Chapter Fifteen
A REAL BOY
HENRY
A week later
“I look stupid.”
“No, Pinocchio.” Lou smirks. “You look like a real boy.”
Arms crossed, I lean against the doorway and watch them go at it. Lou and Dallas, locked in their daily battle of wills, neither giving an inch. I used to think Lou was the most stubborn human on earth—then I met her mini-me. That kid came into the world ready to challenge her crown.
Hard to believe it’s already been a week.
Between gathering paperwork for Rue, the home study, and trying to settle into this new rhythm, it feels like we haven’t taken a breath.
We’ve carved out a routine—sort of. But that’s about to go to hell because Monday, Dallas starts school.
He acts like it’s no big deal, but I see the nerves flickering beneath the surface.
And Lou? She’s pretending not to be just as wound up, but I know better.
We’ve talked through contingencies. If Lou or I can’t make it to school pickup, Mama or Sophie will step in. We’ve built a net around him. Our village. Just in case life gets messy.
You can bet your sweet ass it will. Life always does.
Which is why tonight, we’re introducing him to Evie, Maddox, and the boys—one bite at a time.
Throwing him into the middle of the Wilder circus would be cruel.
Dallas met Mama a few days ago, and to no one’s surprise, he fell for her the second she handed him an apron and put him to work.
They made cookies. Lou and I watched from the kitchen doorway while Dallas told Mama more in thirty minutes of scooping dough than we’d gotten out of him in days.
She said, “Busy hands make for the best idle chatter.”
She wasn’t wrong.
Most nights, Lou and I will be ghosts passing through the same house—her walking out the door for her shift at Bangers just as I walk in, too late to catch more than the scent of her shampoo in the hallway.
I catch her now, playfully bopping Dallas on the nose. He growls in protest, but I see the way his eyes cling to her like she’s gravity. Like he wants to fall but doesn’t trust the landing.
I know that look. I wear it too.
Like she just might be the answer to every prayer he’s dared to whisper aloud.
Yeah. Same, kid.
There’s something Lou keeps tucked beneath the surface—quiet, sharp, coiled like wire just under skin. I feel it before I see it. It hums in the space between us like static, raising goosebumps along my neck even in the heat.
It’s in the way she watches us when she thinks no one’s paying attention—me, Dallas, this messy little life we’re piecing together with trembling hands and worn-down hearts.
Her eyes soften for just a second, and it guts me—because in that second, she’s not the sharp-mouthed, bulletproof woman the world sees.
She’s wide open. Hollowed out by a longing so deep it leaves her looking like she’s grieving something she never even got to hold.
She watches us like we’re something she lost before she ever had the chance to claim it.
God, I want to grab her. Shake her. Pull her in and make her feel the truth of it—of us. I want to shout it right in her face if that’s what it takes.
Open your eyes, Louisiana. We’re already yours.
Lou clears her throat and glances over her shoulder—just as I catch myself watching her. Our eyes lock for a flicker of a second, and I swear the world shrinks down to that breath between us.
She looks away fast, biting the inside of her cheek, cheeks flushing just a shade darker.
It’s like she’s caught between wanting to run and wanting to stay—between all the walls she’s built and the hope that maybe she doesn’t have to keep them up forever.
I don’t tell her every night her hand slips under that God awful line of pillows she insists on keeping between us and hooks her pinkie around mine.
Like touching me in sleep is the only time it’s safe.
Dallas shifts beside her, fiddling with the edge of his sleeve, and mutters under his breath, “Yeah, and you almost look like a real mom.”
Then I watch as Louisiana Wright in all her ironclad, razor-tongued glory, wilts. Not a dramatic collapse. No gasping or tears. Just…folds in on herself. Shoulders draw in. Spine stiffens. Hands twitch in her lap like she doesn’t quite trust them not to shatter.
She doesn’t say a word. Doesn’t make a sound. Just pushes up from the couch with a weak smile that doesn’t reach her eyes and mumbles, “Excuse me.”
Then she’s gone—out of the living room and down the hall like something’s chasing her.
Dallas frowns, chewing at his lip. “What’d I say?” he asks, trying for casual but missing it by a mile.
I let out a slow breath, watching him fidget with the edge of that band tee—black cotton, fraying sleeves, worn soft from wear.
“You and Lou…” I say quietly. “You’re more alike than you think.
Tough as hell on the outside, sure. But underneath?
