Decoy saw it coming and spread his hands. “No speeches. You don’t have to do anything but stand beside me, like you’ve done every day since we met.”
The rebellion inside me paused. I tilted my head, waiting for more.
Decoy shrugged. “I’d be dead without you. I had a plan. Everything was in place. If you hadn’t brought me here, I’d be nothing for my daughter but bones in the ground, and it feels wrong to start a new life without acknowledging that.”
I pictured the Decoy I’d stumbled across all those years ago. I’d liked him because he hardly spoke and expected even less from me. I’d hated that he never smiled, that he’d forgotten how. “You’d already met him.”
Folk.I’d heard the stories.
Decoy smilednow, though it was shadowed by the same memories I had. “That’s my point. That I wouldn’t have been here for him to find again without you.”
I heaved a sigh. “Okay.”
Decoy startled. “Really?”
“Yeah, but don’t make me wear anything... big.”
Heavy. I meantheavy. But I was out of words to correct myself, and I neededoutof this fucking office before I agreed to anything else.
Decoy placed cautious hands on my shoulders. “No speeches, no suits, I promise. Just be yourself, brother. It’s who we love.”
He left me with that, retreating through the door I’d been aiming for. But it didn’t matter. How I felt about Cam and Alexei had taught me to comprehend the warmth Decoy had left me with, to believe that I deserved it, and the paint didn’t smell so bad anymore.
* * *
ONE MONTH LATER...
I loved Decoy for many reasons, but maybe none more than him and Folk’s decision to bring their Norfolk wedding forward to Clare Lowe’s birthday and invite Rubi and River to share it with them. Two of these fucking things would’ve finished me off.
The scenery helped.
I rolled off my hog just behind Cam and Alexei, Orla’s car a heartbeat behind us. Fens and wetlands had given way to the kind of big skies we had back west but without the jagged winds, and for whatever reason, the sun here had more colour.
We were in the grounds of a big farmhouse. A side gate opened and boys I recognised as Rocco’s spilled out and made a mad dash for Locke.
Folk’s parents followed them into the yard, and it was a moment where I’d usually turn away, but Folk’s mum—Jekka—was all up in Alexei’s business before I got the chance. And you know what? It was fucking worth it.
Jekka mothered him, wrapping her hands around his face in a way even I had to think about sometimes. “Alexei! It’s so nice to see you. You’re well?”
Alexei let her hug him before he gave her a dry answer.“I am here.”
Jekka laughed and drew back with conspiratorial light in her eyes. “And you’re not alone. This is Saint?”
“It is.” Amusement glittered in Alexei’s flinty gaze and he held out his hand to me. “Come here, wingman.”
Absolutely not. I wasn’t in the mood to be hugged by strangers, even ones as nice as I knew Folk’s mum to be. But it happened anyway, and I knew it was good grounding for the time we’d promised to spend here.
Jekka let me go, her gaze drifting over my shoulder. “Oh my. Is that Cam?”
I knew without looking that it was. We were the last to arrive from the club and she’d met every man behind us before. Besides, most people got that haze in their eyes the first time they encountered Cam—the same haze still blinding me more than a decade later.
We moved from the yard to the farmhouse garden, which turned out to be a huge expanse of lawn, polytunnels, and greenhouses.
Rubi bounded up on me. “What time do you call this?”
I evaded him and crouched to study the greenery beneath my feet, rubbing the feathery foliage between my fingers, frowning at the teeny tiny daisy-like flowers. It smelled sweet, like apples. “This isn’t grass.”
“I’m getting married in eleven minutes and that’s what you want to talk about?”