Page 61 of Sealed in Ink

“He wanted to tell you, Brad. Right away.”

“Is that true?” Brad says.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does. Is it?”

Rust sighs and glances at me. “Yeah, I did.”

“I was being a coward,” I say. “If I’d told you earlier, we could’ve avoided so much.”

Brad rests his head in his hands, letting out a long breath. I know that kind of breath. I’ve heard it before. It’s the same way he sighed when the basement flooded. It’s a “How are we going to fix this?”breath.

“Let’s talk practicalities,” Brad says. “There’s more than us three involved now. Are you two going to live together? Get married? What’s the long-term plan here?” He asks the questions almost aggressively, like he’s battling his natural angry response. “Or haven’t you gotten that far?”

“In an ideal world?” Rust says.

“Sure.”

“In an ideal world, we somehow make this okay between the three of us. Then I ask you a question, Brad, permission, andif you say yes, Mary and I stay together forever. We raise our child, and maybe—hopefully—we have more kids. We stay loyal to each other. We never stray. We never even think about it. We accept that we own each other. That the storm changed us.”

His voice grows husky, my tattoo pulsing. His tone is almost more emotional than I can believe coming from him. He’s never sounded like this before. Not even the other times we’ve shared together. This is a fresh layer of raw love.

“And we go on with our lives. We let the world judge us. They say I’m a creep and that Mary’s a gold digger. I don’t care. If I knew the three of us were on good terms, I’d let the rest of the world burn. Family, Brad…” Rust gets choked up. “We’d be family.”

Brad sits forward, head tilted in shock at Rust’s words. Rust is clenching his fist, fighting off a wave of agony. He seems partially in shock from the news about his dad.

“Rust? Should I tell him?” I ask Rust in a whisper.

Rust tries to laugh and make it sound savage, like he doesn’t care, but he’s over it already. “I don’t think it’s relevant.”

“Rust!”

“What are we talking about?” Brad demands.

“It’s been one hell of a day,” Rust says with another forced laugh. “On the drive here, I got a call. My dad finally kicked the bucket. Got himself into a fight, tried to pull a weapon, and got it used against him.”

“Jesus, Rust,” Brad whispers. “That’s awful.”

“You know he deserved it.”

“I know you had it bad,” Brad says, “but I never knew what he did.”

“Pimped out my mom. He abused her when I could hear. He hit me before I got big enough to defend myself.”

I can’t help it. Reaching out, I grab onto Rust’s wrist, squeezing so he can feel the support blazing through me, the never-ending love. “I’m so sorry, Rust,” I whisper.

He just shrugs. “It is what it is. I’m not interested inthatfamily. I’m interested in the family we’ve got here.” He lets my hand go, clearly not wanting to show affection in front of Brad.

We sit in silence for what feels like hours but could be minutes. I can feel Brad thinking, the synapses in his brain firing. It’s like I can feel him imagining all the possible futures, the ones that end in disaster, the ones that end in a warm glow we’ll never let go.

“You’re not just saying all this?” Brad breaks the silence, leaning forward, looking at Rust and then me and then atus, like we’re a couple. “Maybe you had a wild night, lost control, and the baby came along. Maybe you’re saying this because you know it’s the only way I could ever accept it. If this is crap, I deserve to know. There’s been enough lying.”

“It’s the truth,” Rust says in his deep, rumbling voice.

“It is,” I back him up. “I love him. He loves me. We’re going to do right by our baby. We can do it.” I can’t hold the tears back anymore. “Just think how happy they’ll be, Brad, having an uncle like you. An uncle with so much love to give.”

“Do you think you’re going to be togetherforever?” Brad asks. “In ten, twenty, thirty years?”

---