28. Chapter 28

Dear Posie,

It"s been a while since I"ve written to you. I guess that"s mostly because I didn"t think you wanted to hear from me again after the incident with Beth on your birthday a couple years ago. I heard about what happened with your boyfriend. I want to tell you how sorry I am that your heart was broken, that your trust was betrayed, and your relationship destroyed. The fact that Evan"s ex-girlfriend was in the mix probably added insult to injury too.

I want to tell you how much I wish you weren't hurting and that my arms are here, waiting to hold you, if you need that instead of these words. None of what I have to say means much to you these days though, and in an effort to keep your faith in me, this part will probably be hard to hear.

I'm not really sorry. I wish you didn't hurt, but I'm glad he's out of your life. Selfish, right?

I know it is, and I'm still saying it all anyway. Who knows, maybe I won't even bother sending this letter to you. I should keep it all to myself. I'm glad he's gone though, Posie. It killed me every fucking day to think of you even having a boyfriend, let alone living with a man. According to Evan, everyone was expecting him to propose. I haven"t even been with anyone since your 25th birthday.

"You"re not going to send that to her, are you?" Dev asked as he looked over my shoulder.

"Go to hell," I huffed before minimizing my screen. "What are you doing looking over my shoulder, anyway? I thought you were playing with J.J.?"

"I was until the little guy fell asleep in the middle of my epic build and knocked all the blocks down," Dev explained. "You really need to bring him back home sometime soon. I"m sure Pops would love the chance to get to hang out with his great grandson a little more before…"

"Before what?" I asked, not liking his tone.

"He doesn"t have long, Max. I think that"s part of why Posie isn"t coping too well with everything that just happened. If you ask me, I don"t think she was as "in love" with the Wellington asshole as other family members were led to believe. She"s taking it hard anyway, and I think a lot of that is because she knows she"s about to lose her dad. Her second dad. That girl can"t catch a fucking break."

An ache built inside my chest at the thought of Pops no longer being around. I didn"t get home to see him in person as often as I liked, but we talked all the time. He was the one who updated me on all things Posie. Evan would only tell me so much and my other brothers didn"t think I deserved to know, since I kept screwing things up with her. Pops, on the other hand, made it his mission to relay every juicy detail of that woman"s life. He always followed it up with a reminder that it was never too late to change the course of history.

"Pops never did like her boyfriend," I tell Devon.

"What? That"s not true."

"Yeah, it is. Not one day has gone by in the past two years where the old coot hasn"t reminded me that it is never too late." I chuckled along with Dev.

"He really told you to go out and steal another man"s girl?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "I think the way he sees it, she was always meant to be mine, so it"s more like Wellington swooped in during a low point for Posie and me and took advantage of the situation and her heightened emotions."

"Yeah, I can see where he"d think that."

"Because it"s true," I tacked on bitterly.

"Why didn"t you stay and fight for her that night?"

"She looked happy when she got back from that first date with him and all I"d caused her was pain. Who was I to go busting up in there with all my baggage in tow? I didn"t even live in town, I had a baby with another woman, and my baby"s mother would never allow me to move back home with my son without her tagging along for the adventure. That night, all I could see was the way she laughed and smiled and kissed another man and that if it was me instead of him, there would be a baby screaming in the background for attention and another woman slinking around to cause trouble."

"Seems like she had another woman slinking around in her relationship anyway."

"Hindsight is a bitch like that." My brother didn"t need to remind me that some of the baggage I"d been worried about her dealing with had been thrust upon her by Wellington. It wasn"t fair that she had to endure part of what I meant to spare her, but then life rarely was. I stared off into space for just a moment more before Dev tapped me on the shoulder.

"Nothing has changed for you. Only now, you know that the things you're trying to save her from can happen anyway with someone else. When are you going to step up and take what you want out of life? I'm sick of seeing you go through these crappy relationships and failing all the time. There's only one reason they never work out."

"Yeah, because I'm bad at love," I joked. Though, if I was being honest with myself, it wasn't much of a joke.

"Nah, it's because you were meant for one woman, and you keep letting life get in the way of you having her."

"Dev, you have to know that she doesn't want me like that anymore, if she ever did."

"Oh, she did. Poor girl thought she hid it well, but we could all see through her bullshit, especially Pops. He's the only one who doesn't let her get away with lying to him or herself, though."

"What is everyone doing about Pops?" I asked. In part it was to get the heavy topic of Posie off my chest and because there had to be something that could be done for our grandfather.

"I wish I had better news. I think you should put in for some time off. I'm sure Pops would rather have time with you and his great grandson than have you there after he's gone for his funeral."

"That's why you came?" I asked. The answer stared me in the face without my brother having to say a single word. "Shit, okay, I'll get J.J. ready."

"Won't his mom have something to say about you taking him out of town without permission?"

"She can't really say much, since she left him with a babysitter while she took off with her friend to Vegas for a long weekend."

"She did what?"

Luckily, the babysitter was the daughter of one of the cops who worked with me. When Beth didn't come back for him that night, and instead called to ask if she could keep him all weekend, the girl told her she'd call back with her answer. Ferraro called me immediately and told me what was going on. I picked up my son and kept him all weekend. My lawyer also documented everything that happened, including the text exchange between the babysitter and Beth. "I'm one step closer to getting sole custody of my son," I told Devon after explaining the situation to him.

"In a way, I'm happy for you, but damn, Max. That's fucked up. What if she had used someone who didn't know you?"

"I don't even want to think about it. I have someone keeping tabs on her now. This is my weekend with J.J. She can't really say shit about me taking him home to see family, especially since Pops is so sick.

"You know you"ll see Posie while you"re there, right?"

"Obviously."

"Just try to remember that she"s in the middle of a fresh breakup and that Evan"s former girlfriend was the person that idiot cheated on her with."

I gave him a nod as I packed up my shit and called in to inform work that I might need to drop emergency leave, depending on how this weekend went with my grandfather. Having to tell someone, out loud, that my grandfather was basically on his deathbed made it all feel so real. We were going to lose him. I"d been away so long, trying to establish myself as someone separate from my sometimes-overbearing family, that I"d missed out on years with the old coot. My son had missed out on getting to know his great grandfather. It made me determined to fight to get back to my family before J.J. and I missed too much more time with any of them.

There was Posie to think about, too. I couldn"t keep watching her slip through my fingers and nothing would ever change until I made my way back home.