Tulips and Lost Time

Prologue

PROLOGUE

LUC

“ I t’s time to go,” Jess murmurs. My younger sister. One of two—identical twin girls—both hovering in the NICU and peering over my shoulders as I stare down at a sweet, five-pound, teeny tiny, blonde-haired baby.

Billy.

My daughter.

She’s too small, too thin, and way too fucking fragile for me to take home on my own. But our bags are packed. The crib has been built. The car seat is ready, and there are approximately seven hundred pink, and pastel green outfits hung in the closet, in the room we dubbed Billy’s, inside the house I bought for my wife.

We did all the things… Dated. Married. Purchased our own real estate. And then styled a nursery.

We followed the steps and obeyed the rules.

Sort of.

But it was all for naught, it seems.

Because if the universe wants to fuck a guy up, it’ll do it, whether we stick to the rules or not.

Jess sets her hand on my arm, her glossy, painted fingernails tapping my muscle and drawing my attention. She’s the more outspoken of my sisters. The louder one. Though Laine has been known to destroy a man when it was necessary. “They’ve discharged her, Luc. We’ve gotta take her home. ”

“But Kari?—”

“She would want this.” Laine leans around me and picks up the baby—her niece—and presses a gentle, adoring kiss to her brow before turning away and nestling the bundle in her car seat. “She doesn’t want you guys hanging around here longer than necessary, Luc. You know that.”

“Because she’s always the fucking martyr.” I turn now that the hospital crib is empty but for rolled blankets and a lost sock.

One tiny sock for one tiny foot.

“This isn’t what we planned.” I hate that my eyes itch. That my stomach rolls with nerves and the world seems to tip on its axis. “We were gonna take her home together.”

“Sometimes plans change.” Jess bends to grab Billy’s unused diaper bag, overflowing with all the things an expectant mother packs as her ninth month approaches. Bibs. Blankets. Pacifiers. A cute little brush, though fuck knows, we were never gonna use it at the hospital. “You’re a dad now, Luc.” She hefts the heavy bag up and slips the straps over her forearm. “Your priority is Billy. Everything else needs to be dropped down a peg on your totem pole.”

“Not Kari.” I look down at my daughter and swallow the painful lump at the base of my throat. “I never agreed to push my wife down a step.”

The NICU doors slide open, a humming hallway filled to the brim with nurses and medical staff marching to their own beat as they go about their work. But in the doorway, my best friend in the whole world waits, his sparkling green eyes shimmering. Because he didn’t agree to this either. He never accepted a world where Kari wouldn’t be number one.

Because Jess and Laine are my sisters.

But Kari is his. She was his to protect first. His sister to raise after their parents died, even though he was still a kid himself.

“Marc…?”

He sets his hands on his hips, his six-foot frame slumping under the pressure of life and loss. To love and grieve and live, when others aren’t so lucky. He swallows, so the movement of his Adam’s apple is obvious, then he shakes his head and sighs.

Speechless.

Broken.

“It’s time to go.” Jess picks up the baby car seat in one arm, a woman who clearly knows how to do this stuff, considering she has two of her own. Then she wraps her free arm around mine and forces me to move. “Insurance isn’t gonna cover another night, Luc, and sticking around any longer would be like burning money. You can put those funds in Billy’s college account instead.”

“I don’t know how…” I search the bland white walls and the humidicribs that span the room. Other parents exist within a world that terrifies them. Some babies cling to life, half the size of my daughter. Some, even smaller. Machines breathe for some, while others get to graduate to their mother’s embrace instead of an uncaring plastic container.

The NICU is a world unlike any other. Where a baby is torn into existence, sooner than they’d intended, and placed inside a contraption like it could somehow simulate the comfort of a womb.

“I’ll probably need bottles,” I mumble, my mind spinning off in a thousand directions. “Formula, right?”

“I’ve already taken care of it.” Laine moves just two steps ahead of us. “I got you all the bottles and nipples and formula and stuff you need. It’s all set up at home.”

“And diapers?” I don’t know if I’m floating. Or walking. Am I moving at all ? I can’t be sure. “We got diapers?”

“Everything is ready at home,” Jess murmurs. “And we’ll stay with you till you’re comfortable.” She leads me through the open NICU doors and into the hall where her husband waits with their twin girls— not identical. My twin sisters are both blonde and blue. But hers are opposites. One blonde and one brunette. One light-skinned, and the other with a year-round olive complexion. They both hold their father’s hands, one on each side, but they’re still young. Still excited for their brand-new cousin to be here.

Not old enough to understand the circumstances that surround her birth.

“Lenaghan.” Kane Bishop—Jess’ muscled, mercenary, tatted husband—lifts his chin in greeting. He glances down at the baby that doesn’t look a great deal different than his Luna, softening his eyes at the bundle who now expands his family. Then he flattens his lips and brings his focus back up. “She’s doubled in size since yesterday, I swear.”

“We’re taking her home.” Jess brushes by him, absorbing the way his nose practically touches her earlobe as we pass, and closing her eyes for a beat as she takes his comfort. Because outside of this, outside of me, her life is amazing. Her marriage, solid. Her daughters, perfect. Her entire reality is the kind you would find in all the great literary pieces.

But now she’s in this blip with me. Her loyalty to her big brother ensuring she experiences this horrifying existence where, just weeks ago, we were thrilled for the babies who would soon arrive. With balloons and cake, music and all the people we love, we toasted to new life.

But that excitement is gone, and in its place, worry.

Fear.

Exhaustion.

“Can we come by the house, too?” Kane turns as we continue, his words gentle when, before now, I wasn’t sure the guy knew how to be that way. “Luc? Mind if me and the girls drop by? They’d love to see Billy, and you could do with the company.”

