That Rush (The Slade Brothers Second Generation #7)

Prologue

Aiden

A small knee presses into my thigh, pulling me out of the first real sleep I’ve had in three days.

I open my eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling and a warm little body curled tightly against my side. For one disoriented breath, I can’t remember where I am or why my daughter is sleeping beside me.

Then the memory hits—my throat tightening around nothing, my hands suddenly useless at my sides.

Krista is dead.

My pulse hammers in my throat, thick and insistent. The guest room tilts, and I grip the edge of the mattress until my fingers ache. This happens every time I drift off. Waking means remembering, and my body rebels, trying to claw its way back to the dream where none of this is true.

Beside me, Josie shifts and makes a soft sound in her sleep.

I pull air through my nose and release it slowly. She needs to wake up beside her father, not watch me come apart.

My body has other ideas. My pulse races, and cold sweat gathers beneath the T-shirt I’ve worn since yesterday. Guilt crowds in beside the grief. Krista was on that road for a reason. The thought has circled my mind since I got the call, a vulture waiting.

I press my palm against Josie’s back and feel it rise beneath her pajamas.

She’s here. She’s breathing. She survived.

The relief is a fresh agony, a sharp breath that scrapes my lungs on its way in.

Josie’s eyelashes flutter before her eyes open. She stares at the room, confused, then reaches for my shirt and curls her fist into the fabric.

“You’re here,” she whispers.

“I’m here.”

Her voice is rough from sleep. “I couldn’t find you in my dream.”

My jaw aches with the words I can’t say. “You found me now.”

She studies my face with the serious concentration only a six-year-old can manage first thing in the morning. “Your heart is going really fast.”

“Bad dream,” I tell her.

“About Mommy?”

There’s no answer that protects either of us.

“Yeah, baby.”

Her fingers tighten around my shirt. “Is she still dead?”

My vision blurs, and I blink until I can see her clearly again. Three days isn’t enough time for her to understand that death remains true every morning. I’m thirty-five. It has to be a mistake. Someone is going to walk in and tell me it was all a mistake.

“Yes,” I say quietly. “She is.”

Josie’s lower lip trembles. “Forever?”

I slide my arm beneath her and pull her onto my chest. She comes without hesitation, pressing her face against my neck.

“Yes.”

She starts crying, the sound swallowed by my shirt.

Her tears soak through the collar of my shirt while I rub my hand over her back.

I want to promise her something impossible.

I want to tell her Krista is coming back, that we can undo the last three days, that she’ll wake up tomorrow in her own bed with her mother in the next room.

I hold her because it’s the only honest comfort I can give.

Krista had been my ex-wife for almost five years.

We weren’t finding our way back to marriage.

Over the last year, we had finally learned how to talk without dragging every old failure into the conversation.

She had started trusting me with more time with Josie, and I had started believing we could become the parents our daughter deserved.

We had time to get better at it.

Then we didn’t.

“I miss her,” Josie says against my neck.

“I miss her too.”

“You do?”

The surprise in her voice is a clean, sharp pain. I lean back enough to see her face. “Of course I do. Your mom was important to me.”

“But you didn’t live with her.”

“No, we didn’t live together anymore.” I wipe the tears from beneath her eyes with my thumb. “People can live in different places and still care about each other.”

She considers that, her forehead wrinkling. “Did Mommy know you cared?”

“I think she did.” My voice catches, and I clear it. “I hope she did.”

Josie rests her head on my chest again. I watch the pale light slipping through the curtains while she listens to my heartbeat settle.

After a few quiet minutes, she asks, “Are you sleeping here again tonight?”

“If you want me to.”

“What about tomorrow night?”

“I’ll be wherever you need me.”

She lifts her head. “Every day?”

The question hits with a familiar ache. I used to count my days with her. Weekends. Holidays. The extra nights Krista had begun giving me. Every visit ended with a bag by the door and the knowledge that Josie would return to the home where her mother waited.

“Yes,” I tell her. “Every day.”

She nods like this solves one small piece of a problem too big for her, then settles against me again.

I wrap both arms around my daughter, the full weight of the empty calendar settling in. There will be no return date this time. No one else Josie will eventually go home to.

I am her sole parent now.

Josie’s stomach growls against mine.

She lifts her head and looks offended. “That was loud.”

A laugh catches in my throat. “It was.”

“I think I need pancakes.”

Pancakes. The word is so ordinary it doesn’t compute.

“I think we can find some.”

She slides off the bed, then reaches for my hand before her feet touch the floor. I tighten my fingers around hers and follow her into the hallway.

