The Love We Deny (Rosehill Hearts #4)

Prologue

The party is fit for a princess.

That’s what Joyce says, adjusting the banner she made herself that has Happy Birthday Addie in pink glitter letters. It’s crooked, strung up between two trees.

It’s going to stay crooked, and it’s still gonna be the best day of her granddaughter’s life regardless. But she adjusts it again anyway, and I don’t say a word about it.

“She’s something else, ain’t she?” Beside me, Frank’s watching Addie, her pink dress grass-stained from the day, a mountain of wrapping paper surrounding her even though she’s barely begun opening her presents.

We may have gone a little overboard, but that’s bound to happen when you’re an only child and the only grandchild.

She holds up a new set of paint, turning it over in her hands with an excited gasp.

“She is,” I agree.

Frank’s never been a man of many words, ever since I met him back in high school. I used to think it meant he didn’t like me. That maybe he thought I wasn’t good enough for his daughter.

Lord knows I thought that.

But in the years since, I’ve learned that’s just him. Not so different from my own father, who died before Addie’s first birthday. Frank and Joyce do what they can to fill the hole left by my parents, but I still wish they were here to see this.

They would have loved the little girl Addie is becoming.

Across the yard, Jess is crouched beside her, helping her with a bow tied around a package, her blonde hair falling over her shoulder, catching the light. She smiles openly when Addie says something to her. The love on her face clear to anyone.

She used to look at me like that too, but it’s been years.

I don’t blame her for that. Growing apart after is natural. I can’t expect her to look at me the same way she did when we were still kids, figuring out life. Now there are bills, and late hours, and parenting.

She’s a good mom, no matter how she feels about me.

Once the ribbon is off, Addie rips into the box and presents a sketchbook, gasping so loudly that the rest of us all laugh. “Mommy!” she exclaims, holding it up with both hands, showing Jess what her grandparents bought for her. “Look!”

“I know, baby.”

Frank has a proud smile on his face when he turns to me. “Our girl’s gonna be a famous artist one of these days.”

“God help me.” I’ve known that since she painted the walls of her bedroom, and they didn’t look all that bad, when she was five.

Joyce appears at Frank’s side to refill his tea with a pitcher from the kitchen and gives me a kind smile as she passes. I watch her move back toward the house and appreciate, not for the first time today, how lucky I am to have this.

A loving family and a little girl sitting in the grass, beaming up at me when she opens the doll she’s been asking for since her best friend Emily got the same one. Her whole beautiful life ahead of her.

It’s a perfect day.

And then the gate opens.

I don’t see him, but I know it’s him immediately.

The back gate sticks. Opening it from the outside is damn near impossible. Frank and I have talked about repairing it, but it’s been like that since we were teenagers, and I was sneaking over to visit Jess past curfew only to get caught by the gate.

You can’t open it without a struggle. Unless you’re familiar with the Davis house.

Luckily for him, Will grew up here.

The first thing I notice, before I’ve even registered who I’m looking at, is that he’s thin. Unnaturally for his size. And the baggy jeans and oversized t-shirt aren’t helping. His hair is long and unkempt. He needs to shave.

We haven’t seen him in over a year, and his father goes still beside me while I hear Joyce gasp from the porch.

Jess hasn’t looked up, still crouched beside Addie, trying to open the box for her new doll. But Addie, who notices everything, looks across the yard, and her face transforms into the brightest smile I’ve ever seen.

“Uncle Will!” She’s on her feet, flying by me in a flash of pink as she crosses the yard, sprinting toward her uncle, who catches her with ease, despite the state he’s in.

Whatever else is going on with him in this moment, whatever he’s done in the past, Addie hugs him, and he hugs her back just as tight.

It tugs on my heart a little bit. I wish for her sake, and his, that this could be okay.

Addie pulls back to look at him, her little arms still wrapped around his neck. “You came to my birthday,” she says, like she can’t believe it. “I’m eight now, did you know?”

