Chapter Thirty

CHAPTER THIRTY

Parrish

One month later

“Hey, baby.” Riven sat beside me at the outdoor table we’d brought over from my house and placed under one of the trees. It was silly that we stayed here rather than moving into my place, but Riven needed to be close to Betsy, and to be honest, I liked our little garage apartment—liked that it was smaller, more intimate, liked knowing that Betsy was close and being able to share meals with her.

“Hey, you.”

“Are you okay?” Riven fingered a lock of hair on my forehead.

It had been an interesting month. There had been an investigation into everything that had gone down, complete with Becca turning over a shit ton of recordings. We didn’t have all the details from those, of course. That would all come out at Les’s, Dad’s, and Uncle Bill’s trials, but for now the three of them were locked up, and with the information they had on them—drug trafficking and plotting Riven’s murder, they would hopefully go to prison for the rest of their lives.

The cameras had helped out. They’d showed my dad and crew on Riven’s property. As far as the authorities knew, when they went to blackmail Riv into the drug deal, they were really just threatening Riven that they would hurt us. The day everything went down, the cops believed Riven had been blackmailed to meet Rex and he’d gone because he was trying to protect us. Really, it had been a setup for Rex to kill him, one that Frank, Bill, and Les all took part in. There was no evidence that Riven had planned to take part in a drug deal that day or do anything else illegal, so he was in the clear.

And me? I wasn’t getting charged for Rex. They knew I’d killed him but that it had been an accident while I was trying to save Riven’s life. I’d told them I’d heard Riven went to meet Rex, and I was worried, so I’d followed him. When I saw the gun, I’d taken action. It didn’t escape my notice that Riven had gone to prison for self-defense, and I hadn’t, but then, the situations were different. They’d plotted to kill Riven. They’d also been buying a shit ton of heroin. And while there were likely some recordings that could have gotten Riven into trouble for planning to get drugs that day, I was pretty sure Becca had taken care of that for us so they never saw the light of day.

“Are you okay?” Riven asked again, making me realize I hadn’t answered him.

“Yes. I’m perfect.” That might be exaggerating some, but I was okay. Maybe I should be struggling more with what happened to Rex or my dad and uncle, but I wasn’t. There had been a heaviness weighing me down my whole life, and now it was gone, making me feel like I could breathe, giving me hope I had pretended to have before but hadn’t.

Every time it hit me that I had taken a life, I reminded myself of all the bad things Rex had done, and that if I hadn’t ended up killing him, he would have taken out Riven. That wasn’t something I could live with. The nightmares I’d been having, which didn’t happen often, would hopefully go away.

“It’s okay if you’re not,” he said gently. I knew Riven still blamed himself for everything—that’s the kind of man he was—but I spent every day trying to tell him it wasn’t his fault, that everything was worth it, the same way he didn’t let me sink into the darkness of what we had been through. Funny that Riven had given in to the pain of our lives before, but now he was actively trying to make sure I didn’t lose myself to it. It was hard not to wait for the other shoe to drop. I knew Riven felt the same. Not much in our lives had gone our way, but so far this had.

“I know,” I told him.

“You’re a good man.”

“Isn’t that my line?” I teased. “How do you think Wayne is going to do?” We’d taken him to rehab—drugs, alcohol, and gambling had been causing him more struggles than I’d known before all this had gone down. Wayne had made mistakes, and like the rest of us, he was flawed and imperfect, but he wasn’t all bad either. Sometimes people conflated mistakes with badness without taking into consideration how messy or hard life was.

Some people deserved another chance.

Some didn’t.

To me, Wayne was one of the former.

“I think he’ll be okay. You wouldn’t let me believe otherwise.” I chuckled, just as the sound of wheels on gravel broke through our conversation. We both turned to see Becca’s car pull into the driveway.

Betsy came out of the house and waved as if expecting them. Betsy didn’t know the real details of what happened that day either. We didn’t want to put that on her. She knew what everyone else did. The rest was between me, Riven, and Becca.

