making a face because Bhodi had to work today. You know he gets sad when he’s on his own.”
“That’s not nice.” Esme’s reply is grave, her little forehead pressed to mine. “Candy floss?”
“Not yet. We need to save the big guns for when he starts throwing things.”
Esme laughs like a tinkling Christmas bell.
But I’m not really joking. Tam’s my hero, but there’s not a human alive who doesn’t know he’s a better man when Bhodi’s around, and as I find myself hanging out for a mere glimpse of the fire engines halfway down the parade line, I understand him more than I ever have.
Right.
Because what you’re doing with Galen is the same as Tam and Bhodi? They’re literally fucking married.
Disquiet clenches my gut, reality biting hard. But the Christmas chaos expanding around me makes it blissfully hard to hang onto negativity. I push past the ball of anxiety and take Esme to a better spot to watch the parade head out.
It’s noisy as hell and she loves it.
Lorries rumble by.
Buses.
Trucks.
Fucking tractors.
Everwyld has gone all-out, and when the fire brigade finally appears, even the engines have been decked out with lights and tinsel.
The first truck passes, firefighters chucking sweets and small teddy bears from the open windows, calm and serene, a stark contrast to the absolute riot unfolding on the second engine bopping along behind them, and of course, that’s where I find him.
Galen. Hanging off the side rail by his good arm, jacket open, glitter on his face catching the light as he moves, dancing, loose and free, like the music pumping from the engine’s cab belongs to him.
He’s laughing too, as his crew eggs him on. I can’t hear him over Wizzard, but I know it all the same. Feel it in the air as the warm rumble I’ve found myself dreaming about unclenches the fraught knot in my stomach.
There you are.
And here I am. But whether it’s luck or mercy, Galen doesn’t spot us, and I’m as relieved as I am deflated when the truck rolls past without the contact I’ve come to crave.
Esme, though. She doesn’t care that we’re half hidden by a lamppost. She finds Galen almost as fast as I do, and she shrieks, planting both mittened hands on my head to climb higher on my shoulders. “Papa! Galen! Look.”
I’m trying, but with her hands smooshed against my face, it’s hard to see anything that isn’t the thick wool of the fancy coat my parents sent her from France.
Or her beaming smile when I manage to shift her enough to see her face lit up as bright as the string bulbs wrapped around the ladders on Galen’s truck.
I swear, she glows with it, and it’s enough to have me carrying her through the crowd to a better spot, closer to the road—closer to him—as we catch the engines on the corner.
Esme finds Galen again and bounces in my arms, and she doesn’t seem to mind that he hasn’t seen us. That he keeps dancing, oblivious and beautiful while she vibrates with excitement, and me?
I fucking love it, and I feel hollow when he’s gone. I take Esme back to Tam’s stall and help him out for an hour or so while Esme sits on a chair between us, eating enough sugar to keep her awake for a week, even though it’s way past her bedtime.
The night winds down. Stalls and stands pack up, and superstar that my brother is, he’s sold out, so there isn’t much to carry back to his van as the town returns to its usual quiet.
Esme is wired. I take her hand, thankful we’ve moved past the days when social workers knocked on our door first thing in the morning, my mind on the bedtime battle I’ll face when we get home—
Lyrical Irish brogue cuts through the biting cold. “Sab?”
I turn and Galen’s right there. Fresh from wherever the parade took him, the glitter on his cheeks catches under the street decorations, limning his easy grin, and he’s so fucking good to look at, for a hot second, I just stare.
Esme has less gormless chill.
She squeals his name, wrenches her hand free of mine, and barrels away from me. Barrels to Galen, as he crouches and opens his arms as if he’s been waiting for her all night.
Esme skips to him with zero hesitation, slapping her mittened hands to his face.
Galen laughs and taps the end of her nose. “There you are, little lady. I was hoping I’d see you and your dad again tonight.”
“You’ve seen us already?”
“Course I have. You can’t hide the moon behind a lamppost.”
Merde.
Heat creeps up my neck.
Galen grins and stands with Esme in his arms, bringing her back to me. And he comes close, right into my personal space, the way he did at the fête, so he can whisper in my ear, “You made my parade. I’d have eaten myself into a coma otherwise.”
“Oh yeah? What were you eating?”
“French Fancies, and let me say this, boy, as far as French things go, I’d rather eat you.”
He murmurs the words so low I barely hear them. Or have time to react before Esme has his full attention again. “Did you like the parade?”
Pickled by sugar, Esme laughs and tugs on Galen’s uniform. “Galen!”
“Yup, that’s me.”
“She liked the engines,” I supply. “And the dancing.”
“What about you?”
My throat closes as his voice dips again. “I liked the dancing too.”
Galen snorts. “Christmas gets on my nerves, so they weren’t my best moves. I’m taking those home in a bit to bust out in front of the mirror.”
