11. Locke
Chapter 11
Locke
“Need I remind you—”
“I know,” I snap, cutting Kylian off at the pass. I fucking know. Or at least I know now.
“What the hell was that all about?” Kendrick snarls. He looks from me to Kylian, then glances over to a bewildered Decker. “Did something happen last night?”
Decker holds up both hands in surrender. “No. Everything was great.”
Kylian crosses his arms over his chest and sighs. When no one says anything, he finally puts us out of our misery. “Clearly, she did not want any of us to acknowledge that today is her birthday.”
“She’s my fucking wife!” Decker hollers. He rakes both hands through his hair, mussing up the strands so they’re sticking up in every direction.
“She can’t really expect us to act like today is no big deal,” Kendrick adds. He’s shaking his head, gripping the edges of the table where Joey’s unwanted presents mock us.
“We fucked up,” I huff, clenching my fists, then unclenching them just as quickly when jolts of pain shoot through my knuckles. I take a deep breath and blow it out slowly, trying to get a grip.
Decker stomps toward me, but then turns before he reaches my side and takes off in the other direction. He’s pacing the length of the table, and he makes a solid ten passes before he finally speaks again. “I’m not going to ignore her birthday for the rest of our lives.”
I want to agree with him. But then I think about the devastated look on Joey’s face just now.
Kendrick matches Kylian’s stance and tips his chin toward the other man. “You look smug as fuck. And don’t think I didn’t notice you didn’t add any presents to this pile. Help us make sense of this, Daddy Genius. What’d we do wrong?”
Kylian locks eyes with Kendrick. “Simply put? Everything.”
Decker emits a low growl. I fight the urge to upturn the damn table. I scan the contents scattered all over the surface. Now that K points out Kylian’s lack of tangible gifts, I realize everything on this table is from Decker and Kendrick. They very clearly went overboard in an attempt to spoil our girl.
“It’s the stuff,” I say quietly, shame and frustration vying for dominance in my mind. “It’s all this fucking stuff.”
Decker freezes, his gaze focused squarely on me as his jaw ticks. Seething, he accuses, “You’re the one who called the emergency meeting two days ago. You rallied us and made it seem like we had to go big.”
Kylian holds up one hand, shaking his head at Decker.
“That’s not an accurate portrayal of what occurred. Nicky alerted you to the significance of the date, yes. But you don’t see a massive pile of presents from him anywhere, do you? This”—he makes a sweeping gesture around the kitchen, ending at the present-covered table—“was all your idea.” He pins Decker with a glare, then shifts his gaze to Kendrick.
“She didn’t react this way at Christmas. She was excited about all the surprises we had planned this weekend,” Decker defends.
Kendrick whistles low. “To be fair, she thought this weekend’s surprises were for Valentine’s Day.”
The puzzle pieces are snapping into place faster than I can process them. We fucked up so badly. I’m finally starting to see the full picture.
Kylian continues. “Christmas was a mutual gifting opportunity in which we all agreed upon a budget. That was a reciprocal experience with clearly defined guidelines. There was nothing unexpected about the exchanging of tangible items on that day.”
Decker’s still not backing down. “She shouldn’t be surprised that we want to go all out on her birthday. We always give her a ton of attention. If she can’t handle it because there’s four of us—”
“Hey now.” Kendrick holds up both hands and gives Decker a pointed look. “That’s not fair. If Jojo didn’t even mention her birthday to us, she clearly wasn’t expecting all this. I feel like we overreacted and overwhelmed her at once.”
“It’s the stuff,” I repeat, defeated. I should have seen this coming. Out of all of us, I’m the one who grew up rough and raised by useless excuses for parents. I should have been able to fucking identify that Joey has trauma related to her birthday.
Resolutely, I look around the room. “We have to make this right.”