Page 42 of Every Sunset
I gave myself another few seconds of the peace I felt with them, then took a deep breath and stepped back, forcing both of them to release me.
“I should go,” I sighed reluctantly.
“Why don’t you stay with us tonight? I can go and get Max so he can stay here too? I don’t want you to be alone after everything,” Logan offered, but I was already shaking my head.
“No. I need to go home and handle this myself, but thank you, both of you, for the offer, and for being there for Max and I tonight. I’m not sure I’ve ever had anyone have my back before and it….well, it was nice,” I admitted.
“You can always count on us to have your back now, sweetheart,” Logan promised.
“I know,” I nodded with a shaky smile.
“I want you to call us of you need anything tonight, okay? No matter the time. You and Max aren’t alone anymore,” Maddox said firmly.
I smiled even more shakily as tears filled my eyes. “Where did you guys even come from?” I sniffled. “You’re way too good and kind to be real.”
“We’re real, baby, and we’re all yours if you want us,” Maddox reminded me, and I knew I was blushing as heat filled me at his words.Mine. That did sound like perfection, didn’t it?
“I should…” I floundered and just pointed a thumb behind me in the direction of my cottage, having no idea how to even reply to Maddox’s proclamation.
“Go, sweetheart. We’re close if you need us,” Logan told me. I managed a nod, then I turned and walked shakily around the house, disappearing almost as fast as my son had, in my haste to get away. I knew exactly what I wanted, but taking it was not an easy decision, and talking about my feelings felt impossible. It was easier to run away from that issue, and try to deal with my son instead, for that night at least.
There was just one problem with that theory though, I realized as I walked into my home. I didn’t want to face Max. The things he had said had ripped through me and I was terrified he’d have more to say. I knew I had failed him, especially in the last weeks, but to hear him actually say that – to know he knew I was useless as his one and only parent – it was like he was reaching inside of me and squeezing my heart in his hand.
It hurt so much to know absolutely that I had failed in my one and only focus in life for the last sixteen years – to do everything required to always protect my son and give him the carefree childhood I never got to have. I had fought so hard, for so long to give him that. I had done everything I could to make sure he always had a safe, comfortable home to feel secure in, and good, healthy food in his stomach. I had showered him with love andaffection so that he would never know the terror of realizing you had no one to love you in your life. I had given him everything I had to give, always praying that I would be enough for him. Now I knew the truth. It had all been for nothing because my son saw me for the fraud I was. When he had needed help that night he’d reached out to a man he had known for mere weeks, over calling me and that was a wakeup call I had never wanted to receive.
CHAPTER 17
LOGAN
As I suspected he would be, Max was already in the gym at our place, working out hard when I walked in there early the next morning.
I’d barely slept all night, worried about Anna, and constantly checking my phone in case she tried to call or text me. I had seen how hurt she was by the words her son threw at her without thought the night before. I had seen the way he had just confirmed ever insecurity and fear she had been carrying on her shoulders since the day I met her – that she had done something to hurt, or fail her son in whatever had happened to them both before they came to us.
I had been desperate to step in the night before, but I’d done my best to hold it back not wanting to interfere and upset either Anna or Max further, but the things that kid had said to his mom last night were out of order, and I was hoping Max had come to the same conclusion overnight.
“Hey,” I greeted Max as I walked in and sat down on the weight bench.
Our gym took up a huge space on the lower ground floor of the house. The rooms had been used for storage when we moved in, but knowing Maddox needed to do extensive physio to get strongagain after the attack, and having a love of the gym myself, I had knocked the rooms through and had them transformed into the large space I now sat in.
There were no windows, but one wall was lined with floor to ceiling mirrors to make the space lighter. I had bought every piece of equipment I liked to work out on, and a few others I thought would aid Maddox in getting his strength back in the beginning, then later allow him to build more upper body muscle to help him learn to live with his amputation. Now he had his strength back, and had learnt to move well with the prosthesis, he mainly used the gym to work out his anger, and some days his anxiety.
It had been a wise investment, since both Madd and I spent more time in that gym than we did the rest of the house. My anger at what had been done to Maddox had been vented hundreds of times in that room, as had his, I was sure. Maddox perfected walking on his prosthesis in there, then he worked his ass off to get as strong as he could to make sure he would always be ready for anything. I hated that he always feared where the next attack would come from after what he’d been through, and I hated knowing that he likely always would, but he’d been better since Anna arrived with us. She had this way of calming and centering him in a way that no one or nothing else could. She was good for him – for both of us, actually.
I was falling for her in a way I had never even thought was possible. She pulled me in, not just with her beauty and her perfect body, but with her strength, and her vulnerability. I loved the fire she had within, and I had seen that shine the night before as she defended herself and Max from a guy who had been twice her size. She was brave, and she was street smart like I had never known a woman to be. In contrast to all of that she could also bevulnerable at times, and I enjoyed the fact she needed me from time to time. I liked to be needed, and I had a feeling that the longer Madd and I knew Anna, the more she would allow herself to lean on us. I not only wanted her to do that, I needed it, and I knew my brother did too. We were both protectors at heart, and we had missed having someone to care for and protect. In short, she was my ideal woman and I wanted her. The fact that Maddox was head over heels for her too, just sealed the deal. She was everything we had always wanted.
“If you’re gonna lecture me, don’t bother. I already know I was a complete dick with my mom last night. I’m going to apologize when she wakes up,” Max told me, pulling me from my thoughts. I looked over to him as he stepped off the treadmill, which he’d been running flat out on when I walked in. He grabbed a towel and wiped his sweat soaked face, then sat on the bench beside me.
“How’s your face feeling?” I asked as I pointed to the bruise that had turned purple over night. It spread across his cheek, right up to his eye, but it looked less swollen than it had the night before.
“It’s good. Mom brought me and ice pack last night.”
“Did you talk to her?”
“No,” he shook his head, then moved to rest his elbows on his knees, lowering his head. “I was still mad. I think she was too.”
“I doubt that she was mad, Max. I think she was more hurt. She only did what she did last night because she was terrified for you when you called, then she got there and saw you hurt. I think that that asshole calling you a troublemaker, when you’d been one of the guys stopping the fight, was the last straw for her,” I explained.
“I know. I fucked up,” he sighed deeply. “That guy called her trailer trash, and not only did I fail to stand up for her, but I also fucking agreed with him, Logan!”
