8. Morgan
EIGHT
Morgan
The living room is empty. The guys wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye to Finn, would they? We round the corner to the kitchen and—
“Uncle Cole!” Finn slingshots across the room.
My heart clenches with fear and relief and pain too entangled to label.
“Finn!” Cole picks him up and swings him around before putting him down. “Happy birthday!”
Cole is effortlessly handsome, sandy hair tousled like he ran his hands through it on the way here, dressed in navy joggers and my black Briar Anteros hoodie. Did he forget it belongs to me? Why would he wear it to see me?
“Uncle Mor said you were fishing.”
“Yeah. Sorry I was late.” Cole glances at me, and away. “Orcas kept stealing the cod from our traps.”
Finn’s eyebrows inch up. “They did?”
“Yup. Ask Uncle Mor.”
I stifle my annoyance and have no choice but to corroborate his claims. It’s one thing to tell Finn that Cole is fishing to preserve his feelings, but adding orcas into the story feels like we’re tricking him, even though there’s a grain of truth to Cole’s claims. Some fishermen say that a gang of renegade orcas keeps stealing their catch, but it sounds like an excuse for not meeting quota before the deadline to me.
“What’s that?” Finn cranes his neck and peers around Cole to a dinosaur gift bag on the table that bears a striking resemblance to the one Javi’s gift arrived in.
“What’s what?” Cole leans to the side, blocking the bag from view.
“That bag.”
“What bag?”
Finn darts around him and snatches it with a grin. “This one.”
Cole jumps, feigning surprise. “How did that get there?”
“It’s not a fish, is it?” Finn asks.
“I mean… It doesn’t have water, so no. It might be a crab, though.”
Finn’s hazel eyes narrow. “It’s not crab season.”
Cole grins at me, and I flush like a kid with a crush.
“Finn’s smart,” I say.
“Well, you don’t get that from me.” Cole nods toward the bag. “Go on and open it.”
“Okay!” Finn pulls a battered baseball mitt from the bag. “Another mitt?”
After Finn saw a picture of Seb pitching in high school, he took up an interest, so I got him a pair of mitts for us to practice with.
“Not just any mitt.” Cole points out Seb’s name written in faded permanent marker.
“Uncle, I can’t read.”
“Oh, right. Sorry.” He laughs. “It says Seb Morrissey. This is your dad’s lucky mitt.”
“Woah,” he whispers.
Cole helps him put it on. “I thought you could use a third mitt to go with the ones me and Uncle bought you.”
Asshole. He can’t reply to my texts, but he can take credit for the gifts I bought, and find time to dig up Seb’s mitt from storage, then not even show up on time?
“Can you play catch with me?” Finn asks him.
“That’s up to Uncle Mor.” Cole lifts his gaze to me, blue eyes vulnerable.
An ember of hope flares inside my chest. Maybe there’s still a chance. Or maybe he just wants me to tag along because he’s nervous to be alone with Finn.
“I’m in.” I ruffle Finn’s hair. “Go grab your stuff.”
Finn runs upstairs, and tense silence fills the kitchen, at least until Shay walks in.
“That’s the first time he’s sounded happy today.” She squeezes my shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
“What happened?” Cole asks, zeroing in on the place Shay’s touching me.
I’d be jealous too if he moved in with another man, but Shay wouldn’t be here if Cole had followed Seb’s wishes and moved with me.
“Birthday blues,” I explain.
Finn runs back into the room, mitts and a ball in hand. “Oh! I forgot.” He dumps his stuff on the dining table and hugs Shay. The ball rolls off the table and into Cole’s waiting hand.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you, Auntie. Next time I’ll yell at the pillow.”
Cole arches a quizzical brow at me.
“Oh, I thought that was Uncle trying to sing,” Shay says.
“Uncle Mor doesn’t sound that bad,” Finn says with a laugh, and drags Cole toward the door. “Come on, Uncle.”
By the time I grab Finn’s jacket and catch up, he’s halfway across the soggy grass, totally oblivious to the drizzle.
“Yelling at pillows, huh?” Cole asks.
“Just a little anger management. You should try it sometime, Sunshine.”
“You gonna help me out? I remember you always did a pretty decent job of making me scream into the pillow.”
For a minute, I forget where I am, I forget that my heart is broken, that we’re broken. I open my mouth to promise I’ll make sure that happens tonight when the baseball hits me in the nuts, and I double over.
