Chapter 1

Chapter One

DALLAS

Dallas was a fixer. He rarely met a problem he couldn't solve with either a few clever words or a fat roll of duct tape, and he liked having that role in everyone's life. It made him feel sort of…worthy. Accepted. Needed .

It was also probably one of the main reasons Katie hated him, apart from the fact that his sex drive was low. He knew that part was why she'd been driven to another man's dick—so to speak. He sure as shit couldn't fix that. He tried. Doctors, therapists, medications had done nothing.

And the fact that he couldn't make himself better had been plaguing him since the divorce.

He'd tried with her when it happened. He didn't rush off and leave. He offered mediation and couples therapy to see if they could make their little family work. Instead of being reasonable, she laughed in his face and told him if he was smart, he'd call a lawyer and get papers filed before she did.

It was the one time he took her advice without question .

It hadn't done much for him, of course. His lawyer was cheap because he was a broke-ass elementary school teacher who used what was left of his measly life savings to pay for the retainer. It got him weekend custody and every other Thursday with Audra, which was killing him.

That wasn't how he'd wanted to start off his life as a dad. He'd expected sleepless nights and 2:00 a.m. feedings and a lot of shitty diapers and tons of spit-up. He hadn't expected to be barred from the delivery room. He hadn't expected to be the fourth person to hold his child after she'd been born.

But Katie had never really been kind. It was something he was coming to accept about his past. He'd put blinders on because he just wanted to be happy. He wanted a family. He wanted to be everything his parents weren't.

They'd divorced when Bronx was seventeen and he was five, and they both wanted to go find themselves, which left tiny Dallas on his own both emotionally and physically. Bronx became the unofficial caregiver for his little brother. He didn't have any regrets, of course. Bronx was a good kid who'd turned into an even better man. Dallas had his single dads group to get him by, but Bronx was the only one he'd ever let close when he was actually falling apart.

Once upon a time, Bronx had been wiping up Dallas's childhood snot. Years later, Bronx was wiping his drunk-ass face from vomit because he had never been able to hold his liquor.

Dallas eventually pulled it together though, which was just in time for Bronx's life to fall apart. Right now, Dallas was a four-hour flight from home, sitting on his brother's back deck while they stared off into the distance, his brother existential crisising all over the place. His marriage was over, and he hadn't seen it coming .

Bronx and his son had been out of town for Lucas's goalball tournament and had returned home to half the house empty and no note. For a moment, Bronx told him, he'd panicked and thought something happened to Jules.

Bronx had been halfway through dialing 9-1-1 when Lucas had turned to him and sighed out quietly, "He's gone, Pop. He left us."

Apparently, Lucas had seen the signs. Bronx had not. The irony of that was lost on no one.

"Have you talked to him this week at all?" Dallas asked into the silence between them.

Bronx shook his head and let his head fall back against the chair. "No. He answered once when Lucas called him, but he was a fucking shithead about it. Lukie ended up yelling at him and throwing his phone across the room. Shattered the screen to hell. He asked me to change his number when we picked up his new one, but I'm not ready for him to cut Jules off like that yet."

Dallas passed a hand down his face. He understood why Lucas was hurting so much. His nephew was already in his hormonal teenage phase. The kid didn't need a dad pulling a disappearing act on him.

"So what now?"

Bronx snorted and lifted a brow at him. "I mean, you're the expert on divorce."

Grimacing, Dallas flipped him the bird. "Thanks, asshole. I meant, what do you need?"

"The truth?"

"Always. Please," Dallas added. He wasn't normally so polite with Bronx, but right then, he needed to be.

"The truth is, I'm fucked. My practice is still new, so my pay sucks. I can't afford this place on my own, and Jules made it really clear he wasn't interested in helping us out. I can get him on child support and alimony, but that's not going to cover the mortgage plus everything else Luke and I need to survive here."

Bronx had been living a very expensive life. Jules had come from money, and he was unapologetic about the way he spent it. Dallas had always been a little worried, considering Bronx was living above his own personal means, and he was still fresh from graduating veterinary school.

The adjustment would be painful for both Bronx and his son. And there was little Dallas could do to offer help on his teaching salary.

"Do you have any idea what you're going to do about it? Will you fight him for more?" Dallas asked.

