10. Linc
Dodging a crayon that goes flying past my head seems par for the course in my life as far as I’m concerned. Especially when it comes to Nox and the things I’ll do for my nephew. I look down at the offending item and glare at the little blond girl who threw it at me. The glare, which sends criminals running in the other direction, has no effect on her smile. Instead, she turns back to her teacher and starts giggling.
“Remind me again why these kids want us to come to these things if they’re gonna just ignore us,” Remy grumbles as he stands next to me at the back of Nox’s class with his arms crossed over his chest. “Because from where I’m standing, this is the most boring shit in the world.”
I roll my eyes and struggle not to call him a baby. But then a crayon hits me square in the chest and all bets are off. One withering glare at the snot-nosed kid in Nox’s class has him turning red and whipping his head around to pay attention to some dumbass in a suit at the front of the room talking about mergers and acquisitions.
“I mean, wouldn’t you want to spend your day around us?” I look over at my best friend, who is staring at his kid with the world in his eyes.
“Are you okay with it?” he asks, suddenly serious. When I don’t answer immediately, he goes on. “With Nox calling me dad? We didn’t get a chance to talk about it at dinner.”
“That shit’s a little serious for a kindergarten class, man.” My eyes find Kennedy, who is sitting in the desk next to Nox, and while I do my best to come up with an answer for Remy, I picture Kennedy smiling at me the way she is smiling at my nephew. She hadn’t even stayed for dinner with her family, and I know it is because I showed up at Remy’s request.
Great. I’m jealous of a kid.
“Danny screwed up,” I tell him quietly. “Whatever he did ruined her. You’re the one who made her better. You picked up those pieces and made that broken woman whole again. So no. I don’t care that Nox calls you dad. You’re his. He’s yours. And she’s the only thing that matters.” The entire time I speak to him, I keep my eyes on Kennedy.
“One day.” Remy nudges me. “You’re gonna pull that head out of your ass and you’re gonna give her the happily ever after that she deserves. Or I’ll have to cut your heart out of your chest myself.”
“Okay, class.” Avery Malone claps her hands together for her students. “It’s time for lunch. You know the drill.”
That’s how I find myself ten minutes later, sitting at a table surrounded by kindergartners who all ask to touch my gun and badge. Nox, however, is completely ignoring both me and Remy in favor of the firefighters.
Oh, and Kennedy is sitting between Nox and one of those firefighters.
“Damn hose chasers.” I try to keep my voice down, but Remy hears me and snorts. “Shut it,” I grind out between clenched teeth.
“I’m glad Parker’s not here to see this,” Remy says with a plastic spork held in his hand. “She’d never let you live this shit down. Not in a hundred years. Stop making moon eyes at her, man. It’s almost sad.” After he stabs his spork into a Jell-O cup, he nods toward the firefighter. “We gotta do something about that, though. You know Nox still wants to be a firefighter, right?”
I remember the night Parker’s house had a Molotov cocktail thrown through the window and Nox running around announcing that he is going to be a firefighter.
“Can I touch the ax?” one of the other kids sitting at the table with Kennedy and Nox practically shouts. “I want to touch the ax.”
“You can’t do that,” Josh Harmon, the firefighter in question, says as he clutches the handle to his fire ax tightly. I can’t blame him; those little kids are tenacious as shit and will probably start running around the cafeteria with it if they get it away from him.
Kennedy laughs at his side and reaches one small hand over so that it hovers over the blade. The sound of her laughter sends a trill of anticipation down my spine, even if she isn’t laughing or smiling with me.
“What do you think, Nox?” The laughter in her voice fills the air around her and every single child watches her, just as enraptured as I am. “Do you think I should touch the ax?”
“I’m gonna murder a firefighter,” Remy mutters quietly.
“Not before I do,” I counter.
Josh is decked out in full gear, with his helmet on the table in front of him and his ax in his hand. The suspenders for his uniform hang down almost to the ground, and I’m about ready to throw professionalism out the window and drag him away from the woman at his side.
The thought of Kennedy with Josh or anyone else is normally enough to send me in the opposite direction. But I can’t run away in the middle of lunch with Nox and the other kids who invited us to eat with them. Even if their food tastes like three-day-old leftovers. For the first time since Nox’s attack, I’m close to Kennedy where she isn’t running away or crying, and I’m not about to leave until I have to. No matter what is going on around us.
“I don’t think axes are cool.” Nox brings all the people around him to attention with his statement, and both Remy and I find ourselves sitting on the edge of our seats. “I mean, a bunch of firefighters came when our house caught on fire and that was cool. But my dad and uncle both have guns. An ax wouldn’t beat a gun.” He scratches his blond head, and while all the kids start debating which is better, Remy tilts his head to the side so that we are almost touching.
“I’m gonna buy that kid anything he wants. Literally anything.”
“Same.”
“But,” Nox goes on, and again the kids around him fall silent. “My aunt has a machete, and I think that’s better than either of them.”
“A machete?” A little girl with bright-blue eyes and a blond pigtail sitting across the table from me gasps. “I want a machete. They’re huge!” I narrow my eyes as I realize that she is the same girl who threw a crayon at me earlier.
“I do too!” Nox agrees eagerly with a toothy smile.
And that’s how both the firefighter and the police are practically thrown aside for Kennedy and her machete. Honestly, though, it is kind of nice to just sit in the background and watch everything going on around me.
“Is it pink?” the same little girl across our table calls out.
“No.” Kennedy laughs. “I don’t like pink.” Her nose wrinkles as she turns almost all the way around so that she can see the little girl. “Oh, Ella. I didn’t realize it was you.” Her face breaks out in a huge smile. “I’ll tell your momma that you want a pink machete, if you want me to.”
“Oh my gosh, yes, Ms. Kennedy.”
