Dark Child (Wild Men 5)

“Yeah. Haven’t seen your bestie around recently. How is she doing?”

See? I’m making an effort to be sociable, be my usual self so I won’t raise any flags and attract the family attention. Between the nightmares and my worry about CosieCat, my missing her and still wondering how she feels about me, I’ve turned into a quiet version of myself.

“Great. She’s doing great. She’s in love with her boys. They’re all so in love.”

“Boys?” Octavia stares at Gigi with round eyes from across the table. “Like, how many?”

“What was that?” Mom asks. “Boys?”

Gigi snickers madly and turns to whisper something to Jarett. He grins at her and slings an arm around her, tucking her into his side.

“Love comes in many forms, Maggie,” he tells my mom. “Don’t you agree? As long as everyone is happy.”

Jarett sure looks happy these days. He sure as hell deserves to be, after going through hell for so long—his parents dying, then foster parents going the same way, having his brother killed in a gang shooting, losing everything.

Now he’s going to marry my crazy-ass sister, who’s glowing with joy when she’s around him, so yeah. They’re so different, but they’re a match, and that’s all that matters.

Just like Mom seems to be a match for the man sitting by her side. He’s murmuring in her ear, and she smiles at him. I’ve never seen her smile like that at anyone. Her face is so… unguarded. Carefree. Her eyes shine. She looks younger than she ever has before.

It’s really great to see her so radiant and content. To see them all so joyful, sitting around the table with their partners and families, sharing whispered secrets, insider jokes, planning their future.

And I wish Cos was here with me. She’s what’s missing from this table, this reunion. Her absence is a hole cut in the fabric of reality, and through it I see only emptiness.

My hands curl into fists on top of the table. Is it strange to want someone so much when you haven’t known them all that long? I remember how quickly Octavia fell for Matt, even when he was being an ass to her. I remember Gigi falling for Jarett so fast I had to warn her about his involvement with the gangs and all but hold her back until he sorted his life out.

But they knew from the start, didn’t they? They knew they’d found the person they wanted to spend their lives with.

Is this what I’m feeling? This certainty that I’ve found my other half?

“Everything okay?” Octavia asks after lunch, trying to feed her son Max who’s in the high chair and rolling a toy car through a blob of his food. His food is also all over the high chair, all over his face, and all over my sister.

I wonder if he ate any of it.

“Yeah, everything’s fine.”

I think of Cos. I wish I were there, taking care of her, I wish she’d trust me. But someone hurt her, I’m sure of it. Some asshole broke her trust, broke her heart, and she’s treading carefully.

Good, I tell myself. It’s good that she’s guarding her heart. That she doesn’t trust any random dickhead who wants into her panties.

Though I sure wish she’d trust me. What I feel for her… it’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt before, and it’s only getting stronger by the day. I just…

“Uncle Merc!” It’s Cole, Matt’s youngest, nephew extraordinaire. “Look! You stepped on a cornflake. You’re a—”

“Don’t say it, kid.”

“—A cereal killer!”

I close my eyes, strangle a laugh. He’s a true nephew of mine even if we don’t share any DNA.

Mary, Matt’s oldest, starts to giggle, and Max starts banging his plastic spoon on his bowl.

“Cereal!” he yells in time to the banging. “Cereal!”

Christ.

Octavia laughs the laughter of the exhausted mother who’s one step away from full-blown hysteria. “Don’t step on the cereal, Uncle Merc.”

“Et tu, Brutus?” I mutter darkly, sinking into an armchair, then sighing again, with fondness and exhaustion, when Cole clambers over me with a book he wants to show me. “Yes, yes, show me.”