“I have a plan,” I whispered, but he kissed me halfway through my sentence, brushing a lock of hair from my eye. Our faces were so close, it was easy to memorize every curve of his beautiful face. For a moment, we just breathed each other in, as we’d done the first time we met, inking one another into memory.
“Will you do me one honor?” I asked.
“Anything,” he said again, which I now knew wasn’t necessarily true.
“Would you please let me die in your arms, alone, just the two of us?”
He crawled into bed with me and settled behind me, sprawling me out against him as he wrapped his arms around me possessively. We stared at the door. Breathing. Waiting. Digesting.
He kissed my ear, trailing the kisses down my neck.
“Ride or die,” he whispered.
“Ride.” I closed my eyes, smiling. “Always ride.”
“Talk about fucking awkward.” I unbuttoned my Armani suit jacket, flapping it back to take a seat on the first pew overlooking my wife’s open casket.
For the first second, I waited for her to scold me for dropping the F-bomb, and then reality came crashing in.
Knight scooted away from Lev to make room for me between them. He glared forward, not taking the bait.
“We’re wearing the same outfit,” I explained, resisting the urge to put the final nail in my nonchalance coffin and nudge his shoulder.
Said outfit was black cigar pants, black loafers, and a black button-down shirt, complete with the black blazer Rosie was fond of. Normal attire for a funeral, especially your own wife’s, but I needed to break the ice with my son.
I’d thrown every single negative thought that had crossed my mind about him at his feet. I’d been wrapped up in Rosie’s coma, mentally climbing the walls of my sanity. And when I finally did talk to him, it was to force him to go to a counselor for his addiction. He needed more than to be bossed around. He needed a father.
Knight stared ahead at the elaborate stainless steel casket, his expression as flat and dead as Vaughn’s. This wasn’t my son. My son was an expressive, lively motherfucker with a sense of humor and natural charm. He was nothing like his sulky-ass best friend.
“Devastated,” he finally drawled when he realized I wasn’t going to look away until he gave me an answer.
“As you should be,” I murmured.
“As I fucking am.”
“Language,” I sparred.
“Please, Dean. You use the F-word more than any other word in the dictionary.”
Dean.
He’d called me Dean.
“I can’t believe you’re talking about suits right now,” Lev gritted out, wringing his hands together, almost as if trying to rid himself of his own flesh.
He wouldn’t look at the coffin. Only his hands. I couldn’t blame him.
“We’re not talking about suits,” Knight and I said in unison, which made us glance at each other.
The only time we’d caught each other’s eyes since he’d walked in on me going down on Rosie all those weeks ago.
The realization nearly skinned me alive.
I hadn’t talked to my elder son in months.
I’d been too busy grieving a wife who hadn’t even been dead, mourning her loss instead of enjoying her presence, enjoying our family while I still could.
Rosie. Rosie. Rosie.
I looked around at the two front pews of the church, which were filled with our friends and family. My wife had taken her last breath in my arms three days after she woke up from her chemically induced coma. My brave Rosie had hung on to her life longer than the doctors predicted, because she wanted to say goodbye to all of us. I’d been selfishly hoping she’d go in her sleep, that her heavy breaths would turn into shallow ones, then to no breaths at all. But she’d been awake, still squeezing my hand with whatever strength she had left. Her last words would forever remain carved on my heart.
“The sun will shine tomorrow, my love. I know.”
“Because it must?” I’d asked her.
“Because it was the first thing Luna ever signed to me. When I did her braids sixteen years ago, I asked her if she was sad about her mother. She signed that it didn’t matter. That the sun would always see her to another day. And you know what? It did. Smart girl.”
“She is,” I’d said.
“Thank you.” My wife had smiled up at me. “For this life.”
“Thank you,” I’d answered. “For making me worthy of giving it to you.”
I’d promised her I’d be strong, and I was going to be.
For her.
For me.
For them.
No more bullshit, half-assed dad. I’d been stuck in my own little Rosie-colored universe for far too long.
“Let me smell your breath.” I clapped a hand on Knight’s shoulder.
He turned and gave me a death glare, arsenic dripping from his pupils.
“Playing dad for the duration of the funeral?” He smiled tightly.
“I am your dad.”