Since then, I’d tried desperately to be strong. To remember the beauty waiting all around.
To find my solace in the fact that because of him, Avril was safe. She was now in rehab, trying to turn her life around, promising to be strong.
God, I was so grateful to Zee for what he had done. The ultimate sacrifice he’d been willing to make for her.
For me.
He’d set her free.
It just killed me that in the end he hadn’t had the strength to finish the fight for me.
To finish the fight for us.
Zee had lived a life of surrender.
His days atonement.
And even though his freedom was right there, waiting for him to reach out and take it, he was still prisoner to the shackles of regret. Still chained to the idea that he had something to repay rather than embracing what he’d been given as a gift.
A son.
Was there anything more precious than that?
But I understood.
I did.
But that didn’t mean it didn’t cut and slash and sting.
He’d warned me he didn’t have anything to offer beyond the temporary.
It hadn’t mattered.
I’d dived in.
Heart first.
The way I always did.
Giving him all of me and praying he would love me the way I longed for him to love me.
The way I loved him.
Maybe it’d been inevitable—the falling part—because falling for Zachary Kennedy had been the easiest thing I’d ever done.
Letting him go was the hardest.
“Fall with me,” I whispered. He leaned down, lips just brushing mine, and Zachary Kennedy murmured his truth. “I already jumped.”
My heart clenched in pain, and I tucked my knees closer to my chest.
Because with Zachary Kennedy, I’d had no choice but to fall.
There’d been nothing I could do but follow the call of my heart.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Zee
“There you go, Daddy.”
My heart snagged somewhere in my throat when I looked down at my little boy. Obviously, the kid had no clue what it did to me, hearing him saying it after everything.
He held his dinner plate up to me where I was at the sink washing dishes, a grin splitting his precious face. Through all of dinner, he’d been laughing with Kallie and Brendon, fitting right in, like he’d belonged there all along.
Like he’d been there all along.
The way he should have been.
Shea had insisted everyone come over for dinner tonight.
It wasn’t that I’d hesitated to accept the offer. Still, I couldn’t escape this uneasiness at being together with the entire group for the first time since everyone had found out, which was why I was basically hiding out in the kitchen. Keeping distance.
Turned out it was impossible to just wipe away the worry I’d carried around for the last seven years. Now every single one of them knew the hand I’d had in Mark’s death.
My neglect.
My betrayal.
It left me wondering just what each of the guys was really thinking when they glanced my way.
“Thank you, buddy,” I murmured to him, taking his plate and hooking my index finger under his chin.
He grinned a little wider, the happiness held in his expression constricting my chest into a frenzy.
Devotion and love.
“Can I go play now? I ate my dinner all gone.”
“Of course you can.”
It was crazy having him in my life, every day and every moment. Having him as a member of this mixed up, muddled family was something I’d never really allowed myself to long for. I’d always figured it was impossible, even though flickers of that yearning would rise up, and I’d wish things were different.
Those stars had finally aligned.
Still, I knew deep within something was out of order. The way I missed and longed and ached as I remained wide awake night after night, staring at the ceiling as I suffered through the loss of the girl.
Alexis.
That beam of shining light I hadn’t expected.
Liam bounded out of the room, shouting for Brendon to come and find him while I turned back to rinsing the plates in the sink.
“You’re doing great with him.”
I sucked in a breath when I heard the words, soft with a Southern drawl. I shifted to look over my shoulder at Shea, who was leaning against the edge of the archway with her arms crossed over her chest.
“I’m trying,” I told her.
“Raisin’ kids is the single best and most difficult thing we ever get to do,” she mused.
“Yeah,” I agreed as I returned to rinsing the dishes, doing my best to ignore the weight of her stare. A strained silence filled the kitchen.
“You know I’m no stranger to keeping secrets,” she finally said.
Carefully, I glanced back at her when she took a step forward. I gave her a nod. “You did it because you thought you had to.”
“Exactly.” She rested her forearms on the island. “And all of us, we understand that’s what you were trying to do to. That you were protecting what meant the most to you. Not sure if you were going about it the right way, but doing it anyway because it was the only choice you had.”
Emotion flared in my stomach. Gratefulness and regret. It only amplified when I felt the movement at the archway. Baz walked through, followed by Lyrik and Tamar, Ash and Willow, then Austin and Edie.
I turned to face them, my gaze bouncing to each face of this family.
Some bound by blood. Some by marriage. Others simply by the bonds that had been forged.
Baz roughed a hand through his hair. “We want you to know we get it. Need you to know there isn’t a chance we blame you for Mark’s death. Shit happened, and you and Mark both made some terrible mistakes, but that will never, ever make you any less.”
My heart rate kicked a fraction as something fervent filled the air.
Lyrik stepped forward. “Want you to know how much I respect you, Zee. What you’ve been doing for Liam all these years, thinking he wasn’t your own and standing up and taking care of him anyway? That’s what a real man does.”
Anxiously, I rubbed a hand over my mouth. “Thank you,” I murmured.
Ash slung his arm around Willow, who was holding their newborn. “I gave you shit for years, Zee, taunting you for the fact you never took girls home, thinking you were shy or weird or some shit like that, the whole time having no clue the sacrifices you were making.”
He looked at Willow then back to me. “Come to find out, you had it right all along. You were living for what was most important to you. But I want you to know my goading was only because I wanted you to live. To truly experience life. For you to step out front when you were always content to remain in the shadows. Most of all, I need you to know, I will always have your back. Me and Willow? We’ll be there for you, whatever you need.”
My chest tightened, floored by the support.
Austin eased up to Baz’s side. “We’ve got your back, Zee. No matter what.”
My tongue felt heavy, and I was unable to form words, struck with the magnitude of what this was. Them coming forward and taking a stand.
For me.
For Liam.