Page 2 of The Only Heart that Matters

After my angry drive and fast fuck were over the monster inside me was still at large. He was on the warpath. For a solidweek I drank, I worked out, and I fucked, trying to get her and the reason I was so upset out of my head and my heart.

It didn’t work.

The truth of the matter is, I’ve been out of my mind in love with Mia Powell for most of my life.

The problem is she’s off-limits.

Not to mention, she doesn’t see me that way.

After all these years, I’ve gotten good at keeping my feelings at bay, but that night they all rushed to the surface. A blind rage different from any I had experienced before, and trust me, I had felt rage many times before, took control.

Thinking back to that night makes me wonder if that’s what’s gotten under her skin. Is the asshole deadbeat who’d knocked her up here today? Is she nervous and looking as uncomfortable as she is because he’s right here in plain sight? Would he have the balls to show up?

I’ll never understand how a man could be such a prick he won’t acknowledge his own child.

It’s a small town. There’s no reason to keep him a secret if he isn’t someone we all know.

Scouring the room for someone out of place, I come up empty. Most of the men here, other than my brother, Callen, and his best friend, Owen, have been old enough for AARP magazine subscriptions for years now.

Nobody fits the bill.

Shifting my focus back to Mia, I note how different she looks today than she did making her announcement at my parents’ table. It’s not because her hair now hangs down the middle of her back and is littered with caramel highlights. It’s that the indignant defiance she used as a protective shell back then is no longer needed. Her insecurity, which she did her best to hide from those who knew her so well, is no longer present. She is aspectacular mother, and she has nothing to prove to anyone. It looks good on her.

She has this sexy indifference about her that fucking calls to me. It’s a call I can’t answer but is always buzzing in the atmosphere when she’s nearby. But right now, I want to know what has her so on edge. The need to take away her worries so intense it’s building pressure in my chest.

“Can we get all the Powells and McKinnons in the living room for a quick picture, please?” her mom, Joy, yells over the crowd.

Mia lifts Sawyer from his spot on the floor, where he had been playing with a pile of toys, and I follow her to the other room.

Grace, who owns the cafe that Mia works at, squishes us all together so we fit on her phone's camera screen and says, “Okay, everyone sayfamily!”

Everyone shouts “Family!” through their smiles.

However, I can’t quite get the word out, but I do plaster a fake smile to my face because I am glad to be here celebrating my favorite two-year-old on his birthday, but I refuse to think of his mom as family.

We aren’t blood relatives, but I would do anything for her just like I would for my mom, brothers, and sister. But she isn’t like a sister to me.

She never will be.

Chapter Two

Mia

The biting cold air burns my lungs, but I relish the life it brings to my body. Anything is better than the numbness I’ve had to enlist today to push away my feelings. The crowd inside the house is overwhelming, and now is not the time to let myself break down.

Leaning on the railing of my parents’ deck, I look over their acre of land and Goose Hollow Lake. Lifting my face to the sky, I let the near-freezing air cool my heated face. Sure, it means I’ll need to apply a healthy dose of moisturizer tonight, but it’s worth it to escape the facade going on inside.

“I wish you were here, big brother. Not only would Sawyer be your favorite person, but man, do I need you right now,” I say to the gray winter clouds above missing my brother, Chris, more today than I have in a while.

My baby boy is two years old today. It should be a joyous occasion, but everything about this party feels like a farce.

My parents made sure of that.

I don’t even know who they are anymore. I get that they’re entering the next season of their lives, and they deserve to live it to the fullest, however, and wherever that may be. But Florida? And by the end of the month?

Looking out over the lake, childhood memories filled with laughter fill my head. “Chris, they’re selling our home. A few weeks from now, it will all be gone. Can you even imagine life without this place?”

They’ve turned Sawyer’s birthday party into a going away party, only nobody knows that’s what this really is. They sent separate invitations once they decided they were moving without even telling me. I didn’t find out until a customer at the restaurant said they couldn’t wait for the party. The party I hadn’t invited them to. Half the people here have never even met Sawyer.

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