Chapter Five #2
I close my eyes and swallow hard. The praise hits deeper than it should. “This isn’t something I do often,” I say, my voice rough around the edges. “Or…at all anymore.”
There’s a pause. Then her hand finds my arm, warm and light. Careful.
“I know,” she says.
I nod, but the tightness in my chest doesn't ease.
They knew, but they didn’t understand.
They didn’t understand how much it hurt to pick up a paintbrush or pencil without Daddy.
Art had always been our thing—our quiet refuge.
For as long as I can remember, we’d sit together at that scratched-up kitchen table, sketchbooks spread before us, the outside world fading until it was just the scratch of pencil tips and the swirl of paint.
Daddy was just a steel mill worker—no fancy degrees, no grand plans.
But his hands—rough, calloused, stained with grease and ash—held a kind of magic.
After a day spent drenched in sweat and coated in fly ash, he’d come home exhausted, the scent of metal and smoke clinging to him.
Yet, he never skipped our ritual. He’d strip off his work clothes, steam rising from the quick shower he took, and then settle into his chair.
The kitchen light cast a golden glow over the table, warming the worn wood beneath our arms.
I’d climb into his lap, just like always, fingers itching to reach the pages where our world came alive.
“What's it going to be today, Lu-Lu?” His voice was always rough, warm—like a worn leather jacket you could always count on. It wrapped around me, steady and safe.
No matter how wild the idea was, no matter how simple or strange, he could make it happen. He could turn a half-drawn dragon into something that felt alive. He could make the stars feel like they were within reach. No one else could do that. Not like him.
As I grew older, those sketchbooks became our secret language. I’d start a drawing, and he’d finish it. Sometimes, he’d sketch first, and I’d add the final touch. It wasn’t just art anymore—it was a conversation, a connection, a way to be seen without saying a word.
He’d bring me books on art history—thick, worn volumes bursting with color and stories that made the world seem full of endless possibilities.
We’d sit for hours, sprawled on the floor or at the kitchen table, fingers tracing the brushstrokes on the pages like we could pull the paintings right out of the paper.
We talked about everything—the way light flickered in Impressionist skies, the raw emotion behind every stroke, the hidden stories in portraits and landscapes.
I’d talk about the masters, the movements, the magic I thought was just for us.
And he’d listen, eyes warm and shining, a slow smile tugging at his lips like every word I said made him prouder.
But then he died, and with him, it felt like all of that died too.
The table was empty. The chair where he used to sit felt so cold, so wrong.
I couldn’t bring myself to even look at a sketchbook after that.
I couldn’t touch the paints or the brushes.
It was as if the very act of holding a pencil would be an admission that he was gone, that everything we’d built together had vanished.
I couldn’t go there. Not yet. I couldn’t bear to pick up the pieces of something that once felt so alive between us. I wasn’t sure if I ever could again.
For years, I didn’t touch a thing. The art supplies gathered dust, buried in the back of a drawer, untouched. I told myself I didn’t need it anymore—that I didn’t need him in that way. I couldn’t bear to feel the grief it would stir up, the brutal reminder of everything I’d lost.
Then Maddox opened The Boxing Den, a place where he poured his anger, his rage—the things he couldn’t say out loud, the pain he swallowed whole. Then one night, there I was—drunk, numb, standing in the middle of it all. It felt like the world was spinning around me, but I wasn’t part of it anymore.
Without thinking, my hand reached for a paintbrush.
It was like muscle memory took over—like that part of me still remembered what I couldn’t say.
I wasn’t doing this for me. Not to find my way back to art, or to the girl I was when Daddy was here.
Not to reclaim what felt lost forever. Hell, I didn’t even care about the strokes on the wall or whether it looked perfect.
I did it for Maddox. I picked up that paintbrush because I couldn’t find the words to tell him that he wasn’t alone.
I didn’t need to understand every inch of the hell he carried to see that it was eating him alive.
I couldn’t fix it, but I could bleed out my own grief beside his.
I could leave something real on those walls—something raw and honest and quietly screaming—so he’d know someone else had been wrecked too.
Not the same way.
But wrecked, all the same.
Now, here I am, standing in a room meant for new life—brushing color onto bare walls like it doesn’t cost me anything. Like it doesn’t crack something open inside me every time the bristles meet the paint.
