Chapter 41
Chapter Forty-One
OSCAR
Small fingers push at the corners of my mouth. I crack an eye open to see the frowning face of a three-year-old hovering over me.
“You have a grumpy face when you’re sleeping,” Birdie whispers.
“Bird,” I hear Mack call through from the kitchen. “I said we were going to let Oscar sleep.”
“I’m whispering!” she yells, making me wince.
“Thanks, Birdie,” I groan. I go to sit up, but her weight on my chest stops me.
Blinking myself fully awake, I’m able to take in the scene.
I’m lying on Mack and Joni’s couch, where I crashed last night after knocking on their door.
Birdie’s sitting on my chest, which means I must have really been out if I didn’t wake up at her climbing on, or heard the TV playing cartoons. “How long have you been there?”
She blinks at me like I’m stupid. “I always watch cartoons in the morning.”
“One of my many parenting fails.” Joni sighs as she wanders in. She pauses in the doorway, seeing how her child has turned me into her own personal armchair. “You sleep okay?”
“Slept great.”
Joni just raises an eyebrow, telling me she’s not buying it for a second.
“Baby, why don’t you go get some breakfast from your dad, huh?
” She gives Birdie one of those mom looks that always put the fear of God into me when my mom did it.
Birdie’s not concerned, sliding off my chest with a thud and skipping through to the kitchen.
I sit up with a groan, finally able to take a full breath. “Thanks for that.”
“Well, that’s the risk you run when you show up at midnight, not wanting to talk about whatever’s going on with you.”
“I just didn’t want to walk all the way home.” I reach up to rub the crick in my neck.
“Sure.”
“I’m sorry if I woke you guys.”
“You didn’t.” She sits on the other side of the sectional, pulling both legs up to face me. “Mack only got back a little before you, anyway.”
“He was dealing with Justin?” I ask sourly. I don’t know how the hell I’m going to look that guy in the face when we’re back at the station. Every time I think about him, I just hear his words replay, all the shit he was saying about Freya.
“I think he was smoothing things over with Turner.” She gives me a pointed look. “He wasn’t especially impressed with you making a scene at Megan’s trivia night.”
“Fuck.” I scrub a hand through my hair. “No, I guess not.”
Birdie comes charging back into the room, pop tart held high above her head like a Viking.
“Bird!” Mack calls after her. “I told you to sit at the table, young lady!”
“But I want to see Occa,” she whines, climbing onto the couch and placing herself in my lap.
“And did Oscar say it was alright for you to climb on him?” Mack asks, rounding the corner to take in the scene.
Birdie doesn’t answer, her mouth already full of the pop tart she’s managed to eat almost half of already. Mack sighs, admitting defeat. He drops down next to his wife and pulls her feet into his lap, starting to rub them absentmindedly.
“He doesn’t mind,” Birdie replies, spraying crumbs all across my legs.
“Did he say that?” Joni presses.
Birdie shrugs. “I can tell.”
I chuckle. “I don’t mind.”
“Why don’t you finish your breakfast, and then you can go play for a bit, yeah?” Mack asks his daughter.
“Can Occa come?”
“Not this time,” Joni says. She and Mack stare at me.
Fuck.
I know that look.
It’s the look they give me when they’re about to gang up and force me to spill my guts.
“Then I wanna stay,” Birdie protests through the last bite of her pastry.
Joni pulls out her phone. “You can watch some videos if you want?” she offers.
Birdie lights up and starts bouncing around. I have to grab her by the waist and plop her next to me, away from the edge of the couch before she takes herself off of it. “Can I watch the toady?”
“Sure, you can.” Joni laughs. I hear her scrolling until she finds what she’s looking for before passing the phone across to her toddler.
Birdie squeals, snatching the device. I see a flash of someone in some kind of costume doing a backflip before Birdie slides off the couch and runs over to her play-tent, crawling inside.
“She’s going through a phase where she’s really into mascots.” Mack rolls his eyes.
“Could be worse.” I shrug. “You should have seen all the weird things I obsessed over as a kid.” Though none of my childhood obsessions could hold a candle to the way I fixated on Freya.
With Birdie gone, there’s no escaping the inquisition I know is coming. Surprisingly, it’s Mack who starts it off; usually Joni’s the one always trying to psychoanalyze me.
“What the hell are you doing here, Murph?”
“I just needed to crash.”
“Bullshit.” He shakes his head. “You live fifteen minutes away.”
“Did you not want to be alone?” Joni asks softly. Her words are a knife, cutting into the deepest part of me. “Did something happen with Freya?”
“Everything’s fine. We don’t need to spend every single night together.”
“You would if you could, though.” Mack stares at me, assessing. “Which means she told you to go.”
Christ, these two should get on a reality show. It’s a good thing I’m sitting down, else I think my knees might give out.
