Page 83 of Quietly Falling
I can’t keep living in the past—can’t stop myself from being happy.
Kicking my truck door open, I breathe a sigh of relief at being back in Blackstone Falls.
At beinghome.
Mason holds his arms wide and I don’t fight him as I step into his embrace, the adrenaline letdown almost immediate as we stand in the field, the fire crackling behind us.
“Fuck.”
“Let it out,” he says, pulling back and bracing his hands on my shoulders. It feels like it’s just us even though I know we’re not alone.“Just say it, man, whatever it is,” Mason says, the confidence in his tone making me believe that I can have a chance.
A real one.
He did it…but can I?
Can I say it? For so long I’ve kept it locked in the deepest part of my soul. The idea of making my own family. A wife and kids and a life full of happiness and love. I want it so bad it’s paralyzing. Sure, Ella and I had talked about it, but that existed in the time and space before reality had crept in.
Before we had anything to focus on but each other.
“What if something happens to me? To Ella. I don’t want any kid to ever go through what I went through.” I stare into his eyes. “What we went through.”
“I won’t let it happen.” The declaration is fierce, but it’s not Mason who speaks the words. It’s Montana, his expression more serious than I’ve ever seen it.
“Neither will I,” Jensen says, standing at his shoulder.
“I won’t let it either,” Archer agrees.
“And they’ll all have to get through me,” Mason declares, bringing my attention back to him. “You’ve always been five steps ahead our whole life—preparing and making plans—keeping us safe and fed and better than we were the day before. But these last few years you’ve been sleeping.” Spreading his arms wide, he continues, “Look around you, brother. We’re home. We scraped and saved and you didn’t stop pushing until we were able to finally breathe. Look around.”
I do.
Faces of the guys that have become my friends stare back at me, but it’s not just them. I can almost picture their girlfriends and wives and the kids standing here too.
Family.
I’d resisted so long the idea that we could ever be able to put down roots. Then I’d seen Mason and Lana get together and build a relationship, and acknowledged a hundred little pieces of a life.
But I had been sleeping.
Because it felt like a dream—pockets of happiness that never seemed to last.
Waking up every day and going through the motions, just waiting for the other shoe to drop like it always does. And it had, hadn’t it?
Daryl being granted a new trial had bolted me out of going through the motions, but instead of waking up, it’d set me straight into survival mode—a manic state fueled by adrenaline and a lifetime of being let down.
I’d ignored every hand that had been held out to me in the last few years, every thoughtful gesture and every flicker of hope that this time could be different. The Thayers had never been anything but kind, but I couldn’t see it—couldn’ttrust it.
Until Hank and Sorren had shoved me into the back of an SUV and taken me to Vetted Paws.
They hadn’t let me hide.
Forced me to let them help.
Because justice for Audrey is more important than my pride.
And yet it took until this moment, standing in front of my brother, to realize that we made it. That I made it.
At a bonfire like so many before, with not just my brother, but mybrothers. Because they’d proven their loyalty a thousand times over.
