39
CAM
My ma once told me, if I wanted to thrive in chaos, I had to learn to create moments of peace for myself. Twelve-year-old me had no fucking clue what she’d meant. Adult me had slowly figured it out, then I’d forgotten it again. But over the past year, it was a skill—a goddamn necessity—I’d begun to regain.
The August sun began to set. Hard rock rumbled to my left, EDM pulsed to my right, and at my back, indie music balanced it all out. And yet still, I chose to move forward, to the buskers and bonfires of the chill zone Rubi’d had the time of his life creating.
So much fucking pink.
The music from the other tents and stages faded and I found myself drawn to the dark, hypnotic beats the local capoeira club tapped out with their wooden sticks and drums. I moved alone through the mellow crowd, stepping around clusters of bodies tangled on the grass, the families sitting in the low light of the fires, kids sleeping while their parents danced or watched the animated acrobatics through the hazy smoke.
Me, though, I kept going, searching out more fire and flame, a brighter spark of magic I’d been hooked on since I’d seen glimpses of it last night.
Remy.
He held the dampened circle Locke had dug into the tinder-dry grass for him, his lithe body stretched long and fluid as he spun around, his feet barely touching the earth, fire swirling around him in a heady mix of grace and danger. Sparks flew, each one tracked and checked by the shadowed figure following his every move.
Logan.
I found a spot on the grass and lit the blunt I’d saved for a moment like this, turning down the radio in my ear, leaving the festival in Folk’s capable hands for the ten minutes I needed to catch my breath.
Sweet herbal smoke hit my lungs. I sank back onto my elbows, the sweat I’d carried on my skin all day finally cooling, despite the heat of the flames, and let my gaze become lazy, watching Remy, watching Logan, finding beauty in each dance, wildfire, and the earth reborn in its wake.
A stoned laugh rumbled out of me.
I smoked some more and set my mind free, and of course it meandered to the greatest shift my life had ever taken.
I married them.
I fuckingmarriedthem. A fuckton of unreal shit had happened in my life, but none more than that. The days kept passing, weeks, soon to be months, but that night... a part of me would always be there.
I married them.
A broad figure claimed the space beside me.
Locke.
Of course.
If he and Logan were in the same place, they were never far from each other, two faces of the same moon.
I sat up, another buzzed laugh escaping me.
Locke looped an inked arm around my shoulders. “Laughing at your own jokes again?”
“And they ain’t even funny.”
Locke chuckled, gaze flitting between Remy and his twin. I figured it might stay that way, given how rigidly he stalked me around the pizza oven on the compound, but he stole my beer and drank most of it, relaxing into the grass.Happy, I realised. Subtle, but somehow more so than he’d ever been, even since Fin and Donovan had been born.
“Something happen?”
Locke drained the compostable beer cup. “Everything happened. I didn’t think there was anything else I needed, but that’s the trouble with thinking, isn’t it? We’re always fuckin’ wrong.”
My brain bent itself in half trying to understand. Failed, naturally. “You’re gonna have to give me half an hour for that cryptic shit. I’m too baked to figure it out.”
“Nah, I’ll just tell you. Logan’s coming home. Him and Remy. The boys. They’re packing their shit next weekend and moving back to Devon.”
Emotion hit me like a bullet to the heart. I dipped the joint butt in one of the many nearby water buckets and flicked it in the empty cup. Then I pulled Locke into my arms and hugged the goddamn shit out of him. “I’m so fucking happy for you, brother.”