Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Myles was barely inside the front room when Jet came hurtling down the stairs, face twisted, eyes flashing.
“Jet—”
“What the hell, Uncle Myles!” His volume turned heads in the dining room, everyone still clearly on edge from the evening’s disruption.
Myles bristled. “Jet. Calm down.”
“Don’t you dare tell me—”
Myles gripped his upper arm, steering him towards the stairs. “Enough. You’re making a scene.”
“I don’t care!”
“You are a guest here. You will calm down before you disturb Lucky and Kreed’s business any further. Now where is your sister?”
Jet clamped his mouth shut, but his glare only darkened as he yanked free and stomped back up the stairs.
With a sigh, Myles followed him.
The second he entered their third-floor room, Jet wheeled on him. “How could you do that?”
“You had no right to shout in front of the other guests. Lucky and Kreed are nice enough to let us stay here. You will respect their other customers at all times.”
“Not that.” Jet scowled at him. “I shouldn’t have yelled in front of them. But you ran out there, and you had no idea what was going on.” If his volume had lowered, the chill in his words was enough to frost the air between them.
On the big bed at the far end of the room, Shelly glanced up from her crayons to stare at them.
“I had to keep you safe.”
“You should have stayed with us. We had no idea what was happening. It could have been anything. You ran off without even thinking of us!”
“I was thinking of you. I was thinking if it was someone—”
“You could have been killed.”
“I had to keep whatever the threat was away from you.”
“You have to stay with us!” Jet slammed both his fists against Myles’s chest. “You have to stay with us!”
“Jet—”
Another slam of fists, and Jet tried to tear away, though not before Myles saw his tears.
Myles gripped both his wrists, pulling him into a bear hug.
“Jet.”
For a moment, Jet continued struggling to get away, but only for a moment. Then he sagged, his shoulders began to shake, and a low snarl, muffled in Myles’s sweater, shredded into a sob.
“Hey, now. Nothing happened. It was nothing.”
“But it could have been something.” Jet didn’t look up. “You can’t leave us, Uncle Myles. I can’t look after her by myself. We’re… here. I don’t know any of these people. Fuck.”
“I didn’t think.” Myles ran his palms in circles over Jet’s back. “I reacted. I didn’t think.” A belated shimmer of reaction rippled through him, and a cold sweat broke along his spine. Jet wasn’t wrong. He’d followed his instincts, but he should have paused. Should have thought it through.
Jet pushed away from him then, glaring through wet lashes. “You have to think now. You have—” He sniffed. “—responsibilities.” He swiped at his eyes, smearing black make-up into thick shadows as he backed away, shifting his gaze to blaze at the floor, like he would set it all on fire if he could.
“You’re right.”
Jet stilled. His pause filled the room before he looked up. “What?” A swipe at his reddened, damp cheeks did little to clear away his outburst or the make-up.
It was all Myles could do not to chuckle at the bewildered expression on his nephew’s face.
“I said you’re right.”
Jet sputtered a minute, but Shelly had hopped off the bed and rushed over before he could make any coherent response.
“Jet?” She gazed up with liquid adoration at her brother. “Don’t cry, ’kay? Uncle My-my can fix everything.”
“He can’t, Shells.” He sniffed again and took the hand she held out to him. “He can’t fix anything.”
“Jet—” Myles tried to think of something to reassure him, but Jet didn’t even glance at him, all his attention focused on his sister.
“You wanna go down and find some of those yummy pink cookies? Tris said he had some left over, and a huge glass of milk for dunking.”
“Yes, please.” She beamed at him, Uncle My-my forgotten with the bribe. “You look like a raccoon.”
Jet glared over his shoulder as they left the room, lashes still spiked, cheeks blotched as he rubbed away the smears.
“Jet, I’m—”
But they disappeared out the door before he finished.
He wished he could have argued, but Jet had made a valid point.
A point that deflated the tentative bubble of…
whatever he’d felt with Steven. Sinking onto the bed, he dropped his head into his hands.
He deserved that, though. He should have put the kids first. He’d dragged them here, and if anything happened to him, they knew no one.
At least back in Calgary, they had Pat. They had teachers they both knew.
There was an infrastructure they were familiar with to fall back on.
Here they had him, alone. They had no reason to trust Lucky or anyone else Myles called family. And then, without a thought to any of that, he’d run out the door after what he’d initially thought was gunfire and left them with strangers.
Just like Ozzy had always said, he’d put being a hero above being what his people needed.