“That’s not what happened.”
“So, something did happen.” Joni looks like a spider who’s just caught a juicy fly in her web.
“We just decided to take a little space, it’s not a big deal.” I don’t want to get into the details with them, with anyone. It’s as if by talking about it, I’ll make it real. Right now I can almost pretend that the whole thing was a horrible dream.
“Why the hell would you need space? You do something to fuck it up?” Mack asks.
“I didn’t do anything,” I sigh.
“Then what the hell is going on? Because I’ve seen the two of you together. She looks at you like you hung the moon, and you don’t even want to know the way you look at her.”
“She just needed to put the brakes on.”
“Because of Justin?” he probes.
“Because of me,” I finally get out. Because that’s the truth, isn’t it? I pushed too hard, wanted too much, too fast, and I freaked her out. “I scared her.”
“Shit,” Mack says quietly. “Look, last night was a mess, and you didn’t exactly handle the situation gracefully, but she’s got to understand. Justin needed to be put in his place, especially with all the bullshit he was saying.”
“Mack filled me in, it sounded like Justin needed a slap,” Joni chimes in.
Mack chuckles, kissing her temple. “Always so vengeful.”
I stare down at my lap. I can’t look at them right now, not when they’re like this.
“She didn’t like that I called her my girlfriend,” I mumble.
“I thought that’s what she was?” Mack frowns.
“We hadn’t put a label on things yet.”
“So?” he asks. “Everyone could see what you two are to each other. Did it really need labelling?”
“That’s what I thought,” I say. “She’s got a lot of stuff in her past, and it makes her nervous about being in another relationship.”
You didn’t ask me.
I think of her face. Of course, she was upset.
Everything she’s told me about the way her ex treated her, how he pressured her into things, and I go and do that?
Just declare us a couple without ever discussing it with her?
I know that it was in the heat of the moment, but fuck, how could I be that stupid?
Mack stiffens. “What stuff?”
“Did someone hurt her?” Joni asks carefully. Mack glances at his wife, his face grave. Something flashes between them and he loops an arm around her shoulder, pulling her against him.
I reach up to rub the spot between my brows.
I don’t know how much Freya would be okay with me sharing, but I need to talk to someone about this.
I have no idea what I’m doing when it comes to navigating her trauma and I never want to do anything that’ll make things worse, but I’m flying blind here.
“Not physically, but her ex was a piece of shit.”
“That poor girl,” Joni breathes.
“She doesn’t trust herself enough to let me in,” I say. “I think she’s waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
“That makes sense,” Joni says. “That kind of thing can really mess with a person, make it hard to believe what’s in front of you.”
The catch in Joni’s voice makes me wonder if she’s speaking from experience.
“I’ve been trying to be patient, but I hate feeling like she doesn’t trust me.”
“I’m so sorry.” Joni reaches out to take my hand. “That must be so hard, for both of you.”
“I know it’s not about me, but it feels it, you know?”
“You’re not doing anything wrong, this is just a really difficult situation,” she says gently.
“I don’t know what to do.” I hang my head, throat tight. “I feel like I’ve done everything I can think of to get her to trust me, but it’s not enough.”
“You can’t just wipe away that kind of trauma by loving someone. It takes so much work, and you can be there for her, but Freya’s the only one who can do it.”
I don’t even flinch at her dropping the L-bomb, and fuck if that doesn’t say it all.
“You’ve just got to give her time, man,” Mack adds.
I know they’re right, and I’m trying so hard to be patient, but it still hurts. I wish she didn’t have to deal with any of this. And maybe it makes me selfish, but I wish she were able to let herself have this, have me. I know I can make her happy, if she lets me, I’ll be so good to her.
“It’s as though she’s looking at me and seeing him.”
“I don’t think that’s it. We can all see how crazy she is about you.” Joni gives me a gentle smile. “Being in a relationship again must be triggering all kinds of things and you just have to be there for her while she works through it.”
“So, I shouldn’t give her space?” Fuck. What if I’ve just made things worse…
“No, I think some time to cool off is probably a good idea,” Joni says thoughtfully. “She needs time to decide what she wants without trying to please you.”
“I never asked her to.”
“Of course you didn’t, but that’s probably what her instinct is.” I sigh. How does Joni seem to have all the answers? I should have come to her weeks ago. She’s not wrong. I always have to work so hard to get Freya to tell me what she wants. Whatever choice she makes, I want it to be hers.
“Fuck, this is all such a mess.”
“What you two have is worth dealing with a little messiness,” says Mack.
“It is.”
“Why don’t you head home, get some fresh clothes on, then you can come with me on my run,” Mack suggests.
I pick my head up, leveling him with a glare. “Why is going for a run always your suggestion?”
He shrugs. “Because it works.”
“Ugh, fine. But I’ll be an hour. I gotta make a stop first.”