The nursery smells like fresh paint and baby powder—Evie brought a whole box of stuff in last week, unboxed tiny clothes and soft blankets like it wouldn’t shatter me.
I didn’t tell her it did. I just nodded, rolled up my sleeves, and got to work.
Because this baby…she’s the silver lining in a storm that’s swallowed more than her parents should’ve had to survive.
I set the brush down on the tray with a quiet clink, flexing my fingers, stained in sage and cream and something almost like hope. The mural’s half-finished, but it’s enough to start becoming something real.
I sigh, the kind that catches in your chest before it escapes, and turn to face my best friend—the one who always sees way too damn much, even when I wish she wouldn’t.
“Seriously,” I say, wiping my hands on my paint splattered overalls, “if he finds you in here, he’s going to blow a gasket.”
Evie leans against the doorframe, arms folded under her chest, the soft glow from the hallway catching on the auburn strands in her dutch braids. “I can handle the big guy, don’t worry.”
I snort, dragging my paint-smeared forearm across my forehead. “I don’t know, Eves. He’s been more intense since you got pregnant—as if he wasn’t already walking around like a grenade with the pin pulled.”
Evie rolls her eyes softly, but her voice barely rises above a whisper, thick with something she’s trying hard not to show. Her hand moves slowly and gently over the side of her belly, like she’s holding a fragile secret.
“He’s scared, Lou. More scared than I’ve ever seen.
This baby…she’s everything he wants, but he still can’t shake the feeling that he doesn’t deserve her.
Like it’s some cruel trick hope handed to him just to break his heart all over again, and nothing tears me up more than watching him reduce himself down to unworthy. ”
“All that’ll change when she gets here.” I smirk.
“I rag on him, but I get it. Aunt Joe though? She’s one bad mood swing from going full exorcist. He had her so riled up over some lopsided-ass baby blanket she’d been knitting.
She stormed into Bangers with a flask in one hand and a crochet needle in the other, screaming about ancestral betrayal and demanding Crew ‘peel like a banana, nice and slow’ so she could align her stitches with his abs.
I think she hexed the jukebox. It’s been playing nothing but Prince ever since. ”
“That fucking blanket is black and Prince is a pussy.”
Evie and I both jump, hearts slamming against our ribs.
I snatch the paintbrush like it’s a grenade, spin on a dime, and toss it over my shoulder.
The damn thing arcs through the stale air, landing with a sloppy plop on Maddox’s chest—smearing a fat streak of paint across his dark shirt like a God damn war paint.
“Jesus Christ,” I snap, my voice riding that thin edge between sarcasm and a scream. “It’s not normal to be built like a damn freight train and move like a fucking ghost.”
Maddox lifts his hands slowly, palms out, that shit-eating grin already spreading across his face like he’s proud of himself.
I glare, heat prickling up my neck. “And don’t say the p-word in front of me,” I bite out, jabbing the air with my paintbrush like I might actually stab him with it. “It gives me the ick. Like, full-body shudder, bleach-my-ears kind of ick.”
Evie tries to stifle a laugh but ends up snorting, and Maddox just shakes his head, glancing down at the streak of paint with exaggerated dismay. “Nice aim,” he mutters, making me roll my eyes even harder.
Maddox slightly tilts his head, his dark gaze staring right through me and because I know Maddox, I know what’s coming next.
“I forgot, the only Wilder man allowed to say pussy around you is the oldest one.”
See? Fucking told you.
Evie slaps a hand over her mouth to stifle her laughter, but it bubbles out anyway—sharp and unfiltered. I shoot her a look, slow and pointed.
“Oh, come on, Lou,” she says, still grinning. “He got you there.”
I flip them both off as I start cleaning up for the day. My hands move on autopilot—wiping paint-streaked jars, dunking brushes into cloudy water—but my thoughts don’t. Truth is, I’m not pissed at them. Not really.
What got me was the part of me that flinched at how right they were, and how much I wish they weren’t.
Once everything's rinsed and packed away, I drift into the kitchen, and that’s when I see it.
Maddox is standing behind Evie, his big arms wrapped around her like armor.
His hands cradle her belly from underneath, gently lifting it, easing the strain off her back.