Cole winces. “Ouch.” He rubs my shoulder like he’s trying to erase Shay’s touch, settling the subtle scent of vanilla and vetiver cologne around my shoulders like a blanket. The pleasure of his hand on me almost makes up for the ache in my gut.
“Sorry, Uncle Mor,” Finn calls.
“Great throw, Finn.” Cole turns to me. “Better keep your head in the game, Uncle Mor.” He tosses the ball back to Finn, who catches it with ease.
“Holy shit! He caught it!” Cole cheers as enthusiastically as when the Seahawks won the Super Bowl. “You’re a natural, Finn!”
He takes Finn’s jacket and runs it out to him, then stays on Finn’s side of the lawn for the rest of the evening, giving him pointers, cheering him on, and heckling me.
He even pitches the ball to me a few times with enough bite that my palm stings, the closest to holding his hand my sorry ass has had in months.
We play until the drizzle turns to rain and puddles form on the lawn.
“Why do you walk like that?” Finn asks Cole as we climb the back porch steps.
“Oh, um…” Cole looks to me.
I understand. It’s hard to know how to answer when topics might stray to Seb.
“Some injuries, like broken bones, take a long time to heal,” I say.
“Or they don’t heal at all.” Cole sits down on the bench and unties the laces of his mineral blue shoes. Raindrops glitter on the tips of his hair. “The doc says I’ll probably always walk this way, but that’s okay.”
“Does it hurt?” Finn asks.
“A little.”
“I’m sorry,” Finn says.
Cole grimaces, and his shoulders tense. “Not your fault, Finny.”
“Do you have any scars?”
“Finnegan,” I chide.
“Nah, it’s okay. I have a ton. Wanna see?”
Finn nods.
Cole stands and lifts his shirt, baring the scar down the center of his abs from the emergency surgery that stopped his internal bleeding.
“Cool!” Finn says.
Cole laughs. “Right? This one’s pretty cool too.” He points out the diagonal scar over his hip. “The doctor fixed this side with a bunch of metal, so I’m basically a Transformer now.” He winks.
His healing progress is incredible, and he’s gained a healthy amount of muscle, but his body still maps the landmarks of everything he went through. Flashbacks flicker inside my mind. Cole’s ashen skin as he bled into his abdomen, the agonized moans that turned to silence.
“Crazy, right?” Cole says, dragging me from my memories. “I have a few more, but they’re not as cool.”
I remember every single scar, from jagged gashes to laparoscopic surgery incisions.
But when I look at him, I don’t see something broken.
I see his strength, his bravery, the rugged beauty of his carved abs, the dimples at the small of his back.
I want to touch him everywhere, trace every scar, kiss every rib around his broken heart.
“Want to see my presents?” Finn asks.
Cole laughs. “What a segue.”
My hand falls to Cole’s lower back on the way in. His shoulders pinch inward.
I raise my palms. “Sorry. It’s a habit.” Everything is. There’s just too much history there.
“Uncle Cole?” Finn calls from inside. He probably thinks Cole’s going to disappear if he turns his back.
“Be right there, bud.” Cole lowers his voice into an icy tone he usually reserves for assholes. “I’m here for Finn.”
Not you, goes unsaid. Then he leaves me there on the back porch in the rain, feeling so alone I might as well be the only man in the world. I close the door behind him and stay outside. Finn is too perceptive. He’ll know something’s wrong and then he’ll worry.
I stand on the tips of my toes and search for the spare carton of cigarettes Seb used to stash on the beam so he could sneak a smoke on a bad day without Finn knowing.
Nicotine is an addiction that nearly every fisherman I know has battled.
Cole never acquired a taste for it. Seb only smoked at sea, and I quit five years ago.
Our line of work is dangerous enough. If the ocean doesn’t kill you, the years of stress and cigarettes will. But I need the comfort of my best friend.
When my fingers find the slippery cellophane, my facade crumbles. Seb’s lighter is there too. I hold both to my chest and blink back tears. I wish he was here. I wish he hadn’t sacrificed himself for me.
That’s the thing Cole doesn’t understand. He isn’t the only one with survivor’s guilt. I take all the punches he throws at me, but I’m beating myself up too. If he’d ever let me talk about what happened, he’d see that I have even more reasons to feel guilty. Maybe then he’d forgive himself.
I plunk down at the top of the stairs. Raindrops tap on the roof of the covered porch. The back door opens. My heart stutters with a mix of fear and relief, but it’s just Shay.
