Page 72 of Carson

Carver immediately starts explaining that we came to help.

From the look on Nyx’s face, she doesn’t need it.

Somewhere behind us a Harley fires up.

Katie smiles. “Looks like Nova took the keys with her.”

The two of them walk toward the sound of the bike, disappearing into the trees.

“Very funny,” he yells.

“They’re not coming back,” I tell him, lowering myself to the bumper in an attempt to make myself comfortable.

Carver looks down at me. “They’re really going to leave us out here.”

“Yep.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Big Dan

I’m sitting at my desk when Jesse comes up behind and wraps her arms around my neck. “What’s going on, Big Guy?”

“Nothing,” I tell her.

“Come on. I know something’s wrong,” she says, lowering herself into the chair that sits beside my desk.

I lean back, sighing. “I feel like everything is falling apart.”

She doesn’t argue.

I shake my head. “For the first time in a long time, I don’t know what to do.”

“Nothing you can do, Big Guy. You just got to be there for your family. Be their anchor in the storm.”

“The boys … Cole, is being difficult.”

Jesse taps her lighter on her knee. “We all knew it would happen eventually. They are as close as any two people I’ve ever known.”

I look over the pictures I have lined up on my desk of my family. “I’ve got enough going on right now. I need them at the top of their game.”

“They’re not there, Dan.”

“I know.”

“Everything’s going to be okay. God answers in ways you cannot see,” Jesse says.

Did I hear that right?

“God?” I ask.

“The light, God, the universe, whatever the fuck you want to call it. I’m just saying there is something more than us and it somehow carries us through … that and a good switchblade.”

I chuckle. This girl … we’ve been through some shit together. “You’re not getting soft on me now, are you?”

“Fuck no.”

I didn’t think so, but I’ll never get tired of teasing her.