Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
ASHER
A few days later, Owen’s babbles woke Nat and me along with the sun. The early hour came far too soon, considering how late I’d kept us both up.
Nat groaned and smashed her face into her pillow. “Why do I continue allowin’ you to keep me up till all hours of the night?”
I smiled against her shoulder before pressing a kiss there, recalling her breathy moans ordering me to give her more. “Funny, I never hear you complain while I’m doling out orgasms like candy.”
“Wow. How’re you gonna walk out of here with that gigantic head?”
“Which one?”
“Oh my God,” she said on a laugh as she jabbed her elbow back into my stomach. She threw off the covers and climbed out of bed, completely unconcerned with her nakedness. And I certainly didn’t mind watching the show.
She slipped on a pair of leggings—sans panties, I couldn’t help but notice—and slid one of my too-big T-shirts over her head. “I’ll take one for the team and grab first point on Mr. Pee Pants this mornin’. And you should probably figure out why Miss Junie B. wasn’t the one wakin’ us up,” she said over her shoulder as she strolled out of the bedroom and toward Owen’s room.
“Can’t exactly greet her like this,” I mumbled, closing my eyes and willing away my seemingly ever-present erection. Or ever-present when it came to Nat, anyway.
Once I got myself under control, I slipped on a pair of sweatpants and finger combed my hair out of my eyes as I padded out into the hallway in search of June. I smiled as the sounds of Nat mimicking Owen’s babbles floated out from his room, not quite believing how seamlessly she’d slid into this role.
As much as she had, I knew she also must have been twitching to get away, something I’d been thinking about more and more after my talk with Gran.
This had been the longest Nat had ever been stuck in one spot since she was eighteen, and I had no doubt the itch to flee was crawling under her skin. We might not be able to escape to Barcelona or Peru, but maybe I could figure something else out. Something we could do in or around Havenbrook to give her a taste of the adventure she craved.
I poked my head in June’s bedroom, my heart lurching at the sight of her empty bed, panic like I’d never known seizing me.
“Junebug?” I called.
Pulse hammering, I glanced into the living room and kitchen before spinning back around. I released a long, relieved breath when my gaze locked on Aubrey’s bedroom at the end of the hallway, the door opened a crack. With trepidation, I made my way to the end of the hall, pushing open the creaky door and glancing around the space I still hadn’t been able to bring myself to step into since I’d been back.
Christ, it still smelled like my sister. The scent swept over me as I stood there, assaulted by memories of her smile and her laugh, the way she cut the crusts off her pizza and saved them for last, and how she dreamed of traveling to California but hadn’t ever gotten around to it. That invisible fist that’d left me alone reached into my chest again and gripped my heart, painful and unavoidable.
It might have been weeks since she’d died, but I still hadn’t been ready to go in there. But as my eyes landed on my niece, curled up in the middle of her parents’ king-sized bed, I realized this was about far more than what I was comfortable with.
“Ash?” Nat called from behind me. “Did you find—” With Owen on her hip, she stopped short in the opened doorway, her eyes darting from him to where June lay, blinking her eyes open.
“Yeah, I found her.” With a sigh, I sat on the end of the bed and reached out to rub circles on June’s back. “Hey, bug. What’re you doin’ in here?”
“I had a bad dream.”
“How come you didn’t come get me or Nat?”
She shrugged, sitting up while she rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “I’m havin’ fun with you, Uncle Asher. But when are Momma and Daddy comin’ home?”
The simple question was a wrecking ball to my chest, a knife to my gut. Facing this was something Nat and I had talked about in depth, wondering when the other shoe would drop since it’d seemed like June had taken the news so well. But still, it caught me off guard.
I glanced to Nat because I sure as hell didn’t know what to say. How did I explain death to a four-year-old? How did I define the permanence of it? That it wasn’t just a vacation. That there was no coming back.
From the look on Nat’s face—one filled with a whole lot of oh fuck —I knew she was just as much out of her depth as I was.
I pulled June into my lap and ran a hand down her long dark hair so much like her mom’s. “You’ve been missin’ them?”
She nodded against my chest, hugging her blankie to her face as I wrapped my arms around her and held her tight.
I rested my lips on the top of her head and closed my eyes. Breathed her in and thanked God I still had this piece of my sister when I could never have her again. “Me too, bug. Me too.”
Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on how you looked at it—four-year-olds were highly distractible creatures, and June’s attention had been diverted at the mere mention of pancakes. By her second helping, she was all smiles and laughter, but I knew it was only a short reprieve from the issue at hand. An issue I had no fucking clue how to tackle.
“If you food gremlins are done, I’m gonna hop in the shower.” Nat strode to us and dropped a plate of fresh animal pancakes—her specialty—on the table. “Whoa, easy with the syrup, you sugar fiend.”
June giggled as Nat plucked the bottle from her grip before setting it out of reach. “But it’s so yummy!”
“Good thing that puddle of it on your plate says you’ve still got plenty left,” I said before stabbing a bite of my own.
Owen smacked a palm on his high chair and snagged June’s attention, effectively ending the argument. Thank God, because I didn’t have the mental capacity to play verbal gymnastics with a four-year-old this morning.
Wrapping an arm around my shoulders from behind, Nat leaned down toward me. “We’ve got that appointment with Sheila today,” she said in my ear, though she probably didn’t need to be quite so stealthy. What, since Owen and June were now having a screaming contest, seeing who could screech the loudest. This godawful game was something they loved to do, which Nat’s and my dwindling bottle of ibuprofen could attest to.
