Inked in Lies (The Fallen Men 5)

The man who provided the only adult guidance I’d ever known.

There was an ache in my chest like the two sides were divided by a crater I would never be able to bridge between loving him and hating him.

It throbbed acutely as I lay down in the dirt between the rows of low blueberry bushes and stared up at the blackening bowl of the sky.

The night was so quiet in the farming valley that I heard the crunch of tires on gravel long before I would have in Entrance.

It didn’t interest me at first.

Marge and Rhonda were good people, often having friends and family drop by to visit, but I wasn’t in the mood to pretend I was okay around company, so I stayed in the dirt.

When my phone buzzed with an alert, I raced to flip it open to find the latest update from Dane or Jonathon. It had been two days since they’d texted.

It was a picture from Dane, the plastic black curve of a glove compartment.

Not his best effort.

I was about to flip it closed when it vibrated again.

A photo from Jonathon, this one of his knee. There was a tear in his worn jeans and on the skin showing through the gap he had drawn a sunflower he’d labeled ”Suntastic Yellow.”

My chest warmed as I drew my thumb over the screen, pretending I could touch the petals.

Before I could reply, another image came through.

I tapped it and immediately choked on my inhalation of shocked breath.

A selfie of Dane and Jonathon pressed cheek to cheek. My brother was beaming widely, his face so dazzling to me that tears pricked the backs of my eyes and started to roll down my cheeks into the dirt. To see his face expressing genuine happiness again felt like a punch to the solar lexis. And then, Jonathon beside him. More subdued, his grin a curling of lips and the slight cocking of a single eyebrow that made him look rakish and mischievous.

Like he was keeping a secret.

Before I could even begin to wonder what it could mean that Dane and Jonathan were together again, there was a clamor of voices coming from the front of the house.

“Lila,” I imagined someone called.

But then again, louder, someone did. “Lila!”

My heart stopped for one long moment, and then as if prompted by a starter gun, I took off at a sprint. I jumped from the dirt and ran through the rows of bushes, scattered blueberries bursting under my toes, arms pumping, legs churning so hard they burned after only a few steps.

I’d never run faster, propelled by the force of hope at my back.

“Lila!” Another voice called from the front as I reached the backyard. “Li, where are you?”

“Here,” I panted quietly as I started to round the house. Then louder, “Here!”

I broke through the side gate and exploded into the front drive, the asphalt under my tender feet still warm from hours in the sun.

And there they were.

All of them.

Diogo and Molly.

Milo, Oliver, and Hudson.

Jonathon.

And Dane.

I couldn’t breathe. There was no space for air in my lungs, they were wrung so tight with impossible joy. My mouth was open, panting, but I couldn’t find my voice. My blood was pumping hard through in my body, but I found I couldn’t move.

Only my eyes stirred, hot as fresh coals and wet, so wet they leaked down my cheeks, over my neck, down the slope of my chest to dampen the fabric of my t-shirt.

I stared at them so hard it hurt, and then I stared at Dane.

He looked good, healthy and happier than I’d ever seen him. His face was spilt open in a wide, white grin, his eyes sparkling the way the noon day sun did over the lake. He’d grown even taller, definitely becoming broader through the shoulders and chest in the time we’d been apart.

He looked like a man.

A whimper worked its way free of my throat like the whine of some broken engine. It seemed to breach the tension between us, and before I could blink, Dane was moving.

Then I was running too.

He dropped to his knees on the pavement the moment before I hurtled myself into his arms. The second I wrapped my arms around him and dug my face into his neck, the crisp curls behind his ear tickling me familiarly, I burst into ruckus sobs.

I couldn’t control myself. I clutched at his back, gripped his shirt so tightly it warped the material, crawled up his torso so that I wound around him like a baby koala.

This was my brother.

The only person who had loved me my entire life and had always tried to put me first, even before himself.

And he was there.

Holding me.

It felt too good to be true, and my anxiety drove me to claw at him and squeeze him as tightly as my small body would allow.