"No. I'm going to be the shittiest father in the world and sell the house and move." Bronx rubbed his hands down his face, looking devastated. "And I think I'm going to take you up on your offer to move closer."

In any other circumstances, Dallas would have told him that taking his kid out of his school and making him start over somewhere new didn't make him a shitty father. And even in this case, it didn't. But it was complicated because Lucas had been attending the same school for the blind since he was in pre-K.

Uprooting him now and moving him to a small town that massively lacked resources wasn't the best idea as far as he knew.

"Have you talked to him about it?"

Bronx licked his lips, then shook his head. "No. But he's been asking me to put him in a mainstream school for the last two years now. So maybe he won't hate me for it. I just wish he'd communicate, but I've been getting some half-assed silent treatment since I refused to let him change his number. "

"Do you want me to talk to him?"

Bronx looked at him with big, desperate eyes. "Would you? Just…he's not speaking to me much. I think he blames me, and it probably is my fault. I was never the man Jules wanted me to be. I'm not even really sad about it. I'm pissed he took off the way he did and how easy it was for him to abandon his son."

Dallas felt that down to his very bones. Here he was, trying desperately to have as many moments as he could with his daughter, and Jules had the balls to leave his own child like he meant nothing. "I have friends, you know. Scary friends. They'll happily track him down and kick his ass if you want," Dallas offered.

Bronx's smile was genuine. "Thanks, but I think the only thing I'll need is help finding a place for me and Luke and a good spot in town to set up a new vet office. And maybe you can buy me a drink when this whole thing is over with."

"I can do that." Dallas squeezed his brother's shoulder, then pushed to his feet. "Let me check in with the kid, and I'll get him to go a little easier on you."

Bronx snorted. "If you can get him to just talk to me, I'll call it a win. But thanks. I think you showing up for him like this has helped."

Dallas shook his head. "It's the least I can do." He hated that Jules was so shitty that Dallas's bare minimum looked like he was some kind of hero. He headed back inside, making his way down the long, narrow hallway before coming to a stop in front of his nephew's room. He lifted his fist, hesitated, then knocked softly. "Hey, kid? Can I come in?"

"Why? Are you leaving?" Lucas called.

"Not yet, but soon. "

There was a long pause. "Fine, come in."

Dallas pushed his way inside and closed the door behind him. Lucas's room was large and sparsely furnished. He had a large bed, a desk, a dresser, and a couple of shelves with Dungeons and Dragons figurines he'd painted over the years. They looked old and a little dusty, and Dallas wondered how many things his nephew had outgrown in the time Dallas hadn't been around to see him.

He hated that.

He hated how isolated his marriage had made him. How much he'd missed.

"Where are you?" Dallas asked.

"Down here," came a voice from a few feet away.

Walking to the foot of the bed, he peered around and saw a sort of nest built with a very large beanbag, several pillows, and two older-looking comforters. Lucas was lying flat on his back, his eyes closed, arms above his head.

"Do I have to get up?" Lucas asked.

Dallas chuckled. "No. Can I come down?"

"Go for it."

He settled himself in the empty space beside his nephew, lying with him shoulder-to-shoulder. They were right under the AC vent, which he appreciated. "So…"

"Please don't ask me how I am," Lucas begged.

Dallas sighed. "I mean, that's kind of my job as your favorite uncle."

Lucas didn't argue. He had other uncles. Jules came from a very large family, but they weren't close, and as far as Dallas knew, his nephew had only met them a handful of times. They were always weird about him anyway. He was blind from birth, and even Jules had taken several years to relax about his son's disability, and even then, he was always awkward whenever it was brought up .

God, he had been a crappy dad, and none of them had wanted to see it.

Running his hands along the divots in the wall, Lucas turned his face toward Dallas. "Well, I'm shitty. And I'm allowed to say shitty because my dad left me."

Dallas winced. "I'm the cool uncle. You can swear all you want. And your dad…" He hesitated because it wasn't a lie. Jules had left him. It just felt so cruel to say aloud.

"He's a dick," Lucas said quietly.

"Yeah. He is."

Lucas turned on his side and curled into himself. "Pop hates me too."

Dallas's eyes widened. "I'm sorry, what? Did he say that?"

"No," Lucas said, sounding defensive. He pushed up a little and raised his chin. "But why wouldn't he? Dad left because of me. He blames me for how shitty our life is now. We're broke now. We're going to lose the house, and it's all my fault."