Bec and I still hadn’t talked much since her phone call, just her telling us she would take care of us and saying she would contact me when she was ready.

I stood, Riven lingering behind me as if unsure what to do. Becca got out, followed by Lainey. Once Becca had Sophie out of her car seat, Betsy called out, “Are the two of you gonna come play with me? I have snacks!”

“Yay!” the girls said, Lainey taking Sophie’s hand and leading her toward the house. She was such a good big sister. She’d had to take on more responsibility than most little girls her age. She’d been through a lot, and she would remember it in ways Sophie wouldn’t. I hoped like hell we hadn’t hurt those girls, hadn’t scarred them the way the rest of us were.

“Hey,” Becca said when she reached us.

“Hey.” I wanted to hug her so bad, wanted to tell her it would be okay, but I waited, letting her run the show.

“I called my aunt. She was happy to hear from me. The girls and I are going to Washington to live with her. She has a house on a lake.”

“Wow, that’s awesome, Bec. I’m incredibly proud of you.” And I was, but I couldn’t help wondering what that meant for my relationship with them.

The silence weighed on us, no one knowing what to say, but it was Riven who broke it. “Thank you for what you did for us. For what you did for me. I’ll never be able to repay you for that, and I’m sorry I wasn’t better for you, that I couldn’t be the man you deserved—and you do deserve the whole damn world, Bec. I hope you know that.”

She swiped at the tears leaking from her eyes. “Just be the man Parrish deserves, okay? That’s all I ask. Be the man I’ve always known you are, and be good to Parrish.”

“I promise.”

“Bec…” I began, but she held a hand up.

“I know,” she replied softly. “I love you too. And no matter what happens, you’ll always be my best friend, and you’ll always be their uncle. I’m sorry I let Rex take them away from you, and no matter where we live, that will never happen again.”

“Thank you. God, thank you so much.” She stepped into my arms, and I hugged her to me, brushed my fingers through her hair while she cried.

“I want more, Parrish. For the first time in my life, I want more, and I’m going to fight to have it.”

There were no words for how that made me feel. “You’ll get it. No one deserves it more.”

We stood there for a moment, leaning on each other, loving each other. She was my family and always would be.

“Will you go with me? Drive up to Washington with us?”

“Yes. God yes.” There was nothing I wanted more.

She peeked over at Riven. “You can come too. They should get to know their uncle’s boyfriend, but I’ll understand if you don’t want to.”

“I’d love to, but I don’t think I can. Not with being on parole. It means the world to me that you asked, though.” Riven had spent a few days in jail, getting arrested the day Rex was shot. Because he was on parole and was at the scene of someone being shot, they’d locked him up until they made sure he hadn’t done anything illegal. This time it had been me there to pick him up, waiting to take him home.

“I’m sorry,” Becca replied.

“It’s okay.”

“You can go inside and see them now,” I told him, wanting Riven to know those little girls I loved so much.

He nodded, and we went to the house.

Becca, Lainey, and Sophie stayed all day, eating dinner with us and hanging out. It was incredible seeing Riven with kids. He was a little awkward with them because he hadn’t been around many kids, but he did well with them.

We spent the whole next weekend helping Becca and the girls pack. I rented a U-Haul for them, and we were going to tow her car. I was able to get the time off to drive up with them.

The property was great, and her aunt was wonderful. I could tell how much she wanted them there, and as much as I would miss them, I knew this was what was best for them. I would visit and hoped we could get to the point where Riven could visit too.

I took a rental car back home, and it was close to ten when I pulled up. Riven was waiting outside, but he wasn’t smoking. I hadn’t seen him with a cigarette at all the past month.

I got out of the car, and he pulled me straight into his arms. Our mouths met immediately, and Riven took me inside and fucked me hard and dirty, the way I loved.

We wrapped our naked bodies around each other, sweaty and sated. “You’re my dream,” Riven told me. “Having you, a life, a future. That’s my dream. Me and you and that little house on the East Coast we talked about. We’re gonna make that happen.”

I smiled into his neck. “Yeah, we are.”