“No, they wouldn’t be, but sometimes our hearts wish something else. I think that’s what happened with Wyatt.” And he could understand it. People around town talked about Roe and Lindsey like they were a couple. Holden was a grown-ass man, and even he had wondered sometimes if Roe wouldn’t one day change the relationship with Lindsey. How could a thirteen-year-old boy get it? “I want to talk to you about something you said tonight, though. When you found out about me and Roe, you asked if that meant I was really staying. I won’t ever lie to you. If I tell you I’m staying, or that I’m coming back, then I am.”
He thought about what Vicki said to him. About eating meals at Mama Adaline’s and chatting with Evie. Harmony had become the first home Holden had ever had. He’d lived in other places, but this was home.
“Okay,” Sean replied.
“You’re enough, kiddo. I know how it feels to think you aren’t, but you’re enough. You think I would stay for Roe but not you, and it’s complicated because yeah, he’s part of the reason I want to be here. I’d be lying if I said he wasn’t, but just you…you’re enough too. I need you to believe that—not just with me, but in every area of your life.”
“I’m working on it,” Sean replied. The kid was an old soul. Sometimes he felt to Holden like an adult trapped in a kid’s body. A kid who’d lived a lot of life, and sometimes that’s what did it. Holden had been the same.
“Good man,” Holden said. “I’m proud of the person you are. I love you, and the truth is, I don’t know if I could handle being away from you now that I know what it’s like to be around. You make me want to be a better man, kid.”
“You make me want to be one too,” Sean replied.
They sat outside for a while together, and when Sean went into the house, Holden said, “Take Zeus in with you, and lock the door behind you.”
“I will,” Sean replied. “Come on, boy!” he called, and the reddish dog came running.
Holden wasn’t sure why he didn’t go into the house. Actually, that was a lie. He was making himself crazy, thinking about what was going on with Roe. Between Wyatt, Lindsey, and Holden himself struggling to say how he felt, and figuring out how or when he could leave Atlanta for Harmony full-time, things were complicated.
He couldn’t stop himself from wondering if he would even be good at this. His relationship with Roe would be different from what he’d given Vince. Could he give Roe what he deserved? Open himself up to him? Or hell, maybe whatever was happening with Roe’s family right now would change things anyway.
His chest ached with the thought, a pain that filled him up, took him over. He didn’t want to be without Roe…without being able to touch him, and Jesus, he was forty-three years old and this was the first time he’d felt this way. He hadn’t thought it possible for him, but it was, because of Roe. He’d changed that.
He’d changed Holden.
As if Holden had summoned him, lights danced across the driveway. His stomach knotted in nerves that he didn’t like feeling. He’d given someone power over him, let someone in, and that was scary, but it was Roe, and he couldn’t imagine it any other way.
He didn’t move while Lindsey pulled her car up to the house. Roe stayed inside for a moment, then got out and waited until Lindsey drove away, Holden’s gut getting tighter and tighter before Roe walked over.
“Hey.” Roe shoved his hands into his pockets.
“Hey. How’d it go?”
Roe sighed. “Shit. I don’t know. Well, that’s not true. It went as well as could be expected.” He sat beside Holden on the table. “I talked to Wyatt. He’s a kid. It’s all mixed up for him, ya know? But he’s good now. It just… Fuck, darlin’. Feels like I’m letting him down.”
Because of course Roe would take this on himself. That was the kind of man he was. “How could you possibly let anyone down? You love that kid more than anything in the world. I would have died to have a father like you. He knows how incredible you are, and the older he gets, the more he’ll see it. He’ll grow up to be a good man because of you. He’ll look back and be grateful he had you for a dad because…hell, you’re the best man I know.”
He heard Roe’s sharp intake of breath. “I like when you say things like that to me.”
Holden turned to him. “That one of your kinks? You like being praised? Hearing how good you are?”
“Maybe from now on. It’s nice to hear you open up that way.”