Page 10 of Salvaged Hearts

“Wouldn’t miss it, kiddo.” I resisted ruffling her hair, reminding myself she had yet to step out on that stage. Although it appeared to be waxed to her head, so maybe it would’ve been fine.

Mattie’s bright, beaming face made up for the irritation on my Uncle Reggie’s when I told him I wouldalsonot be making it to the Art Museum’s gala tonight. “She’s ten. She won’t even remember these childish recital things once she takes her place here,” he’d grumbled.

But I remembered.

So did Ollie.

And Mattie had twice the brain I ever did as a kid.

Reginald Hart was…old fashioned, to put it lightly. Quick to please but just as easy to anger, he’d stepped in to guide Ollie and my unexpected transition into leadership when Dad was killed in that accident.

To my chagrin, he was currently our acting Chairman of The Board despite attempting to hold the position from the sidelines. As the senior member of our family, Reggie expected our generation to hold ourselves to the same scrupulous standards he and my dad had been held to, our feet forever to the fire.

Growing up, I would have killed to have either of them show up to support me at a single football game or hockey match. Ollie and I both vowed to be different for his little ballerina, even if it killed us.

When Beau was big enough for hobbies, we’d have his back too, whenever humanly possible. But if we could both buck up and take our spaces in a company we never wanted for the little girl that changed both our lives, we could certainly carve out three hours on a Saturday evening.

It was with that end in mind that I crushed her against me as she giggled, throwing her head back as she attempted to wriggle free. “Good luck out there tonight. I’ll be the one whistling.”

“Uncle Grey!” she scolded. Her next words were rapidly hissed, “You can’t say good luck the night of a performance!”

“What? I thought that was just theater.”

“We are in a theater,” she pointed out as if it were obvious.

“My bad. Break a leg, or tear a tutu, or whatever you say in dance.”

“Merde!” Oliver’s voice had me glancing up to where he was standing with our little bruiser on his hip. Beau was—fittingly enough—the perfect image of his namesake. Dark, tousled curls sat over olive skin and glacial blue eyes. He was built like a little tank, still holding onto that squishy toddler look.

“Fun fact. Merde means shit in French. But the ballet uses it to ward off bad luck,” Mattie stated sagely, not noticing as my brow arched.

Glaring at my brother, I muttered, “And you wonder where she gets her mouth.” Like it wasn’t bad enough that she swore in one language, Ollie taught her in at least two.

“Oh,Idon’t wonder anything,” he argued, leaning forward with a bright smile to wrap me in a hug, which I returned quickly. Giggling ballerinas sprinted past us in a cloud of hairspray and glitter as some woman came over the speakers to usher our dancers back to their teachers.

“Hey, big man!” I said as I straightened, giving Beau a squeeze.

“Hey, Unca’ Grey.”

“Beau is very excited to see sister dance,” Oliver supplied with a smirk, though my nephew already looked tooexhaustedto be here.Me too, kid. Me too.

We walked Mattie to her room and then quickly found and filed into our chairs in the amphitheater, where Beau immediately began bouncing on the spring-loaded seat. Kid couldn’t hold still if his life depended on it.

Glancing around, I sighed when I didn’t spot that ridiculous black-and-white hair. My brother’s ex had one chunk of her onyx hair bleached nearly silver. I didn’t understand the statement, but it made her easy to spot. “No sign ofCruella?”

“And there won’t be,” Oliver muttered, elbowing me in the ribs. His go-to way of telling me to shut the hell up. But Beau wasn’t paying us any mind at the moment. “Spa week,” he added in explanation, though it only made me loathe her more. Some humans shouldn’t have a right to procreate. Mrs. Hitler, for example, probably should have just swallowed.

Carly was another one. If it didn’t help Carly, it didn’t happen. End of story.

I could never regret her swindling Ollie into her life because it gave us these two, but they deserved so much more than she would ever give them. Deserved more than a couple of brothers who could wield keyboards like weapons but had no clue how to raise half-decent humans.

“Can’t say I’m shocked,” I muttered, crossing an ankle over my knee as I leaned back in my chair to examine the recital program. A moment later, the lights dimmed, and the music began as the director of the academy took her spot at center stage, and the evening began.

When Matilda’s class finally took their turn, I found myself more emotional than any man should be while watching ten-year-olds spin and leap across a stage. But that little girl, puttingher whole heart into her first solo, was solely responsible for my being here to witness it in the first place.

In the months after the accident that flipped my world upside down, her big, expectant eyes, quirky kindergarten anecdotes, and absolutely absurd knock-knock jokes made me remember how to smile.

As she leaped over the center of the stage with her little chin lifted and hands outstretched like a proud purple bird, I remembered her leaping in front of me before spinning to grin back with that cherub’s face. Egging me on—first in that damn wheelchair, then on the crutches. Hell, it was Mattie who decided it was a game to keep my cane just out of reach, forcing me to move my rickety ass between PT appointments. Not even her daddy could’ve kept me on this side of death like she did.

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