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She grasps his forearm. “Not yet. Let him chill.” Drives her nuts when people press her to talk and she’s not ready. She watches Josh through the window and her heart tugs. Poor kid.

“He needs his dad, not me.” Lucas gives her a murderous grin. “Got Ethan’s number?”

She flips him off.

Lucas chuckles. He jams his feet into his work boots and crouches on the floor to tie them. “What does he mean when he says Lily’s gone?”

“I think he thinks she’s dead.”

“I know, you said that. I’m not convinced.” Lucas grunts, standing. He picks up his sweatshirt and throws it on his shoulder. “He doesn’t know what happened to her.”

She hopes he’s right. “What makes you think so?”

He shrugs. “Gut feeling. I’ll sit with him for a bit, see if he tells me anything, then I got to get back to work.”

Olivia pulls her hair off her face. Lucas is right. She shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Josh confuses words. Lily could know he’s here. She could still show up.

She walks with Lucas to the door. “Thanks for trying.”

“Anytime.” He opens the front door. “Hey, how’s Blaze?”

She quirks a brow. “Like you care?” His grip tightens on the knob and she glances away. Yeah, that wasn’t nice of her.

“Sorry. It’s over.” Or she thought they were. Blaze sent two texts before she woke this morning. She deleted them without reading. After the way he left last night and what he said to her, what more could he want?

“Huh. I liked you guys together. Well, good luck with Ethan.” He claps her shoulder.

“Go to hell.”

The door shuts on his laughter.

CHAPTER 8

LUCAS

Lucas settles onto the porch step beside the kid. Josh scoots over, making room, and, face averted, he roughly drags his sweatshirt sleeves across his eyes and under his nose. His jaw tightens and lips thin as he pretends not to cry.

I get it, kid.

There were many nights as a teen when Lucas had to fake a smile so his parents could feign life was good. That their underage son hadn’t been sentenced for stealing beer with the handgun his friend had brought to the scene of the crime. Or that the other crime committed behind bars never took place. Well, hate to break it to them. What the Carsons let people see was fake news. His upbringing was not a fucking Hallmark movie as his parents wanted everyone to believe.

Josh takes one of those deep post-cry inhales where the lungs sputter like a tailpipe. Lucas starts talking because he doesn’t know what else to do to put the kid at ease. He yammers on about Lily and Olivia and growing up on the water in Seaside Cove, which was cool. He kayaked and surfed after school. He still hits the water when he can.

He has no idea if Josh understands. He’s rambling. But the kid seems to be listening. He likes the pictures on his phone when Lucas shows him. He laughs at some of Lucas’s stupid stories from when he played Pee Wee football and he and his teammates ran around the field like bobbleheads with their enormous helmets. And when Lucas tiresof his own stories, he prompts Josh to return to the house, hating what the kid must be going through, his emotions close to what Lucas experienced. Fear recognizes fear.

“Check on your aunt. She won’t admit it, but she’s worried about you.”

He gives Josh a fist bump and waits until he returns to the house. The instant the door closes, the smile he Gorilla-Glued to his face vanishes. He ambles to his truck, settles in the seat, not bothering to clip the belt, and drives off. He makes it two blocks. He jerks the truck to the side of the road and kicks open his door. He walks round the front and vomits in the gutter.

“Fuck.”

Lily.

Her son looks so much like her at that age it hurt to look at him. Lily shadowed Lucas everywhere. She’d wait for him after school and he’d walk home with her. She sat on the floor at his feet doing homework while he watched TV. She’d wait for him at the dock until he returned from his morning row.

Lucas swipes the back of his hand across his mouth and looks up. An elderly woman watering her lawn, the green hose hanging like a limp dick from her hand, glares at him, her mouth pinched like a wrinkly asshole. Oh, yeah. He isn’t hitting approval ratings with her anytime soon.

A toddler on a trike has stopped nearby. Her little feet push against the sidewalk, rolling the trike back and forth. She points at him. “Mommy, that man’s sick.”

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