“No way! Eight?” he asks, his voice sounding different as he tucks a curl behind her ear. “That’s almost as old as me!”

She beams at him, unaware of anything but the fact that it’s her birthday and her uncle showed up to see her, while the adults in the yard are looking back and forth, in silent conversation.

“I’ll handle this,” I say to Frank, setting my sweet tea on the wooden picnic table as I make my way over to them.

“Hey, man,” Will says as I approach them, casual, like he didn’t show up to my daughter’s birthday party with his pupils dilated and a wobble in his stance.

The average person might not be able to tell, but I work in the ER. I know what high looks like. And Will might have been my first example.

I don’t acknowledge him, turning to Addie instead. I keep my voice calm while she’s in his arms, determined not to let this ruin her day. “Why don’t you get Mommy to help you open those new paints? I need to talk to Uncle Will for a minute.”

“Oh, is it a secret?” she asks, looking between us.

I force a smile and a nod, avoiding his gaze that hasn’t left my face. “Something like that.”

Her grin matches mine as Will sets her down to go back to Jess, who’s glaring our way with her arms crossed. “Okay, Daddy!”

When Addie is far enough away, I turn to him. “Come on.” We walk through the gate, past the decorative pines, around the side of the house, while voices pick up in the backyard.

Over here it’s just the two of us and the brick house, alone, and when I turn to face him, the mask I had on for my family’s sake slips. “What the hell are you doing here, Will?” I start, looking into the glassy, sunken eyes of my brother-in-law.

I don’t know how he let himself get this bad.

“It’s Addie’s birthday,” he says, like that’s a believable reason at this point. He stopped caring about this family a long time ago. If he ever did.

“You can’t be here like this.” I gesture in his general area, because where do I even start?

The easy expression drops, his eyes narrowing and his hands clenching into fists at his side. “I came to see my niece.”

“I know you did.” The worst part is, I believe him. I know he thinks the world of Addie. I also know that doesn’t matter right now. “But you’re high at your eight year old niece’s birthday party, and you need to go before she realizes that.”

He looks away, craning his head toward the backyard. “Come on, dude. Let me—”

“No,” I say, firm in my decision. I want Addie to know her uncle, but not like this. “I’ll tell her you had a work thing. Go home and sleep off whatever you took. I can send you some rehab—”

“I don’t need you to lie for me,” he says, cutting me off, and that’s okay. We’ve had this conversation many times before, and it never made any difference.

I still can’t help but try.

“Then what do you need, Will? Because we care about you. We hate to see you like this. So tell me what you—”

“A hundred bucks.”

I stop, shaking my head in disbelief. “You’re asking me for money.”

He shrugs. “You’re a hotshot doctor now, ain’t you? I figure a hundred bucks is nothing to you.”

“I’m not funding you destroying yourself,” I scoff, baffled that he would actually come here to ask for money.

Somehow, during our discussion, he’s ended up closer than he was before. And I didn’t even notice until his hands are raised and he shoves me, hands flat against my chest, not hard enough to hurt, but enough that I take a step back. “Then I’m not leaving.”

Addie’s laugh, brighter than the sun, drifts from around back. And as much as I hate being part of the problem, I can’t have it around her.

So I reach for my wallet.

He watches me count it out without a word. A hundred dollars in twenties. I hold them out, and he snatches them, putting the bills in his back pocket, the eyes that wouldn’t leave my face a moment ago now looking down as he walks toward the beat-up car in the driveway.

I go back into the birthday party, meeting my wife’s eyes with a shake of my head, mouthing gone.

Addie is at the picnic table now, her new sketchbook open in front of her and her paint open off to the side. When I get close enough to see the rainbow she’s painting, she pauses, looking up. “Where’s Uncle Will? I’m making this for him!”

I crouch down beside her, scanning her painting as I rest a hand on her blonde curls. “I’m sorry, sweetie. Your uncle had to go.”