“Fucking hell.” He got up, paced the length of the room and back, then spurred himself to motion, dragging his big suitcase out from under the bed where he’d stowed it, once he’d moved himself from the back room to upstairs with the kids.
Quickly, he unzipped and threw it open, then began moving his clothes from the dresser to the case.
“Hey.” A light knock on the door frame broke through the cloud of self-loathing, stopping his frenetic packing.
The last person Myles expected stood at the entrance to their room, muscled frame filling the doorway, grey eyes sharp, but features otherwise devoid of expression.
“Ozzy.”
“Mick—Myles.” He frowned, but only for the blink of an eye before his expression returned to aggressively neutral.
“You, um. What are…” Myles twisted the T-shirts in his hands, then placed them into the case, smoothing over the wrinkles he’d made.
“Are you okay?” Ozzy asked. “That was intense. I had a moment there. Thank God Tris was around.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re sure? I assume you thought it was gunfire. You’re not…?”
“No. I’m not flashing back or anything. I didn’t know what it was. I just reacted. Old habits don’t die, I guess.” Myles sighed and slumped. “Stupid of me.”
Ozzy leaned against the door frame and crossed his arms. “Some days, I’d have done the same. Some, I do what I did tonight and completely fold.”
“Because you thought of your Tris first, I think.”
“Maybe. And I panicked.”
“You stayed with him. Made sure he was okay.”
Ozzy grimaced. “No, I crumpled. But he can look after himself. And me, apparently.”
“But Jet and Shelly can’t, and I didn’t even think—”
“You reacted how you were trained to react. I get Jet being scared. Tris was too. But they aren’t trained like we are. Neutralize the threat and all that.”
“Not what you used to say when I went off all Rambo.”
“I used to be a selfish prick.”
“And apparently, I still am.”
“Hey.” Ozzy pushed out of his lean and came into the room. “Don’t do that. Jet reacted out of fear. He’ll get over it.”
“But he wasn’t wrong, was he?” He turned back to the dresser for more clothes. “I took off without thought to what would happen if it was something dangerous and it got past me. Got to them.” He shuddered. “What if—”
“Do not.”
“But—”
“Myles.” Ozzy actually laid a hand on his shoulder, and the familiar strength of it, the known comfort, bled into his soul.
“Jet can be right, and you can be right too. They aren’t mutually exclusive.
There was more than one right thing to do, and if you knee-jerked to do what you were trained to do, give yourself a bit of slack.
You’ll get used to having the kids to think about. ”
“If something happens to me, what happens to them?”
“You could get hit by a bus tomorrow. That, my friend, is a normal way for parents to think. Or so I’m told.”
“But I don’t have to take unnecessary chances.”
“Sure. That’s one take. But don’t expect to overcome years of training and instinct overnight. This is new. Give yourself time to learn, and a bit of grace when you make a mistake.”
Myles gazed up at him. “You’ve changed your tune.”
“I’ve grown up.” He smiled, and it was soft, even a bit sappy. “I’m not the center of my own world anymore, and I bet the more you get to know those kids, the more you’ll find the same thing.”
“I don’t know if I can do this, Oz.”
Ozzy squeezed his shoulder. “If not you, who?”
Myles said nothing, because there was nothing to say. Jet had been right, and so was Ozzy. He was all they had, and he’d made the wrong call. Again.
Ozzy took the clothes from his slack hands and put them back in the drawer. “I’ll stall them long enough for you to get that suitcase unpacked and back under the bed.”
“Maybe we should go back where they know people.”
“Maybe you should stay put and give them a chance to get to know your family. You belong with your people. They belong with you. Ergo, we are their people too. Give us all a chance to know each other.”
“God, I don’t know how to do this.”
“The good thing is you are hardwired to look after people, so you have that going for you. Give the rest a bit of time, yeah?” Ozzy turned for the door.
“Don’t beat yourself up, Mick. Shit. Myles.
That was always your downfall. People make mistakes.
Or sometimes, there is no completely right answer.
You have to let it go and move forward.”
“Move forward.” How did he do that when there was no path laid out? Being a hero he understood. He had a small trove of medals to prove it. Being responsible? Not so much.
Ozzy was gone, though, and Myles listened to his footfalls retreat down the steps.
Jet and Shelly returned eventually to find Myles still seated on the edge of the bed. As Ozzy had advised, he’d unpacked again and pushed the suitcase back under the bed. He wasn’t convinced going back to Calgary wasn’t still the right thing to do, though.
Shelly, already half-asleep in Jet’s arms, gave Myles a flimsy wave and drowsy smile from her bed once Jet had settled her into it.