Chapter 4
Trent
The outside lights illuminated the massive main house, my eyes sweeping over the empty front porch as I braked to a stop right beside the SUV Travis had been driving and killed the engine. Yanking the keys and unclipping my seat belt at the same time, I moved to get out.
“Trent.” Drew’s hand on my arm stopped me.
I said nothing, just looked over my shoulder.
“Put your dick away, frat boy.”
It took a second, and then I glanced down, seeing my open jeans and soft cock half out of the waistband of my boxers.
“Shit,” I exclaimed, sitting back so I could quickly stuff it back in my pants.
“We might be in a hurry, but I don’t share.”
I let out a sound, a cross between a laugh and a groan, and lunged toward him, cupping his scruffy face between my palms. “I’m sorry our date got cut short, baby. I still want to talk. I want to hear every word in that beautiful brain of yours.”
He nodded, the action moving my arms with his head. “I know.”
“You’ll always be my favorite,” I whispered as if it wasn’t the world’s worst-kept secret.
His dimple appeared, charming in every circumstance. “I know.”
“Let’s go inside,” I prompted.
I expected Drew to fall into step with me the second I was around the hood, but he wasn’t there, and I peered around to see him inspecting the SUV.
“What is it?” I asked, nerves and anger so tight in my stomach it made me feel nauseous. “Is there damage?” My hands shook with the thought of my kids in a car chase with someone vengeful and desperate enough to approach a little girl eating ice cream to spew lies.
“No, everything looks good,” Drew announced. “Just making sure.”
The front door swung open, and Andi rushed out. “Daddy!”
I took off, feet rushing over pavement to get to my daughter. Even out here in the dark, I could see the tear tracks on her cheeks.
When I was close enough, she launched herself at me, leaping as though the steps weren’t even there or as if she had complete trust in me that I’d catch her regardless.
It only fed the dark part of me that would do anything to keep her safe.
The breath whooshed out of me, and I stumbled back when I plucked her out of the air. She was just a little peanut, but she weighed a lot more than she used to. Drew was there with a steadying hand on my back and posture braced to keep us both up if needed.
The second my arms went around our daughter, she let out a cry and buried her face in my neck. The length of her dark hair tangled in my fingers and brushed over my forearm when I palmed the back of her head.
Sobs racked her little frame, and her arms trembled with the force with which she clung to me.
I closed my eyes and breathed deep, trying desperately to stomp down the rage coiling in every part of my body.
“You’re okay,” I murmured, rubbing her back. “I got you.”
“Daddy,” she wailed, crying all over again. Her tears smeared against my neck, hurt seeping into my skin.
Holding her tight, I pivoted to Drew, searching for that blue gaze to ground me.
He was my other half. I didn’t have to say a word. He knew. He felt the same. We were two halves of the same soul.
His chest brushed my arm and side, one hand going to the back of my hand and the other to Andi. “Hey, baby girl, we’re here now.”
Sniffling, she swiped her wet face across my shoulder and reached for Drew, melting into his arms to bury her face in his neck the same way she’d done mine.
I watched them for a second, my heart swelling to near painful. He whispered something in her ear, and she nodded, and he kissed her on the head. “How about we go inside? You can tell us what’s up.”
She nodded again and then twisted to reach for me. I glanced at Drew, and he smiled knowingly. I tucked her into my chest and carried her up the steps and through the front door.
Inside, the air was warm and scented with vanilla. The hum of a TV played in the background, and the sound of the running dishwasher filtered in from the kitchen.
Two dogs came rushing up, one of them Ketchup, both of them smelling Andi’s foot as if to make sure she was okay.
Romeo was sitting on the steps leading upstairs, and we locked eyes immediately.
“Lo?”
“She’s okay.”
I nodded. “I’m sorr—”
He cut me off before I could finish, standing. “Don’t.” He shook his blond head.
Since retiring from pro football, he’d grown it out a little and slacked off on the shaving. Both he and Drew were blond-haired, blue-eyed, and now scruffy, but only one of them affected me.
“You didn’t do anything to be sorry for.”
The door shut behind me, and Drew came forward. “Where’s Travis?”
Romeo hitched a chin toward the living room, and we turned.
He was across the room by the window, standing between the parted curtains to stare out at the driveway and trees. From his position, I knew he saw us pull up and Andi leaping into my arms.
The back of his dark head was motionless, his shoulders tense and arms folded in front of him. He was dressed in his usual style of black everything.
Drew was right. He was a strong kid. There was nothing wrong with strength. Strength was a good thing.
Except people tended to forget that strength was usually a product of pain. That strength was sometimes your only choice.
The world breaks all of us in one way or another, and it broke my son far earlier than most. Those broken spots healed into thick scars, like iron thrown into the fire to be forged into something stronger.
I never wanted my son’s strength to overshadow his pain, for him to think it was one or the other because, often in life, it never was.
I turned to my husband, our daughter between us. He held out his arms. “Come here, peanut.”
Andi went willingly, and Drew motioned to Trav with his head.
Chest tight, I put my back to the room, to everyone but my son. “Travis.”
His shoulders moved a few inches toward his ears, but otherwise, he remained still.
