When You Were Mine (Stone Lake 2)

Luna exhales and squeaks when I pick her up. Her hands cling to my shoulders.

“Gavin, put me down!”

“You’re bleeding.”

“I’m fine. I need to get to my son. Ben—”

“I’ll have Cade and Wayne bring him here,” Kingston replies.

“Thank you,” she says, obviously relieved. It’s unreasonable but I can feel the jealousy rising inside of me. I sit Luna down in an armchair and crouch down to inspect her foot. I pick it up to inspect the damage.

“What happened?”

“I stepped on some glass. It’s fine, Gavin. I’ll see to it after I get Joshua home.”

“I didn’t know you were cut, Luna,” Kingston complains.

“Then maybe you should have been looking,” I mumble.

“What in the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Just what I said.” I reply not bothering to spare him a glance. He’s probably a good guy. I get the feeling he is, but we’re never going to be friends. “Luna, where’s your first aid kit?”

“Gavin, let it go.”

“Yeah, Gavin, let it go.” Kingston scowls at me. “I’ll take care of Luna.”

“Looks like you’re doing a bang-up job,” I mock.

“I’ve had about enough of your mouth. Why are you even here? Luna is none of your concern.”

“Where’s your first aid kit?” I ask Luna again, refusing to get into this with Kingston—no matter how much I want to.

“It’s fine Gavin, you don’t—”

“Moonbeam, where is the damn first aid kit?”

She looks at me for a minute I see confusion on her face and something else, but I have no idea what it is.

“Bathroom. First door on the left down the hall,” she says. “It’s under the sink.”

“Luna, damn it,” I hear Kingston mutter behind me, but I blot out the conversation. I don’t want to hear it. My head is all over the place, and I don’t know how to sift through it. When Luna’s name came over the police scanner a fear so chilling and thick hit me that I felt like I couldn’t get air. All these years apart and it never occurred to me that something could happen to Luna. You would think in my line of work it would, but whenever I imagined her—and that was often over the years—she was always happy, healthy and better without me in her life…

I grab the first aid kit, and as I walk back in the room Kingston and Luna are whispering. They stop immediately when I get back within hearing distance. Kingston shoots me a hateful look and stomps off. I don’t bother to hide the smile on my face.

“Just stop it, Gavin,” Luna says

“Stop what?” I question distractedly, sitting on the floor at her feet. I put her feet in my lap and sift through the kit for tweezers.

“Don’t play dumb, and while you’re at it, quit trying to antagonize Ben.”

“I’m not. It’s not my problem if he’s insecure when it comes to you, Moonbeam.” I can’t fight the urge to smile as the corners of my mouth lift.

“And stop calling me that. You and me… There is no you and me now. That name no longer exists for you.”

“Just because we’re not… what we once were, doesn’t mean we can’t be friends does it?”

“You want to be my friend?” she questions, and the disbelief in her voice irks me.

“Is that so hard to believe?” I ask her as I hold her foot and take out the tiny sliver of glass I found just inside the cut.

“Ow. That hurts,” she hisses.

“Then you shouldn’t go barefoot in glass.”

“Funny. Anyway, we can’t be friends, Gavin.” The way she says my name caresses my heart and making me feel alive and filling me with warmth. It shouldn’t but I can’t deny loving the sound.

“Why not? Very few people share the history we do. You can’t tell me you don’t think about it sometimes, Luna.”

“Do you?”

“All the damn time.”

Her head shakes slightly. “We can’t go back.”

“I didn’t think we could, but that doesn’t mean we need to forget our history. We can still be friends,” I tell her. “This will sting a bit,” I warn her, swabbing her foot with an alcohol swab.

“Our history is exactly why we can’t be friends, Gavin. Too much has happened.”

“Like you and Atticus?” I hedge knowing there’s some bitterness in my voice, I can’t keep it out—and I actually do try.

“Like Josh,” she says.

“Mom, are you okay?”

My head jerks to the door and a young boy with deep brown hair and blue eyes walks in. He’s tall and lanky, I’m not really good at judging ages of kids. I’ve never had much to do with them. He looks to be ten or eleven which means that Luna must have had him not long after I left Stone Lake. Bitterness burns inside of me so bright that I can taste it. I hurry and paste a bandage on the bottom of her foot. She jerks up and goes to her son, wrapping him up in a hug. I leave them alone and take the first aid kit back into the bathroom. While I’m in there, I stare at the face reflecting back at me in the mirror. I think I hate it.