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There had to be more to life than despair.
I had to believe that. Not for myself, but for all of us, the people currently taking up space in my backyard.
They all deserved so much more in this life than the shitty scraps they’d so far been granted.
I knew my purpose in this life now, and it was more than just looking after my beautiful baby girl.
It was these people, all of them.
They needed looking after and I was just the man for the job.
They were all orphans of a sort, save for Dash and Ariel. And those two were the ones who were scarred the most.
Yeah, I could easily spend the rest of my life watching over them all.
“Brighton,” my daughter yelled across the yard. “If you don’t put that beer back I’m going to ground your ass for a month.”
The kid just laughed before taking a sip of said beer.
For the first time in what felt like days, I laughed, too.
15
You Know I Love You
Romero
My home no longer felt like home to me.
It had nothing to do with the space itself but the fact that I’d left three of the most important people to me behind at Rain’s cabin.
I’d spent the last several nights there sleeping in Isobel’s room with them. She needed a bigger bed and one of us usually slept on the floor. Except for Finn, the greedy little fucker refused to leave his spot at her side. Neither Rain nor myself had the heart to kick his ass to the floor. We just took turns sleeping down there without complaining
Isobel had tried to put the moves on each of us but Rain had quickly put a stop to it. We were there to sleep only. He claimed to want to keep things light until he knew for sure she could sleep through the night without having nightmares about not only what she’d been through but also what she’d done. So far she’d been sleeping just fine, but I understood his concern.
Isobel didn’t understand it and as each day wore on she got more petulant and pissy. She was a ticking time bomb just waiting to blow and I, for one, couldn’t wait for her to explode. She was going to blow up right in Rain’s face.
He kind of had it coming. She was stronger than anyone gave her credit for and coddling her was only going to upset her.
I got it because I was the same way. Too much concern could feel a whole lot like being smothered. And sometimes it made you feel weak. For people like Isobel and myself, we were survivors, and we were very far from being weak.
I sat at my table in my kitchen with a mug of coffee in front of me and a basket full of clean laundry at my feet waiting for me to fold. And I felt… lonely. My house was too quiet, too empty.
Months ago I would have been content with it. Not happy but content.
Now I knew what I was missing and I absolutely was not satisfied with content. Not when my happiness waited for me back at Rain’s cabin.
I was thoroughly fucked in the head. Fucked in life and fucked in the head.
For once, I didn’t mind.
I sipped from my coffee and jumped when a shadow fell over me, spilling the dark liquid all down the front of myself.
Rain chuckled huskily. “You’re lucky that wasn’t hot or you would have seriously burned yourself.”
He was the lucky one because I wanted to chuck the rest of my coffee in his smirking face but refrained.
“Don’t sneak up on me like that, Rain,” I snapped at him. “And, have you never heard of knocking before? This is still my fucking house.”