“Are they okay in there?” I ask.
“Yeah. Finn barnacled himself to Cole, and they're both eating cake on the couch.”
“Not the couch,” I joke.
She banned eating in the living room after Finn spilled a bowl of melted chocolate ice cream on the couch.
“It’s his birthday.” She shrugs and sits beside me. “Where’d you get those?”
“They’re Seb’s.”
“Shit.”
I tear the plastic and pop the top of the carton open. “Want one?”
“Sure. Thanks.”
I shield her cigarette with my hand and light it, then light my own. The first drag on the cigarette fills me with the comfort of familiarity before a rogue wave of grief slams into me. My body buckles forward, and I shake with silent sobs.
“Aw, Mor,” Shay says on a nicotine-laced exhale, rubbing my back the way I wish Cole would.
“This is really fucking hard.”
“It really fucking is.”
None of this has been fair to her. Watching Finn every season was manageable, but moving here pulled her off campus, and she had to take a leave of absence.
“I don’t know what I would do if you weren’t here,” I say.
“Me too. How would I ever clean the rain gutters and change the recessed light bulbs without you?”
I laugh. “We have a ladder. I have faith in you.” I take another drag and exhale. “You’re the only one who knows what it’s like to parent Finn after everything he’s been through.”
“Does that mean you feel like a failure too?”
“You’re not a failure. You’re doing an amazing job; inviting Mrs. Hai, for example, and reassuring Finn when he got his vaccines.”
She snorts. “You needed more reassurance than he did.”
“I just hate to see him get hurt.”
“Better a shot than tetanus.” She nudges my arm with her shoulder. “You’re doing a great job with Finn too, you know. But you probably should have taught him meditation or yoga instead of yelling into a pillow.”
“I’ll buy you earplugs.”
“Do you think he’s going to stick around?” Shay asks.
I glance over my shoulder. Cole is watching us, arm rested on the back of the sofa behind Finn’s head, TV flickering over his face. When our eyes connect, he turns back to the TV.
“Did he come on his own, or did Lawrence drag him here?”
“Lawrence.”
“Probably not, then.” I lean forward and put my cigarette out in a puddle.
After Shay finishes her cigarette, I stash the carton and lighter where Seb left them. Shay ducks into her car and returns with hand sanitizer and gum.
“We make a good team.” I hold out my fist and she bumps it.
“Uncle Mor!” Finn chirps as we enter. “Can Uncle spend the night?”
“Oh, I don’t think—”
“Hell yeah, I’ll stay the night!” Cole interrupts.
“Hell yeah!” Finn echoes.
I quirk a brow. “Really?”
It’s not the first time Cole has taught him new vocabulary. For someone surrounded by sailors, Finn miraculously doesn’t have the mouth of one, and I’d like to keep it that way. Not because I care, but because I don’t want him to get into trouble at school.
Cole shrugs a single shoulder, a shameless, nonverbal What? But he curls a conspiratorial hand around his mouth and tells Finn, “Only grown-ups can say hell yeah. Is heck yeah allowed, Uncle Morgan?”
“For fuck’s sake, Cole,” Shay says from the kitchen.
Finn dissolves into giggles. I palm my face, but I’m smiling underneath.
“Are you okay with a slumber party, Shay?” I ask.
“Only if you put him to bed,” she says.
“Deal. You’re officially off duty.”
“Good night, baby,” she says on her way to Finn.
“Thanks, Shay,” Cole says.
Finn giggles. “She was talking to me, Uncle Cole.” He jumps onto the couch cushion and hugs her. “Good night, Mom—Um, Auntie.”
She meets my gaze over the top of his head. I feel for her. Finny has accidentally called me Daddy a few times too.
“Happy birthday, Finn,” she says. “Love you.”
“Love you too.”
Cole watches the exchange, palm over the center of his chest like his heart hurts viscerally. Cole’s like that. When his body hurts, he won’t say shit, but he can’t hide his emotions from me.
“Do you think she’s sad because I called her mommy?” Finn asks.
“Nah,” I say. “You never make anyone anything but happy.”
“It happens,” Cole says thoughtfully. “Sometimes I call her mommy too.”
“Yeah, right.” I wallop Cole with a pillow.
“Hey!” Cole slings it back.
Finn rips a cushion from the couch and bonks Cole’s head with it. I should probably tell him to settle down, but I don’t know… Cole kind of deserves it.