Dallas blinked in surprise. How the hell could Lucas say that? Bronx thought the sun rose and set on his kid. There was no way he'd let him shoulder the blame. "Why would you think that?"

"Because we fought right before Pop and I went to my stupid tournament. Pop was all pissed off that Dad didn't want to go because he never goes to my school stuff. I mean, I didn't even want him to. He always got so weird when he was at school with me." Lucas went quiet a moment. His eyes opened a fraction, and Dallas saw he wasn't wearing his prosthetics. There was just a faint strip of pinkish-white from his ocular implants. "And a few weeks before that, I heard them arguing about me. Dad kept saying they wouldn't be angry at each other all the time if they just had a normal family. Well, obviously, I'm the only one not normal…"

"Lucas."

His nephew closed his mouth but looked resolved to argue with anything Dallas said.

"Your dad is a shithead. He's always cared about money and status more than he cared about anything else. I'm not going to blow smoke up your ass by saying you're the most important thing to him and that he'll come around. I don't know if he will."

Lucas was quiet a moment, then burst into laughter. "Are you serious ?"

Dallas felt like shit. "Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean?—"

"No." Lucas reached for him and curled his hand in the front of Dallas's shirt the way he used to do when he was really small. The way his own daughter did now, unthinking, searching for comfort. Lucas let out a shuddering breath. "No, that was amazing. Pop's being so careful with me, and no one wants to say the truth out loud. Dad sucks. He's always sucked. I've known it for years. I'm not even really hurt that he left me. I'm pissed off at the way he hurt Pop. I'm pissed off he couldn't be, like, a regular guy who gives a shit about his family."

"Me too."

Lucas smiled and shuffled closer, and Dallas put his arms around him. "He never hugged me, you know."

"I'm gonna fucking deck him in the face if I ever see him again."

Lucas laughed quietly. "Thanks." He fell silent a long moment, then took a deep breath. "I still feel like it was my fault. I bet if I wasn't blind and Pop didn't think I needed this horrible school, Dad would have stayed."

"He wouldn't have. That's just the kind of person he was. He wasn't meant for this life, and we'll probably never know why he stuck around for it." Dallas hesitated, then asked, "Is your school really that bad?"

Lucas shrugged, letting go and rolling onto his back again. He rubbed at his eyelids before dropping his hands to the beanbag and rolling the soft fabric between his fingers. "I mean, it's fine. It's nice to have a school that caters to me, you know? Like, everything's in braille, and people get bullied, sure, but not for using a cane or whatever. But…the world isn't blind."

"No, it's not," Dallas said, not sure where the kid was going with that.

"I'm going to go to college, and hardly anything will be in braille. And guess how many people I'm going to run into who have never met a blind guy before me?"

Ah. Yeah. Okay, Dallas got it. "Probably very few."

"Exactly. I just want to feel like everyone else. I want some kid to make fun of me for not being able to see so I can finally use some of the sweet comebacks I've been working on. I want things to be hard before I get thrown out into the world on my own. I want to know what it's like to navigate all the things I've never had the chance to experience before I have to deal with being a grown-up along with it."

Dallas grinned. "That sounds like a really smart plan."

Lucas smiled back at him, but it didn't last. His face fell after a beat. "And—and I want to not think about Dad for a while. I want to hear Pop smiling again because he's never happy anymore, and he used to be before Dad started letting us both know how miserable we made him. I want something new. Something different. But Dad seems so determined to stay here and make it work, even if it means getting three jobs and making me live at school full-time."

Dallas debated about saying anything because he wasn't certain how sure Bronx was about moving. But he knew his brother was right about the house and about the city. Even with alimony and child support, he couldn't afford to stay.

And if Bronx moved, he'd have a built-in support system, which was something he very clearly didn't have now. But he didn't want to get Lucas's hopes up.

"God, I'm sorry," Lucas said after a beat of silence. "I'm being so selfish."

Dallas frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"I mean, you're divorced now. I heard Pop talking to Auntie Corinne about Audra and how shitty things have been for you, and here I am whining about my problems."

