Page 83 of Ace of Spades

“Just finishing up some sketches.” I hear him scratching on some paper, and he pauses. “Why?”

“Wanna go to the lighthouse?”

He’s quiet for a moment.

“You okay?”

No. Not really.

But I don’t say that. I just say, “I feel like exploring.”

That makes him laugh softly.

“Give me ten minutes.”

* * *

The wind bites at my cheeks as we walk, our breath curling in little white clouds that disappear just as fast as they form.

Theo keeps pace beside me, hood pulled up, hands jammed into the pockets of his worn flannel-lined jacket.

We don’t talk at first. Just walk. The sea crashes below in steady, uneven rhythms, and the lighthouse looms like a half-remembered dream against the darkening sky.

“I used to come here a lot,” Theo says eventually, eyes fixed ahead. “Before everything got... complicated.”

I look at him.

“Complicated how?” I ask.

He kicks at a rock on the path, watches it tumble into the grass.

“When my mom got clean, she thought it meant we could go back to the way things were. Like pressing a reset button on all the years she disappeared. But it doesn’t work like that.”

I glance at him, heart tightening.

“Evie?”

He nods.

“Yeah. She tried. But when dad had the show, the fame got to her, you know? She started getting offers. Hanging with the wrong people. Dad worked around the clock and it felt like he was never around anymore. She was just… lost, I guess.”

There’s a long pause. The kind that feels like it’s building to something bigger.

“Josie’s not his,” he says, voice quieter now. “Biologically, I mean.”

I stop walking.

He keeps going with the momentum until he notices I’m not next to him. He looks back at me.

“I… I had no idea,” I say, mouth open in shock.

“Yeah. She’s the kid my mom had with another guy—one of the ones she was with when she was deep in the shit. He bailed before Josie was even born. Dad stepped in.”

“Oh.”

It’s all I can manage to say as everything starts to make more sense.

“He didn’t have to, of course,” Theo says. “But he did. Because he’s Levi. Because he’s built like that—loyal to a fault, even when it fucking guts him.”

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