I felt the emotion rolling off him in waves, could practically taste the hurricane within him.
But Trav was an enigma, and I wasn’t sure what kind of storm this was or what exactly he was feeling.
I might understand he was broken, but our breaks were not the same.
“There’s no one out at the gate,” I told him. “No one inside it either. Didn’t see anyone on my way in.”
Nothing.
“Any trouble getting home?”
He shook his head once.
“You hurt?”
Another sharp shake of his head.
“You wanna turn around and look at me?”
Nothing.
“You know we aren’t mad at you, right?”
The spike in the energy around him told me I was getting closer to the eye of his storm.
I shifted a little, enough that I could see his reflection in the glass. His jaw was locked, dark eyes staring straight ahead. Sometimes I wondered what those obsidian eyes saw because the opaque depths kept everything a secret.
“It was scary, huh?” I said, quieter than before. “Watching someone approach your sister. Trying to take her away.”
His lower lip disappeared beneath his teeth.
“We aren’t mad, Trav. We’re proud of you.”
He turned then, so swift the curtains swayed, and he collided into me like I was a punching bag. He didn’t wrap his arms around me, just full-body barreled into me, his face turned into my chest with his hands at his sides.
I wrapped around him immediately, thinking it would be better if this were Drew. Drew gave the best hugs on the planet. But then one of the hands at his sides lifted just enough to grab onto the hem of my T-shirt. I might not have noticed if not for the tension in the fabric at my shoulder.
Water pressed at the backs of my eyes, making my vision blur and my head feel tight. I stared ahead, thinking of the five-year-old who would hide behind my leg when life got to be too much.
I opened and closed my mouth, attempting to release some of the pressure in my head as I hunched in and hugged him harder. I’m sorry I didn’t get to you sooner.
If I had one regret in life, it was that.
“I hit her,” he said, the words muffled against my shirt.
I forced myself not to react even though everything inside me stilled. Cupping the back of his head, I leaned in. “Who?”
“The woman who tried to take Andi.”
“You hit her?” I repeated, heart beating painfully hard.
His cheek rubbed against my chest when he nodded.
I held him tighter. Being a parent didn’t come with a manual. It was hard to know what to do and what to say. Especially when you just wanted to protect them, when you loved them no matter what.
“I’m supposed to control my temper. I’m not supposed to fight. And she was a girl.”
“What was she doing when you hit her?” I asked, holding back the urge to tell him it was okay. I mean, it was okay. That fucking hag hurt my daughter. But in order to give him the acceptance he truly needed, I had to listen first.
“I told her to back off. To get away from us. She wouldn’t listen and was causing a scene. She grabbed Andi’s arm, made her spill her ice cream.”
My stomach twisted. Against his back, my hands balled into fists.
“She dragged her out of her chair and onto the sidewalk. No one touches my sister,” he said, lifting his head until those bottomless black eyes gazed right into mine, his short dark lashes nothing but a punctuation to that penetrating stare. “No one hurts my sister.”
“I know.” I agreed. “And then what?”
“I tackled her. Sacked her just like I would a player on the field. She went down hard, and when I got up, she grabbed my hand. I smacked her off me. Then I got Andi and London and got out of there.”
His eyes slid over to the side. “I didn’t speed. Even if I did want to.”
Drew’s shoulder lightly brushed mine when he stepped forward. “I trust you.”
“We’re proud of you,” I repeated. “You did exactly the right thing. Violence is never the answer, but sometimes it’s necessary. You had to protect yourself and the girls.”
He glanced up, and it was like staring down at that five-year-old from so long ago. “Really?”
“Yeah, really, bud,” I said, dragging him into another hug. It didn’t even matter that he didn’t use his arms because he sank into me with his whole body. I dipped my face. “I’m proud of you, son. I’ll always be on your side.”
His body moved with the force of his relief as though the worst of the storm was over and now he could breathe.
I looked at Drew, my anchor in every storm. A beat passed between us.
He came forward, wrapped his arms around us both, and squeezed. Ah, that’s the stuff.
“So is no one going to acknowledge the kid used the moves I taught him on the football field to bring that woman down?” Braeden disrupted the quiet.
I looked over my shoulder.
The entire family was sitting there in the living room.
There was no privacy in this place.
“Who taught my son how to play football?” I inquired. Me, that’s who.
B made a face. “Uh, his coach.” He pointed to himself. “And for the record, Trav, I don’t think she counts as a girl. She might identify as a woman, but from where I’m sitting, she’s a criminal. Her pronouns are delinquent/dangerous/asking for it.”
“You aren’t even sitting,” Ivy muttered.
Drew snickered.
“Baby, if you wanted me to sit down, you could have said so,” he told her, going over to the couch to pick her up and sit down with her in his lap.
“Uh, Dads?” Travis called.
I glanced down at the teenager still squished between us.
“Oops,” Drew said, and we both stepped back to give him some air.
“Don’t do that again,” Travis told us, cheeks red with embarrassment. “I’m getting a soda.”
He fled from the room like his Nikes were on fire, and Drew and I turned toward the fam. Andi was sitting under a blanket with Rimmel, and London was on Romeo’s lap.
“You know what to do,” I told him.
He smiled. “Family meeting!”