Dallas groaned and pushed himself up to sit, waiting a moment as Lucas followed. They propped themselves up against the wall as the beanbag stuffing settled around them. "First of all, Auntie Corinne is a gossip." She was their mom's sister, closer to their age though, and the family busybody. He wasn't surprised she was all up in Bronx's business. "Second of all, I'm okay with the divorce. I caught Katie in bed with someone else, and we were divorced months before Audra was born. I was glad to see the back of her, to be honest."

Lucas had his head pressed to the wall, and he was rocking it back and forth—something he'd done since he was a very young child. He grinned a little meanly. "No offense, but good. I never liked her. She always yelled at me whenever she talked to me."

Dallas winced. That was true. She never did fully understand how to speak to a blind person. It always got weird, and they always left early. And eventually, Dallas just stopped coming around to make it easier on everyone.

"Well, you won't have to see her again. "

"Or ever," Lucas quipped.

"Use your corny blind jokes on someone else," Dallas said, elbowing him until he laughed. "But seriously, you can dump all your problems on me all you want. I will always, always be here for it."

Lucas sighed. "I just wish I could fix it. Like, I don't really want Dad back. But I wish I could figure out how to make it feel better for Pop."

"I…well." Dallas hesitated, then decided fuck it. Maybe Lucas knowing would be the kick in the ass Bronx needed. "What would you say if your pop decided to sell the house and buy a new one closer to me?"

Lucas straightened, his brows flying up. "You're serious?"

"There's not a blind school where I live—which sounds like that might be a pro instead of a con," Dallas said.

Lucas turned to him. "Like, at all, right? No boarding school three hours away?"

"I don't think so, but even if there is, I don't think your pop wants you that far after all this," Dallas said. "I also know a kid around your age who would be totally willing to show you around."

Lucas wrinkled his nose. "Why are you friends with teenagers?"

"Oh my God, I'm…he's not my friend, you little shit. He's my friend's son. He's going to be a senior next year, and he's super chill. He loves D&D and all that nerdy stuff you used to be into."

"Would he even want to know some dorky junior who can't see?" Lucas said, his voice quiet now.

"Yeah. He would. You two are a lot alike. I don't think a year between you or the fact that you can't see would matter to him. Listen…why don't you ask your pop if you ca n come stay with me for a few weeks this summer. You can meet Gage. Hang out. Get to know the place a little. I know your pop wants you to be happy and to feel safe, and this might be a good way to get him used to the idea of you being out there in the world."

Lucas looked like he was almost afraid to agree but also afraid to disagree. Hope was a dangerous thing, Dallas knew. "If he says no, will you convince him to let me? I can help with the baby. I can clean your house. I can?—"

"Of course I'll convince him. But Lukie, you will never need to earn your keep at my place," Dallas said, pulling his nephew into another hug. "I'd like my daughter to get to know my favorite nephew, and if that's not reason enough, I don't know what is."

"I can't wait to hold her," Lucas said quietly. "And, um, thanks. For this. I needed someone to say all that to, and I don't think I can tell Pop how I'm feeling right now. I don't want to hurt him more than he's already hurting."

"He just needs some time to process. And for what it's worth, he will never, ever blame you."

Lucas held on to the hug longer than he usually did, but eventually, he let go and settled back into his nest. "Call me later?" he asked.

"As soon as I get in." Dallas understood he was being dismissed, so he ruffled his nephew's hair, then let himself out. His own life wasn't the most neat and tidy. Things were better now that he had his dad group, and now that he'd settled into some sort of routine with Audra—even if it wasn't nearly enough time.

And he would fight Katie on it. He had no plans to roll over and just let her take his daughter from him. He just needed a bit more time, a bit more patience, and the strength of his newfound family beside him .

He found Bronx on the patio where he'd left him and sat down. "Your son's going to ask to come stay for the summer if you're not already moved by then."

Bronx lifted a brow at him. "And I should say yes because…"

"Because it's time to let him navigate the world on his own," Dallas told him. "He understands you more than you think he does. He's smart. And he's capable. Tell him the truth about your situation. Talk to him. Treat him like the almost adult he is."

Bronx covered his face and let out a shaky breath. "Promise me I'm not going to fuck this up."

Dallas reached across the table and squeezed his brother's arm. "You're not going to fuck this up. You have me. Get your house in order, then get the fuck out of this town. My life might be a hot mess right now, but it's got room for you both, okay? So let's do this. You and me."

Bronx looked at him and nodded. "Yeah, okay. You and me."