Pieces of Us (Confessions of the Heart 3)

“What are you going to do?” he hedged, digging deeper. Wanted to tell him to fuck off and mind his own business, but considering there weren’t a whole lot of topics off-limits between us, I figured that wasn’t gonna fly.

Shrugging, I tried to keep the annoyance and helplessness out of my tone. “Absolutely nothing. There’s nothing I can do, even if I wanted to.”

I wondered if it came out sounding like a lie because that’s sure as hell what it tasted like on my tongue.

“And you’re saying you don’t want to?” he challenged, though there was something smug riding at the corner of his mouth.

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. Her life isn’t my concern anymore.”

Apparently, I was fuller of shit than Baby Collin.

“Really? Gave your heart to Clarissa, huh?” Sarcasm dripped from his question.

Repulsion seeped into my bloodstream.

“You know better than to even joke about that shit.”

“What seems funny is that you keep riding that crazy train.”

“She’s just a hookup.”

Such a fucking lie. I wondered if he bought it.

He covered his baby’s ear and muttered the words, “A good fuck and settling are two different things.”

I laughed out a bitter sound. “Think I settled a long time ago.”

“Yeah? Maybe it’s your chance to change it.”

“Took a chance once, and look where that landed me.”

Look what it almost cost.

He shook his head. “You’re an idiot.”

I went for his fridge and grabbed a beer, needing to shut this bullshit down before I spiraled.

That was just when a clatter of voices echoed through the house, getting louder before the kitchen door swung open.

Grace came in first, followed by Faith and Jace.

“There are my big men,” Grace cooed, going directly for Ian and Collin, hiking up on her toes and planting a kiss on Ian’s mouth. I didn’t even think she noticed that her kid might as well have been wearing a toga.

“How’d it go?” she asked.

Ian grabbed her by the back of the neck, pulling her in for another kiss. “Perfect.”

“What are you two talking about in here?” Faith asked, glancing between Ian and me like she’d caught onto something ulterior, her dark hair swishing around her sweet face.

Had known Faith for all my life. About as long as I’d known Izzy.

She was an incredible woman. Strong and resilient. Couldn’t imagine a better girl for Jace or a better man for Faith.

They perfected the other.

But that didn’t mean either of them needed to know about any of this.

“Nothing,” I muttered.

At the same time, Ian was lifting his chin. “He just ran into Izzy.”

The asshole.

He was lucky he was holding that baby.

Faith’s attention jerked to me, something like horror in her expression. “What?”

Jace was rubbing at his chin in discomfort, and Grace slowly turned all the way around, her mouth gaping open, which was kind of unsettling considering she’d never even met Izzy, which meant Ian had been doing a little more of that tossing.

Big ol’ wheels rolling right over the top of me.

And there I stood, my heart in my throat and all those curious eyes trying to get inside my head.

I twisted the cap off my beer and lifted the bottle in a nonchalant gesture. “It was nothing.”

Except I knew damned well it was everything.

Four

Izzy

Night pressed at the window of the same bedroom that had been mine for my entire childhood. On the second floor of the house, it sat at the opposite end of the hall as my parents’ room, which had made it a whole ton easier sneaking out all those times growing up.

Dillon and Benjamin had picked a room right next to me, choosing to share because that is what they had to do back in Idaho. The two were so close and found so much comfort in the other, separating them was like prying apart chain links.

It was just better to leave it alone.

Everyone else had gone to bed at least a couple hours before, and now, I sat beneath the yellowed, hazy glow cast by the lamp on the desk where I was sitting, a journal spread out in front of me and the end of a pencil tapping at my lip as I doodled my emotions and thoughts.

I was battling to process the turmoil that was ragin’ inside of me, as if I tapped into the quiet, I might be able to find the answer. That in the darkness, it might become clearer.

Fat chance of that. Because with each second that passed, it only felt more complicated.

I turned my gaze out the window. The towering tree rustled just outside, there like the sturdiest, most loyal of friends. Strong, thick branches stretched wide, as if it were inviting me to slip out into its safety, even though my daddy had screamed and ranted at me a hundred times that it wasn’t safe.

I’d climbed up and down that tree so many times, I could still picture the perfect sequence of steps, each branch a rung. I wondered if it would feel the same, climbing it now, or if that tree, too, had been shaped and changed by the passage of time.