Chapter 3 #2
“You did what you thought was right,” Booker said. “That’s all any parent can do.”
I looked at Gage, trying to figure out if he agreed. For a moment he didn’t speak but a look of such pain flashed across his face.
“I guarantee you that keeping Leigh away from our mother, was the best decision you ever made. We’re just glad we know now,” Gage finished. “Glad Leigh’s here. That you’re both here.”
I watched my mother’s face crumple with relief, watched these men I barely knew offer her grace and understanding, and something in my chest loosened.
This family. These people. They were good.
A part of me was curious to know what Regina was like.
To meet the person that everyone here seemed to have nothing good to say about.
Could she really be that bad? She was the wronged wife, the woman who had her trust broken by the one person she was supposed to be able to trust. Maybe she wasn’t the villain everyone seemed to think she was?
The conversation shifted after that, lighter, easier. I was starting to relax, starting to believe I might actually fit here, when the front door opened.
Delaney got up to answer it, and my entire body went cold.
Because walking through that door, looking tired and wary, was him.
Dex.
The man from the bar. The man who’d made me feel seen and wanted and then thrown me away like garbage the second he learned my name.
He was here. In this house. At this family gathering.
Our eyes met across the room, and I watched the color drain from his face. Watched guilt and panic flash across his features before he shuttered his expression.
No. No no no no no.
“Dex! Come in, we’re just...” Delaney stopped, looking at him more closely. “You okay? You look...”
“Fine,” he said, the word clipped. “Just tired.”
But his eyes were still on me, and I could see the same horror I felt reflected back.
She didn’t buy it. I could see it in her face. But she stepped aside. “Come meet Leigh.” Her hand briefly touched his, a gesture of concern that told me she knew him well.
He walked into the room like a man approaching his execution, and I couldn’t breathe. In that horrible moment at the end of the night, I’d known he knew them. But there was knowing them… and then there was being here, at our first meeting, and just walking through the door knowing them.
He actually had a relationship with them. A close one at that. Closer than I could expect to have any time soon.
This couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t be part of this. He couldn’t be this connected to them.
But he was. I could see it in the way the brothers greeted him, in the easy familiarity, in the way he fit into this space like he’d been here a thousand times before.
Because he had.
He was part of their family.
I wanted to scream.
“Do you two know each other?” Xander’s voice cut through my spiral, sharp and perceptive.
I forced myself to look at him. At Xander, not Dex. “We met briefly. Last night. At the bar.” I could hear the tightness in my voice. The distortion of truth that edged towards a lie.
“Ran into each other,” Dex added, his voice rough. “Small world apparently.”
The tension was so thick I could barely breathe through it. Everyone was looking between us, clearly sensing something was wrong but not understanding what.
“Well,” Trace said carefully, “Dex, this is Leigh. Leigh, this is Dex. He’s been part of our family since we were kids.”
“Practically another brother,” Gage added, smiling like he wasn’t twisting a knife in my gut.
Brother.
Practically their brother.
The man I’d kissed against a wall last night. The man whose hands had been in my hair, whose mouth had been on my neck. The man I’d wanted so desperately I’d said yes without hesitation.
Was practically their brother.
I was going to be sick.
“Nice to officially meet you,” I managed, my voice ice.
He nodded, jaw tight, and didn’t say anything.
The conversation tried to resume, but it was stilted now. Awkward. Everyone could feel the wrongness between us, even if they didn’t understand it.
Dex positioned himself on the far side of the room, as far from me as he could get while still being in the same space. But I could feel him there. Could feel the weight of his presence, his guilt, his regret.
I tried to focus on the brothers. On Blake telling me about the gallery, on Cade asking if I’d teach him photography, on Delaney’s warmth. But every cell in my body was aware of him.
After what felt like an eternity, Xander drifted over to where Dex stood. I watched them from the corner of my eye, saw Xander say something low that I couldn’t hear, saw Dex’s jaw tighten further.
They stepped outside, and part of me wanted to follow. To hear what they were saying. To know if Dex was telling him everything.
But I stayed where I was, pretending to listen to Blake talk about art exhibitions, while my mind screamed.
When they came back in, Dex looked even more tense. Xander’s eyes found mine briefly, something unreadable in his expression, before he rejoined the group.
I excused myself to the bathroom, needing a moment to breathe. To process. To figure out how to survive this.
In the mirror, I looked pale. Shaken. The exact opposite of how I wanted to appear on the day I met my brothers for the first time.
Get it together, I told myself. You can fall apart later. Right now, you smile and pretend everything is fine.
When I came back out, Dex was making his excuses. Something about work at the garage, things he needed to finish.
He left without looking at me. Without saying goodbye to anyone, really. Just disappeared like he couldn’t get out fast enough.
The relief was immediate and overwhelming.
But so was something else. Something I didn’t want to name.
The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur. More conversation, more laughter, plans being made for future gatherings. A family dinner on Friday. An invitation to visit the ranch. Blake insisting I come by the gallery next week.
They wanted me here. Really wanted me. I should have been happy.
I was happy. Deep down, the relief of this meeting was lined with a happiness I knew I’d treasure.
But all I could think about right now was him.
By the time Mom and I left, twilight was settling over the farm. The drive back to Jasper’s was quiet.
“They’re wonderful,” Mom said finally.
“Yeah. They are.”
“You seemed tense after Dex arrived.”
My hands tightened in my lap. “It was just awkward. Like he said, we met wrong last night. It was just a tense situation.”
“Is that all?”
“Mom, please. I can’t... not right now.”
She let it go, but I could feel her worry.
Back at Jasper’s, I went straight to my room. Sat on the edge of the bed and stared at nothing.
I’d met my brothers. They were everything I’d hoped for. Kind, welcoming, genuine. They wanted me in their lives.
It should have been perfect.
But all I could see was his face when he walked through that door. The horror. The guilt. The knowledge that we’d almost...
“Practically another brother.”
The words echoed in my head.
I wanted to hate him. For pulling away last night, for trying to call them, for making me feel like I was something to be disposed of.
But underneath the anger was something more complicated. Because I’d seen his face. Seen the real regret there. And I’d heard what he said in the bar about feeling invisible, about watching everyone else’s life move forward while his stalled.
I’d felt a connection to him. Real and bone-deep and terrifying.
And now I knew why he’d panicked.
Now I knew why it could never happen.
Because to them, he was family. And I was family. And that made us...
I couldn’t even finish the thought.
Friday. I’d see him again Friday at the family dinner. Along with all my new brothers and their wives and their children and their perfect, complicated, messy family.
A family that included both of us.
A family where we’d have to pretend we were strangers who’d met awkwardly in a bar and nothing more.
I fell back on the bed and stared at the ceiling.
“How am I supposed to do this?” I whispered to the empty room.
No answer came. I was on my own, just like always.