“It wasn’t nothing. I don’t know what our fucked-up little family would do without you.”
“Your family isn’t fucked up.”
“I know, I meant it with love. All of it. I’m a better dad because of you.”
Locke sipped at his own coffee, eyeing me over the rim of the mug like he wanted to counter the words spilling out of me, but he said nothing. Just let me figure it out and fudge my way through it.
“I’m grateful for everything you do for Hope too,” I said eventually.
“It’s not a hardship, Mats. That kid has been my therapy since she was born.”
It was my turn to scrutinise him. “Does she remind you of the baby you lost?”
“Of Wren?” Locke exhaled, nose flaring. “Maybe. I mean, she was preterm and I only held her for a minute or two, but as the years have gone by, in my head she had dark hair like Logan, big eyes like Nicky—like Hope, I guess.”
Hope wasn’t my biological daughter. But I was her dad, and I loved her. Imagining a world where I’d had to bury her staggered my pulse, coldness flooding my veins. “You’ll see her again.”
Locke smiled a little. “I know. Sooner than ever if her sister keeps at it the way she’s going.”
“Still stressed about the boyfriend?”
Thetwenty-five-year-old boyfriend I’d heard all about. Em and Rubi were the best gossips, especially when they thought I was asleep.
Locke grimaced. “I’m trying not to be until I know more about him.”
“Met him yet?”
“I promised Orla I’d wait until Willow asked me to.”
“You got eyes on him?”
“Not until I calm the fuck down about it—goddamn, I’m annoyed again.” Locke unclenched his big fist. “Never knew I was this much of a Neanderthal, but it messes with my head this fuckin’grown manis only a few years younger than you.”
“I had a toddler when I was Willow’s age.”
“Nothing wrong with that. I was a young dad once upon a time, but at sixteen I didn’t know my dick from the two brain cells I had competing for third place. I couldneverhave done what you did.”
I could never have saved Embry on the bathroom floor that night if you hadn’t taught me how.
But those were the words that wouldn’t come out. That snarled in my chest, thick and oily, generating the kind of warmth that made my eyes burn and my hands shake around my coffee mug.
I set it down and scrubbed a hand over my face. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me today.”
Locke had been chilling on the floor by the kettle. He got up and came to the couch, easing down beside me. “I’m wondering if getting floored by your appendix has let the last few years catch up with you.”
“Last decade, more like.”
“That too. I’m just saying you aren’t the type to sit around thinking about shit, but when you’re flat on your back with nowhere to go, you don’t have a choice.”
It sounded like the kind of waffle Embry said to other people, but not to me because I annoyed him too much before he got the chance. “It’s hard to stop being a twat when it comes so naturally to me.”
Locke snorted. “That’s not even close to what I said.”
“I know?—”
Activity outside had me jerking up.
Locke steadied me. “It’s just Nash.”