“Thank you,” Aaron croaked.
I chuckled when my mom bulldozed her way into his space for another tight hug.
“Hey,” Tyson said, sidling up next to me, Jared still tethered to his side. “While we’re at it. How are you holding up?”
Shattered. Empty. Drained. “Hanging in there.”
Jared offered me a disbelieving grin. “Have you heard anything from her? Have you called her?”
He didn’t need to say her name. The vise on my heart constricted.
“Come on, Jer,” Tyson rumbled. “Don’t ask him that.”
“Why not?” he defended. “I’m curious. He convinced Aaron to come tonight. I thought maybe there had been at least a phone call or something.”
God, I wished. What I wouldn’t have done to hear her voice for a few seconds. Just long enough to gauge if she was okay.
I forced a smile and shook my head. “Nah. I just thought Aaron might need a reminder that we were here for him. Jack says she’s doing well though.”
Jared grinned with pride, elbowing Tyson in the side. “Okay, that’s something, right?”
What it was was the world’s worst case of déjà vu. Same place. Same situation. Same fucking aching pain.
The only difference was this time I had hope. Fleeting, excruciatingly thin, unlikely hope. But I clung to it like a tattered flag to a pole in a windstorm. At least in this new level of hell, she remembered who I was and where I lived. Despite everything that had happened between us, she also knew I loved her with my whole soul and entire being.
Better yet, she remembered that she loved me too.
That was the only reason I got through the days.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted for her. So…ya know. Definitely a good thing.” Clearing my throat, I glanced at my shoes, desperate for an escape. “What about you two? How are the wedding plans coming along?”
Tyson punched me on the shoulder. “It’d be coming along a lot faster if we weren’t here every weekend for one of your co-dependent cookouts. You know, I spent almost a year breaking into your house, sneaking around, and eating three-day-old pizza from your fridge to keep an eye on you. Now that I’m working days again and Cassidy’s on duty, you’ve become Martha Stewart hosting a damn family feast every Saturday. I don’t know about you, but I sense some serious favoritism going on here.”
I barked a laugh. It was funny how priorities could change in the blink of an eye. After that day, searching for Remi, terrified of what Mark would do to her—again—I had to learn another hard lesson on how fragile life truly was. My family could be a lot some—all—of the time. They continued to drive me batshit crazy and could not define the word boundary if someone highlighted it for them in the dictionary. But I had no idea what I would have done without them over the last few years.
What’s the saying? If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em?
So that was exactly what I’d done. Dinners, cookouts, babysitting for Cassidy every chance I got. The first time I’d lost Remi, I’d thrown myself into work as a distraction. This time, I chose my family. And what do you know? I fucking loved every second of it. Every so often, with the chaos of the Michaels family swirling around my house, I even managed to keep from thinking about Remi.
I hated those days almost as much as I lived and breathed for them. My battered heart needed the reprieve, but I feared letting go of the pain would also mean letting go of her.
“Uncle Bowen,” Simon said, tapping me on the hip.
“What’s up, bud?” I squatted to meet him on his level.
He lifted his small hand out to me, holding a tiny succulent that was supposed to be covered in pinkish pebble-like leaves, but the majority of them sat broken in his palm. “This fell out of your table.”
My heart stopped as I studied what he was showing me.
Not even a year ago, I would have told him not to worry about it and to toss them into the trash. It was just a plant. I could replace it no problem.
But this wasn’t just any plant.
This was a succulent Remi had bought.
One she’d spent an hour moving from one end to the other, searching for exactly the right spot in the arrangement to place it.
Her hands had dug the small hole. Her fingertips had guided the soil around it. And when she’d stepped away to inspect her handiwork, pure joy had shown on her beautiful face.
And my nephew was now holding it—more specifically, Mooney the Moonstone—broken and crushed, just like my heart.
“Shit,” I boomed, flipping his hand to gently dump the remnants of the succulent into my palm. With long strides, I hurried to the plant-filled coffee table. It was the only thing I hadn’t given back to her when I’d dropped her stuff off at her house. Why? I had no fucking idea. It wasn’t like I wanted the damn thing. I think deep down I’d hoped maybe if she didn’t come back for me, she’d at least come back to get her precious plants.