I exhaled a heavy sigh and closed my eyes. “Shit, I forgot about that. Not exactly the best time for her to come by—when my niece was so lonely for her parents, she snuck out of her room and slept in their bed half the night.”
Nat stepped in front of me and leaned her ass back against the table. Lifting a shoulder, she said, “It might be a good thing. This is her job. Maybe she’s got a referral for someone June can talk to.”
“You don’t think that’ll look bad?” I blew out a frustrated sigh and ran a hand through my hair. “Like I can’t even keep her happy?”
“It doesn’t much matter if she looks like she’s happy if she’s really not. Does it?” Nat bent and pressed a quick kiss on my lips before standing upright, fixing her gaze on the kids, and then throwing her hat in the ring with her own scream.
The unexpected sound startled Owen and June out of their match, and the two dissolved into deep belly laughs. A smile tugged at my lips, forgetting for just a second what was at stake.
I had no idea if Nat was right. If asking for assistance would help or hurt my case. But I’d decided when Cole had played me that video of Aubrey asking me to keep the kids that I was in this to the bitter end. I was fighting to keep June and Owen. To raise them. And that meant wading waist-deep into the shit once in a while, as well as sailing through the good times. And if this wasn’t a pile of shit, I didn’t know what was.
Twenty minutes later, the doorbell rang, giving Nat and I both just enough time to get ourselves presentable. I opened the door to a chorus of June and Owen’s second screaming match of the day. I’d tried to bribe them before answering, and though June had been willing to stop, Owen hadn’t been able to be convinced. And since he continued on, June figured she deserved to as well.
“Mornin’, Ms. Cummings,” I greeted with a grin. “They’re havin’ fun, I promise.”
Just then, both kids broke off in laughter thanks to Nat sacrificing herself at their mercy and allowing them to climb on her like a jungle gym.
Sheila smiled, gripping her canvas bag once again filled with toys. “Sounds like it. Mind if I come in?”
“Sure, of course.” I stepped back and gestured her inside.
Just because this wasn’t her first visit didn’t make it any easier. I might have known more what to expect, but that didn’t change the fact that as nice as Sheila was, her job was to report to the court her thoughts on whether or not I was fit to be my niece and nephew’s guardian.
As if this all wasn’t hard enough to figure out, I was doing it with an anvil hanging over me at the same time. It felt like I was jumping out of a plane without a parachute, and I didn’t have any idea how long until I crashed into the ground.
“I hear congratulations are in order,” Sheila said, dipping her head toward my left hand where my black wedding band sat.
“Yep, he finally made an honest woman out of me,” Nat said.
“Finally? How long were y’all datin’?”
Since I absolutely couldn’t tell her the truth, I went with what was the closest. “We’ve been friends since first grade. Things just kind of naturally progressed from there. So, I guess you could say she’s been waitin’ her whole life for me to get on with it.”
Nat snorted. “You sure you don’t have that the other way around?”
“That, too.”
Our eyes locked for a heavy beat, a question in Nat’s gaze that I couldn’t answer. Was I pretending just for show? Or did I actually mean that?
“Y’all are too cute.” Sheila sat on the couch and opened her bag, gesturing for June to come over. “Hi, June. I brought some new toys for you and your brother. Mind if I chat with your uncle for a bit while y’all play?”
“Do you have any gum?” June asked, peering into the bag.
Sheila laughed. “’Fraid not.”
June sighed, sounding heavily put out, but grabbed the bag and dumped its entire contents onto the floor. Owen dropped the remote he’d been playing with and crawled straight for the mess as if a shotgun blast had gone off.
“How’ve things been goin’ for y’all?” Sheila asked, dragging my attention away from the kids.
Nat and I exchanged a glance, and she raised a single eyebrow, her silent deferment to me. Though she didn’t have to say a word for me to know what she thought I should do.
Clearing my throat, I leaned forward, bracing my elbows on my spread knees. I rubbed my palms together and stared at the floor, reminding myself that if June didn’t get the help she needed to overcome her grief, it didn’t matter if it made us look bad or as if we couldn’t handle this. Her welfare was my top priority.
“Good. Mostly, I think,” I said with a nod. “The good days outweigh the bad, that’s for sure.”
“That’s great. How do you feel the kids have been adjustin’ to the change?”
“Owen’s always happy, just as long as nobody forgets his bottle,” I said with a chuckle.
She grinned. “And June?”
“Honestly, if you’d come by yesterday, I’d’ve said things were fine. That she’s been her normal, precocious self.”
“But since I came by today?” she asked, leaving the question open for me to continue.
I blew out a heavy sigh. “We found her curled up in my sister’s bed this mornin’, askin’ when her momma and daddy are comin’ home.”
Sheila made a gruff sound of sympathy, and I swallowed down the apprehension I still felt, even knowing what the right thing to do was.
“I don’t know if this’ll make us look weak or incompetent, but this is about the kids. And I don’t care about anything more than makin’ sure they’re okay. Because of that, I’d love your help.” I lifted my gaze and glanced at Nat, who’d lowered herself onto the floor to corral Owen. She offered me an encouraging smile, giving me the reassurance I needed. “We’d appreciate it if you had a referral for a therapist who works with young children dealing with grief.”
“Of course,” Sheila said without hesitation. “And this most certainly doesn’t make you appear incompetent or anything other than a loving uncle. There’s really nothing wrong with finding someone for your niece to talk to. In fact, it speaks volumes that you reached out to get the help y’all feel she needs.”
I blew out a sigh of relief and met Nat’s smile. Despite having next to no experience with kids, she’d made the right call on this, and we’d passed this small test.
I only hoped we fared as well when it really counted.