The smell of coffee grows stronger as we approach the kitchen. Mom stands at the stove in leggings and one of Dad’s old sweatshirts, pouring pancake batter onto a griddle. Dad sits at the table with a mug beside him and a legal pad covered in his blocky handwriting.

His eyes move over my face before settling on Josie. “Morning, Jo.”

“Grandma is making pancakes,” she tells him.

“I noticed.”

“With chocolate chips?”

Mom glances over her shoulder. “I have chocolate chips.”

Josie releases my hand and hurries toward her. “They have to be inside. You can’t put them on top because they fall off.”

“Inside. Got it.”

Mom lets her climb onto the stool beside the counter and pours a small pile of chocolate chips into her palm. Josie carefully drops them onto the wet batter one at a time.

I stand in the doorway, watching them. Mom at the stove, Josie beside her. My father studies me from the table, and I can feel him measuring the distance, deciding how close he needs to stand before I fall over.

“I’m fine,” I say.

“I didn’t ask.”

“You were going to.”

“I was thinking you look like hell.”

“Hudson,” Mom says.

“What? He does.”

Josie looks back at me. “You do a little, Daddy.”

“Thank you.”

“You need to brush your hair.”

Dad takes a long drink of coffee to hide his smile.

I walk to the cabinet and pull out a mug. When I reach for the coffeepot, he slides it toward me.

“I can pour my own coffee.”

“I know. That’s why I moved the pot closer.”

His ability to irritate me before seven in the morning is so normal it’s almost calming. I fill my mug and glance down at the legal pad.

Funeral homes. Phone numbers I don’t recognize. A list of decisions I have to make today.

My knuckles strain around the mug.

“I said I would take care of this.”

Dad leans back in his chair. “I wrote down some numbers.”

“I can find phone numbers.”

“I’m sure you can.”

“Then why are you doing it?”

“Because you haven’t slept, and you have a six-year-old who needs breakfast.”

“I can take care of my daughter.”

Heat climbs the back of my neck. The words came out too sharp.

Mom turns from the stove, but Dad keeps his eyes on me.

“No one here thinks you can’t,” he says.

The certainty in his voice drains the fight out of me. I look toward Josie. She’s still concentrating on the pancakes, either unaware of my tone or more interested in chocolate.

Mom sets a plate in front of her. “Syrup?”

“A little. Daddy pours too much.”

I stare at her. “Since when?”

“Since always.”

“I’ve made you pancakes twice.”

“And you did it both times.”

Dad coughs into his fist.

I carry the syrup to the counter and let Josie tell me when to stop. She watches closely, then gives me an approving nod.

“Perfect.”

I should know how much syrup she likes. I should know whether she eats the crust on toast and which cup she reaches for first. I know she sleeps with one foot outside the blanket and hates the seams in her socks. I know she sings when she brushes her teeth because I taught her the song.

Every small thing I don’t know: the syrup, the toast crust… is a testament to a morning when I wasn’t here.

Mom touches my arm as she passes. “Sit down. I’ll make yours.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You still need to eat.”

“Mom.”

Josie pauses with her fork halfway to her mouth.

I close my eyes and pull in a steadying breath. “Sorry.”

Mom gives my arm a gentle squeeze. “Coffee first.”

I sit across from Dad while Josie explains that school shouldn’t be allowed after someone dies because children need time to be sad without doing math. Dad listens with the same serious expression he uses during business meetings.

“That seems reasonable,” he says.

“Can I stay here?”

Her question is directed at me.

“You’re staying with me.”

“I know. I mean here at Grandma and Grandpa’s.”

I glance around the kitchen I grew up in. Being here makes me feel eighteen again, like Dad is waiting to fix whatever I screwed up and Mom can still solve the rest with food and a hug.

I can’t move backward. Josie needs me to build a life for us, and hiding in my parents’ house won’t do that.

“We’ll stay for a little while,” I tell her. “Then you and I will find our own home.”

“Can my unicorn sheets come?”

“Yes.”

“And Mommy’s picture?”

“Absolutely. We’ll bring her picture wherever we go.”

She returns to her pancakes, satisfied.

Mom places a plate in front of me before sitting beside Josie. “I cleared two drawers in the guest room. There are new pajamas and a toothbrush upstairs.”

“We’re not moving in.”

“I know.”

“I need to start making decisions.”

“You will,” she says. “Today, she needs clean clothes.”

I look down at the pancake on my plate. They’re offering food, a bed, and a few phone numbers. None of it changes who Josie’s parent is.

Trying to handle every detail alone will leave me exhausted while she waits for what she needs.

I take a bite even though it tastes like nothing.