You both feel everything. Like open wounds trying to pass for scar tissue. ”
Dallas doesn’t say anything. Just blinks at the floor like it might give him answers.
“Grief does that,” I add. “Carves you open in places no one can see. Places you don’t even know how to protect.”
He shifts. Then turns those pale eyes up to me, the blue of them sharp and a little startled. “She lost someone?” he asks, like it’s just occurring to him that maybe Lou’s been carrying something too.
I nod slowly. “When you lose the people who’re supposed to show you how love’s meant to feel—before you even know what love is—it…rewires you. Makes it damn near impossible to let anyone all the way in. Harder still to let yourself need them.”
Dallas swallows, glancing toward the hallway she disappeared down. The silence stretches between us, tight with questions he doesn’t know how to ask.
“You going to check on her?” he asks after a minute, voice small.
“No,” I say gently. “I’m checking on you.”
That gets him. He jerks his gaze back to me, confused. Then I watch it happen—the slow pull of his shoulders, the little lift of his chin, armor snapping into place. The tough-guy mask coming on like second nature.
Damn if it doesn’t ache to watch.
He doesn’t know what to do with someone staying when they don’t have to.
So I soften. Drop my voice low. “Dallas, we’re not asking you to spill your guts. This isn’t about that. We just want you to know we’re here. We see you. And if all you need is someone to sit next to you while the world feels too loud—that’s okay. I’ll be that.”
He doesn’t answer right away. Just lets that sit inside him. Then slowly—so slowly—he nods. Barely there, like the motion might break him open if it’s too much.
But when he looks back up at me, his eyes aren’t as guarded. Something’s cracked open in there.
“I’d feel better if you checked on her,” he says finally, almost a whisper.
I nod, standing. “Then that’s what I’ll do, D.” I ruffle his hair, light and fast before he can swat me away. “You go finish getting ready—I’ll find her.”
I make it halfway down the hall before I feel his hand, small and urgent, tugging at my arm. I turn, eyebrows raised.
He hesitates, eyes flicking toward the ground. “Tell her—” he starts, but the words won’t come.
I rest my hand over his shoulder, grounding us both. “You don’t have to say it,” I tell him gently. “She knows, kiddo.”
He studies me then—eyes narrowing just a bit, like he’s trying to figure out if I really believe what I’m saying. After a moment, he gives a small nod, then turns and disappears into his room without another word.
I move through the house on quiet feet, heading toward our bedroom like I’m approaching something sacred and fragile. Part of me hopes she won’t hear me, that I can get a glimpse of what’s going on behind her walls—walls even I haven’t fully climbed, not yet.
Louisiana Wright. She’s fire and gravity and heart all tangled into one.
Too much for some people. Never enough for the ones who needed her most. I’ve never doubted for a second she’d make a good mother.
She’s built for it. Built to love with that fierce, all-consuming kind of devotion.
But I also know love hasn’t always been kind to her.
I smell her before I see her—fresh Magonilas. That scent that clings to her like defiance. It doesn’t fit, not really. Too soft. Too gentle. But maybe that’s why she wears it. A quiet rebellion. A reminder that she’s allowed to be tender even when the world demands she be tough.
Then I see her.
She’s standing in front of the mirror, shirt tossed on the counter like she peeled it off mid-breakdown.
Just her bra and jeans, skin bathed in pale light.
But that’s not what hits me. It’s her face.
Frozen. Hollow. Like she’s staring through the mirror, past her own reflection, into some grief too old and too deep to name.
I know that look.
Saw it the day we buried Murphy.
Saw it again in the hospital, when she curled around Evie so fucking afraid to loose her.
I press my hand to my chest now like I can hold back the ache clawing its way up. Then I step closer. Just enough that I’m standing behind her, not touching, not speaking. Just with her. Letting her be.
She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t blink. Doesn’t seem to notice me at all.
I look at our reflections—me, solid as stone, the one everyone leans on when things fall apart. I’ve been the steady hand, the quiet strength, the guy who doesn’t flinch. The one who stays standing when everyone else crumbles.
But next to her, I don’t feel invincible. I feel human.
She’s smaller in frame, but not in spirit. There’s a strength in her that most people miss—a quiet, dangerous kind. She could burn the whole God damn world down with that fire in her chest, and I’d thank her for the heat just to stay close.
I’ve lived my whole life holding everyone else together, but the truth is, when I’m near her, I finally feel like someone’s holding me.