“On your own?”
The numbskull question spills out of me before I know what’s happening.
Galen’s grin slides from Esme to me, and his gaze flickers a touch. “Yeah, on my own. Why? You free?” I start to shake my head, but he grips my wrist with perfect pressure, cutting me off. “Course you’re not. It’s okay. Our time will come.”
I’m beginning to nurture a real fear it won’t, and it’s only a matter of time before I lose Galen to a bloke who’s available and knows his dick from his elbow.
But the rare moments I have him this close, it’s hard to feel anything but safe and content, and it makes the goodbye I see building on his lips even sharper.
“Sweet dreams, little lady.” Galen musses Esme’s hair with his free hand. “Night, Sab.”
He releases my wrist and backs up. And then he’s gone, swallowed by the night, and my vision’s too blurred to track him.
Breath caught, I tighten my hold on Esme, turn back the way we came before Galen called my name, and—
I freeze.
Tam’s behind me, leaning against a wall, his face cast in shadow, but his eyes—my eyes—lit with enough bewildered curiosity I know he’s seen way too much to let me go.
He makes me wait, though. He stares, and it’s so unlike my brother to keep his mouth shut that I give in to the ludicrous panic surging up my spine.
“What?”
Tam cocks a brow. “Don’t fucking what me.” He inclines his head in the direction Galen disappeared. “Who was that?”
“Galen. He’s a firefighter.”
“You don’t say. And who’s Galen the Firefighter to you?”
“A friend.”
“A friend who cuddles your kid and looks at you like he wants to fucking devour you?”
It’s so close to Galen’s dirty whisper I almost laugh. But that unearthed panic, it’s spiked and mean, leaving me scrambling for words. “I—”
My brother has a grumpy back, but he’s as fast on his feet as he is in his mind.
He’s in front of me before I can blink. “You don’t have to explain. Désolé, frangin. Je suis juste paumé.”
He’s right to be lost. How can he be anything else when I’m this messy over someone and I haven’t told him a fucking thing? Tam’s everything to me and I know I could’ve shared this with him, but I didn’t—I haven’t—and now we’re here.
“You like him?”
“Hmm?”
“Do you like him?” Tam nudges me. “Because it sure looked like he likes you.”
“We’re not twelve.”
“What are you then?”
Heat crawls up my neck. “I don’t know.”
“You want to find out?”
“I don’t know.” I repeat myself like a moron. “He doesn’t really do serious, and I’m…”
“A fucking catch,” Tam snaps. “Even if you’re just passing through each other’s lives, he’s lucky to know you.”
The expression on my brother’s face is so fierce a startled laugh breaks through the tension I’ve woven between us with my pig-headed stupidity. “Cheers, bro.”
“I’m not messing around.”
I know he’s not. But truth lingers in the vague explanation I’ve given him, one that has me worrying my bottom lip, and Tam poking me again.
“It doesn’t have to be a big thing to count. Even a fleeting spark means something.”
“You get that from your scrapbook of one-off shags?”
Tam spears me with a sharp glare. “Non. I’m saying those one-offs still have the power to wake something inside you.
To shape you, même si ca fait mal. I’ve had plenty, remember?
And every single one of them led me to Bhodi, and to knowing how ready I was when I found him.
” We’re by Tam’s van. He shuts the back door with more force than necessary, as if he’s biting back a ton of other shit he wants to say.
For my sake. For his.
For Esme.
Despite the sugar lacing her blood, she’s starting to fall asleep.
Tam holds out his arms. “Give her here. I’ll take her home with me.”
“Why?”
“So you can either stew in my priceless wisdom, or make a fucking phone call.”
“You don’t need to do that.”
“I want to. Gives me a reason to breathe while Bhodi’s at work.”
“You just want her to keep Rudy occupied.”
“That too.” Tam blows on his hands before reaching for Esme for real. “Humour me, yeah? And put your keys in my pocket. Take my van home, it’s fucking empty anyway.”
Because he sold out, and I know how much that means to him. That the hobby he took up to stave off some hardcore PTSD pays the bills.
I let him have Esme and drop my keys in his coat pocket. Tam knocks his head to my shoulder. Then he leaves, taking Esme to the van with the child seat strapped in the front. A few minutes later, I hear the engine start and him rumble away with my baby safe in his care.
It leaves me alone with the cold and the echo of his voice colliding with Galen’s.
I get into Tam’s smaller van on autopilot and drive home.
By the time I reach my house, my nerves are something else.
I’m pacing the second I get inside, clutching my phone, every fibre of me screaming as my brother’s words grow louder and louder.
A fleeting spark means something.
Even if it doesn’t stay.
Fuck it.
I open the app.
Find his name.
Hesitate a bare heartbeat before I fire out a message to Galen.