“Yeah.” I don’t care. I don’t know. I don’t even know what day it is anymore. “Whatever.”

“Angelo’s getting the car,” Laine inserts, leading us along the hall and toward the elevator at the end. Typically, parents leaving the NICU is a celebrated event. Babies, born too small, or too sickly, growing large enough and strong enough that they get to break out and find freedom. Parents, caged in a room filled with despair, elated at the idea of taking their precious baby home.

I should be high-fiving the nurses we pass for their hard work over the last couple of weeks.

So why does it feel like I’m leaving my heart behind, too?

“Meg went grocery shopping,” Laine adds. “And Angelo got a bunch of ready-made dinners stacked up in the freezer for you.”

“Not that you’ll need them,” Jess adds, turning in the elevator and setting the baby on the floor as the door slowly closes. “We’ll be by the house every day. I’ll cook your dinners, and we’ll eat with you, since we like to spend time with you anyway.”

“I think I’d like to be alone.” The words scrape along my throat, coarse and painful as my brows pinch under the artificial light. I see our trio in the reflection of the silver doors. Siblings, all blonde, all blue-eyed, all quite tall, even the girls. They’re moms now, curvier than they were in their teens. And I’ve filled out over the years, too. No longer a scrawny, too-thin skateboarder who ate nonstop, and still, couldn’t maintain his weight.

Finally, I look down at my sleeping daughter, and already, I know she’ll take after the Lenaghan side of her family more than she will the Macchio side.

Her mother, of course, possessed glittering green eyes and curly hair she always hated. Kari considered herself plain compared to my sisters. Her freckles, too ordinary. Her eyes, too dull .

And yet, I’ve spent my whole fucking life staring at her. Half of it, wishing I could call her mine.

“I-I think I’d like a little alone time,” I repeat, coughing as the numbers above the doors approach the ground floor. “I know I just told Kane it was…” Okay. Whatever . “I don’t want to host anyone right now?—”

“It’s not hosting,” Jess growls. “We’re not your guests, Luc. We’re family.”

“Billy is my family.” I swallow the sticky, painful lump in my throat that insists on choking me. Then I bend and scoop Billy’s car seat up, holding her with one hand while I reach out with the other and snag the diaper bag from Laine. “I want to just sit,” I explain. I’m tired. So fucking tired. “I want to sit with her and relax.”

“You can relax, even with us there,” Jess tries again. “I want to do your dishes, Luc, not run your damn life.”

“Maybe come over tomorrow.” I move through the doors when they open and find Angelo parked just twenty feet away. He still drives his Charger; the same one he drove in high school. But now he’s married to my sister, and instead of making out with girls in the back, he carts their baby around.

Everyone has moved on since school. Married. Made families. They’ve all found their slice of happiness.

Ironic, considering I’d found mine, too.

I had the girl. The wedding ring. The cute little house, and the completely sensible car after years of riding a motorcycle and copping shit because everyone thought it dangerous.

The joke is on us all, right?

I’ve never crashed my bike in my life. But that car, with all the airbags and safety ratings…

Fucking useless.

“Hey.” I approach my friend and hand off the bag, though he wasn’t asking for it. Then I shove the front passenger seat forward with practiced moves, something me and my friends have done a million times over the years. Careful not to jostle the baby, I climb into the back and clip the seat in to the base I guess my sister or someone secured while I sat in the NICU.

“The girls aren’t coming?” Curious, Angelo’s movements are slow as he dumps the bag and I pull the seat back into place and settle beside the baby. Finally, he closes the door and rests his arms on the frame, staring in at me and furrowing his brows. “Why do I get the feeling you’re about to piss a bunch of people off?”

“Because I am.” I fix my seatbelt and take Billy’s tiny hand in mine, placing my finger in her palm and curling her tiny digits around until her nails, a little too long, become my sole focus. “The twins want to mother me.”

“And you’re running away?”

“I just need a minute of quiet.” I stroke Billy’s cheek with the pad of my thumb and exhale. “Would you leave Laine behind?” I gulp and drag my eyes away from the little girl who still has some Macchio features. The shape of her nose is all her mom’s. The angle of her jaw. The curve of her eyes. “You waited your whole life to call her yours. Waited nine months for the baby to arrive. Waited through delivery to make sure everyone was safe. And then you just…” I drop my gaze and hate that my eyes burn. That they itch and tempt me to bring my hand up to swipe the irritation away. “Would you leave her behind?”

He shakes his head. Soft, silent, certain. All qualities this man has possessed since we were kids, banging around our friend’s garage and pretending we knew how to play musical instruments. “No,” he admits quietly. “I wouldn’t leave her behind.”

“But they’re making me leave Kari,” I grit out, my vision blurring, though I wish it wouldn’t. “After all the promises I made and all the years of swearing to her brother I would keep her safe.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Luc.” He plays with his car keys, dangling the set from the tip of his finger and blocking the rest of the world from looking into his car and witnessing what may be my undoing.

This… right now… today. May be the moment I die.

“That prick ran a red light. You didn’t…” He shakes his head. “You couldn’t have predicted that. You couldn’t avoid it.”

“Please take me home.” I reach up and wipe beneath my eyes to rid myself of the persistent itch that won’t leave me alone. “I can walk,” I rasp out. “I will. I don’t mind.”

“You’re not fucking walking.” He pushes up straight and turns to study the girls who wait by doors. They hurt for me. I know they do. They love me, just as I love them. And they grieve for me, just as I’ve grieved for them during their times of need.

But I don’t have room for them right now.

I don’t have the shoulders to carry their pain on top of my own.

“I’m taking them home,” Ang announces. “He wants a few hours alone.”