Page 117 of Duty

“My family. I think they’re right—my attention is not where it needs to be because I’ve been too busy elsewhere, and it’s showing. I let things slip. I fucked up.”

“Oh.” Then, quieter, Haven asked, “Do you mean me when you say your attention is elsewhere?”

He really didn’t want to answer that.

Because yes, that’s what he meant.

Haven nodded when he said nothing.

Andino needed her to know, though … “That doesn’t mean I want to change what I’m doing—what we’re doing, Haven. It just means I need to get my shit straightened out. Especially now … for my cousin, and whatnot.”

“Your cousin?”

“Yeah, John. You’d like him. He’s quiet, and does his own thing. He’s got some issues, but they don’t make him who he is; they’re just one part of him. He’s uh, going through some shit, and usually I keep an eye on him to keep him out of trouble. He got mixed up with a woman—Siena Calabrese—who comes from a family similar to mine. The difference is they’re a bunch of snakes; bad people in general. So, he found trouble anyway. I haven’t been looking out for him well lately. I figured he’d be okay since he was doing well, anyway. I’m supposed to be the one who takes care of him, you know. That’s my job, and I fucked it up.”

His unofficial job.

No one actually said he had to do it.

He just did.

“Andino,” Haven said softly.

He glanced over to find her looking at him in that way of hers—all silent, contemplative, and yet caring. Even when they were still up in the air, and not-supposed-to-be … even when they were confusing, and trying to deal with all the things he’d never told her, but probably should have … she still gave a shit about him.

It stunned him.

All over.

“You have to take care of you, too,” Haven said. “You have to look out for you, too.”

“Sure.”

“But do you really know that, though?”

Andino shrugged. “I have to look out for me, I know.”

“Yeah.”

“And John, too.”

Haven laughed lightly. “I mean, if you have to.”

“Nobody else does. Not the way he needs.”

“But what about you?”

Andino met Haven’s stare.

Didn’t she know?

He was coming to learn …

“I think that’s supposed to be you, Haven,” he murmured.

It was the rest of the world that thought differently.

“Doesn’t that …”