Kennedy’s eyes slide over Ella, landing on me, and everything around us vanishes into thin air. The noise of children talking and dishes clanging together fade to nothing. I’ll be damned if my heart doesn’t skip a fuckin’ beat too, because all of a sudden I can’t even pull air into my lungs. The time that passes doesn’t matter, because in her eyes, I see everything that matters to me. And all the reasons I’ve been running from her for the past six years melt away, leaving just the two of us alone in that moment.
Her pain, her love, all the rage at what we could have had shines through her expressive face. The face I see in my dreams every single night. The only thing that matters to me after Danny died.
She’s beautiful. Danny’s haunting words from so long ago strike me like a lightning bolt. One day, the two of you are gonna make beautiful babies.
Right before our deployment. Before everything exploded into pain and disaster.
I will never believe in fate, miracles, or any of that bullshit. But Kennedy? Until the day I die, I will always believe in her. And the look of pure longing, unexplainable love on her face, decimates every single excuse I’ll ever have about staying away from her.
“About fuckin’ time,” Remy mutters next to me. “And I thought I was pigheaded.”
I open my mouth to tell him to go to hell or to shut up, anything, but I can’t get the words out. He is right. And there isn’t anything I can say that will change that. He’s been telling me since the day after Danny’s funeral that Kennedy will be there, that she is mine. I’m the idiot.
While Remy keeps rambling next to me, I run a hand over my chin, trying to figure out what to say or what to do next. Kennedy’s eyes don’t leave mine, an open mix of confusion and love that she doesn’t bother trying to hide or disguise. Until the firefighter taps her shoulder and Kennedy blinks. When she opens them again, it is all gone. All the love, the pain, the rage, the hate. The future I could see in her eyes disappears just like that. And I get a taste of what it is like for her when I pretend that I don’t love her more than anything.
Any other day, and I’d let it. I’d be thankful that she wouldn’t think about me. Any other day, and I’d be okay losing the woman I love more than my next breath.
But something changes in that cafeteria. Something I’ll never be able to figure out. I can’t live without her. I have never been able to. There is a reason I sit outside her house at night. A reason that I never even try to find someone to fill the hole in my life that only wants her.
I just don’t know how I’ll be able to live with her. Not with my problems. Not with the way I can’t trust myself not to hurt her. There are times that I think I’ll hurt myself when I don’t come out of a nightmare until I’m on the verge of destruction. How can I share that life with her? How can I give her forever if I may not be there to hold her through the years?
“What do you think?” Josh’s annoying voice breaks the silence and I want to punch him in the face for the way he is staring at Kennedy. He doesn’t deserve her. He can’t have her.
She’s mine.
My heart thumps loudly against my chest as the realization sinks in. Kennedy has always been mine. Always. While seconds tick by, my heart rate just keeps going up and I fight against the urge to press my fist against my chest until the pain subsides. I don’t care in the slightest that I sound like a caveman, following the woman I love around, ready to hit her over the head and take her home. If I thought it would be that easy, I’d carry Kennedy off right then.
“I don’t know,” Kennedy answers him with a hesitant smile, and my heart drops into my feet.
“Take your time,” Josh goes on. “You’ve got my number. I’ll take you out anytime, anyplace you want to go.” He looks so earnest, and regardless that I want to drive his fire ax into his eye, I have to admit that he is a good guy.
My fist clenches, and I suddenly want to vomit. I literally just decided that enough is enough, and now I have to watch Kennedy agree to go out on a date with another man? I have the worst timing in the entire world.
“I don’t want to lead you on, Josh.” Kennedy’s soft voice comes out soothing, but it sends my heart into overdrive. “It’s not gonna happen.” Her eyes dart to mine and the beast inside my chest roars in victory.
Mine.
Some feral part of my soul begins to scream in delight as she lets him down. Even Remy has to notice the looks passing between us since he is sitting right next to me, watching the interaction just as closely as I am.
“No problem.” Josh smiles broadly at her, taking the rejection in stride. I take the chance to glance at Remy, who is staring at the two of them interacting while shoving a French fry from his plate into his mouth. With a small shake of my head, I turn back to Kennedy.
Josh taps the table in front of him with the tip of the ax that he still clings to in order to keep the kindergartners from grabbing it. “If you change your mind, let me know.”
“Okay.” Kennedy runs a hand through her red curls, just like she always does when she is feeling self-conscious or uncomfortable. “But I don’t want you to count on it. We’re better off as friends.”
Before Josh can say anything else, Nox shoves his way back into the adult conversation, ignoring the way his friends are still talking about the machete and trying to ask if they can go over to her house after school. Instead, he puts his hands on his hips and glares at Josh like he is the worst villain that Nox has ever seen.
“She can’t date you, Firefighter Harmon. I don’t think you should even ask her. She’s supposed to be with Uncle Linc, because that’s who she loves. Mom says Uncle Linc just needs to get off his ass and figure his shit out. Because Auntie Kenny might decide to up and shoot him with his own gun if he doesn’t.”
With that bomb dropped, the bell rings and all the kids filter out while still arguing about the merits of a machete versus an ax.
An embarrassed Josh follows them out without saying a word, and Kennedy glares at Remy.
“Hey, that’s not my fault.” Remy holds up his hands defensively, and Kennedy doesn’t even bother looking in my direction. “That’s all on Parker. You’re gonna have to take it up with her.”
Kennedy points at him but leaves without saying a word. She is running away, and I let her because I don’t know what to say or how to say it.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been more proud of that kid,” Remy announces when we are the only two left in the cafeteria.
I won’t admit it to a single living soul, but so am I. Now I just need to do something about my feelings for Kennedy and get my shit together just like Nox said.
Otherwise, I’ll lose her forever, or she’ll shoot me. One of the two.