She leans into him, one arm lazily slung around his neck, her eyes closed, lips tilted in that soft, half-smile only he gets from her.
The light from the window catches on her face, casting the whole moment in a hazy gold glow.
They look like they were pulled from another life—some quiet, tender world I’ll never set foot in.
That’s the thing about Maddox and Evie. Together, they’re something rare. Solid. The kind of love that doesn’t ask, doesn’t explain—it just is. Watching them feels like pressing on a bruise I can’t stop touching.
A family. A future. A child who will never know what it’s like to be unwanted.
I swallow hard, turpentine clinging to the back of my throat like regret. The ache flares up, sharp and mean—an old wound with a fresh bleed. I’ll never have that. Not the baby. Not the soft, quiet mornings. Not the steady arms around my waist and a future curling beneath my ribs.
And God help me, some days, the knowing burns worse than the wanting ever did.
“Are you staying for dinner?” she calls out softly to me.
“Nah, give the boys my love. I’m going to head out.”
But the Lord can’t seem to grant me any mercy.
I pull into my drive and there he is—Henry fucking Wilder, shirtless, sweat slick and raw, dirt smeared across his muscles like a God damn badge of sin.
Every inch of him screams trouble and I’m aching with this twisted hunger—like I want to tear his clothes off, bury my mouth in that rough, heated skin, and fuck him raw until there’s nothing left but gasps and skin against skin.
Henry Wilder has always been handsome, but fuck me if he didn’t grow into a fine fucking man.
Not just “small-town cute” or “your mama’s favorite deputy” kind of handsome.
No—he is fuck up your whole life, ruin your credit score, swallow his kids in a Wendy’s bathroom, catch a fucking charge kind of hot.
And there he is—shirtless in the damn sun like he doesn’t know what he is doing to me.
Sweat slicking over every inch of that broad, brutal chest, catching in the dip of his collarbone, sliding slow down the ridges of his stomach like sin incarnate.
His jeans hang low on his hips, denim stretched tight over thighs built to ruin furniture and rearrange organs.
And that sliver of soft—just above the waistband?
That fucking strip of skin?
That is it. That is my 13th reason.
Because it isn’t about abs or vanity—it is about the kind of man who can take a punch, eat three plates of food, carry a body out of a burning house, then fuck you stupid up against the wall before the smoke clears.
My mouth goes dry, my thighs go tight, and my brain…well that bitch just left the chat.
He glances up, and I swear he knows I am watching. That lazy, cocky grin curls at his mouth—half challenge, half promise—and I swear I whimper. Out loud. Like a God damn Victorian heroine in heat.
Then my eyes catch those fucking wildflowers inked across his chest. They stare back at me, sharp and undeniable, and just like that, the heat swirling through me sobers. The moment cracked wide open—the weight of it settling in my gut like cold concrete.
Seeing those wildflowers—loud and permanent, sprawled right across his chest—that morning hits me like a sucker punch. How the hell have I never noticed before? I’m not crazy. The man is covered in sketches I’d drawn years ago, inked into his skin like some twisted family album.
Aunt Joe standing tough, Maddox and Sophie smirking, and Merc caught mid-laugh at the fair one summer. Then there is Maggie, grinning with a wildflower tucked behind her ear—but those flowers over his heart? They are mine.
Those flowers aren’t just tattoos—they are a claim.
A part of me branded on him, and yet, instead of pride, a hollow ache settles deep in my chest. I feel unworthy of that kind of mark—because I can’t give him what he wants most and seeing them permanently etched on his skin only makes the distance between us feel even wider.
He runs a hand through his thick hair. “You keep looking at me like a piece of meat, and I’ll handcuff you to my bed and fuck you like one.”
I snarl low, stepping closer, voice rough with heat and spite. “Oh yeah? You dropped something.”
He pats his pockets, glancing around like a lost puppy hunting for a clue. Then it hits him, and that cocky grin curls his lips. “What’s that, wildflower?”
I turn on my heel, voice dripping with venom. “All that dick in your mouth, followed by a mouthful of ‘dream on.’”
I storm toward the house, slamming the door hard enough to rattle the walls. His rich, amused laugh floats through the cracks.
Fucking lunatic.