“It’s going to be okay,” I whispered, rubbing my thumbs down his cheeks, both scarred and perfect.
“She’s gone,” he said, shuddering. “What the fuck am I going to do?”
“You’re going to keep doing what you’ve always done,” I replied, smoothing back his long hair. “And you’re going to tell Gray a lot of stories about his mama.”
“What am I gonna say when he asks if I loved her? What am I gonna say if he asks about any of it?”
“You did love her,” I murmured, the words feeling oddly light on my tongue. “She gave you Gray, of course you loved her.”
“She shouldn’t have been in that car,” he ground out. “We were fightin’ and she shouldn’t have been in that car.”
“No,” I shook my head gently, my fingers tightening in his hair. “Don’t do that. Don’t try to make it something it’s not.”
“If she woulda stayed at the club—”
“Then it could have happened on her way home the next day, or the day after that. You don’t know, Leo. You have no idea what would have happened.”
“I do,” he ground out. “She woulda picked Gray up at her mom’s and everything woulda been like it was before.”
His eyes closed in pain, and there was nothing else I could say. How did you explain a freak accident to someone that had just lost their partner? Leo may not have been in a romantic relationship with Ashley, but they’d been partners in raising their son. They’d been a team, and now he was alone. Surrounded by people who loved him, but alone all the same. I couldn’t make that better for him.
“Now is probably when I tell you something that fixes it all,” I whispered, tears making my voice tight as I repeated what my dad had said to me years ago. “But I can’t. Life’s not fair. We’ve all learned that at one point or another. You just have to push through it.”
Leo nodded and his hand slowly lost its grip on my sweatshirt.
“Gray’s probably losin’ his shit,” he said quietly, taking a step back so that my hands slid off the sides of his face. He turned without another word and rounded the car to open Gray’s door.
My clothes were soaked through when I climbed back into the Suburban, and I shivered as Leo talked to a surprisingly calm Gray in the back seat. His voice was calm and level, and even after he’d climbed into the driver’s seat and put the car in reverse there was no sign of the meltdown he’d had just moments before.
As he drove me home in silence, it was as if our conversation in the rain had never happened. The only evidence left was our wet clothes and my runny nose. By the time he stopped in my parents’ driveway, I was dreading the moment I got out of the car.
“I’ll see ya around, yeah?” he asked, staring out the windshield.
“Yeah,” I confirmed, my voice hoarse. “Sure.”
If I’d thought that something had changed between us, or that maybe some of the ice had broken, I’d been completely wrong.
I climbed out of the Suburban, but I couldn’t make myself walk away. Not yet.
“Thank you,” I said finally, my hand so tight on the door handle that my knuckles were white. “Thank you for letting me go.”
“I’ll always do what’s best for you, Dandelion,” he replied instantly, still refusing to look at me. “Don’t you know that yet?”
As soon as I closed the door he started backing up, and within seconds was driving back down my parents’ driveway, leaving me there in the rain.
“Lily,” Charlie yelled from the front porch as I stood there staring at his retreating taillights. “Ceecee’s coming tonight!”
“Fucking wonderful,” I muttered, closing my eyes in defeat.
Chapter 20
Leo
“Party tonight,” Tommy told me as I climbed out of the Buick I was working on. “Cecilia’s home.”
“Say what?” I asked in surprise, almost hitting my head on the doorframe. “Since when?”
“Got in last night,” he replied. “Came home to see her pop, I guess.”
“ ’Bout damn time,” I muttered.
“Yeah, no shit. Can’t imagine how that’s playin’ out.”
“I won’t be there tonight,” I said, popping the hood of the Buick.
“Bullshit.”
“I’ve got Gray—”
“He can stay at our house,” Cam cut in. “Your sister’s havin’ someone stay with the boys, they can keep Gray, too.”
“Who?”
“No idea,” Cam replied. “But anyone who keeps our kids is gonna be someone who’d keep Gray.” He laughed. “Fishin’ in the same pool, man.”
“Yeah, alright,” I said with a shrug.
As I started work on the Buick, I thought about the girl I used to know. I was curious to see Cecilia after all this time. I hadn’t heard a word from her since she’d gone to California, and a part of me wondered if she was the same girl who’d left. I didn’t know how anyone could be gone that long and not change quite a bit, but if there was anyone who could do it, it would be her.