I entered the hallway. Clarke was on the floor, unmoving, face down.
I hurried toward him, my breath labored, and dropped to my knees next to him. “Hey, buddy. Hold on. I’ve got you. Cooper?” I yelled out his name, my voice hoarse, in case he could hear me. I didn’t have a visual on him. He wasn’t in the hallway.
The ringing in my ears began to settle into a dull background noise.
Clarke groaned and moved his leg a fraction of an inch.Thank Christ. He was alive.
“I’m just going to roll you over,” I told him, “so I can see what we’re dealing with.”
Shouted voices came from the front door.
I rolled Clarke over carefully. His groan squeezed something inside me, the resulting pain worse than the physical one from my injury.
Blood flowed from the open wound in his belly.Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I covered it with my hands, attempting to stop the flow of blood. “It’s gonna be okay. You’re gonna be okay.” The lie tasted sour in my mouth.
Agony contorted his face, and my insides crumpled. It should have been me. I didn’t have a wife and kids waiting for me at home—but Clarke did.
“You’re gonna be okay,” I hadtold him again and again and again, but I didn’t know if the words were for him or for me or for his family.
I white-knucklethe edge of the park bench with both hands, fighting to suck air into my lungs, fighting to keep the memory of that day from my face.
What do you see?my old therapist’s voice says in my head.
Peony on the swing. Her sweet smile. My mother. Poppy…
“You okay, son?”
I drag my gaze to Dad, abruptly ending the therapy exercise I didn’t want to do anyway. “Yeah, I’m good.” I reluctantly release my grip on the weathered wood of the bench.
“How is the book going?”
“It’s going. It’ll probably be a struggle for a few days. Peony, Athena, and I need to come up with a schedule that works for all of us. But at least the plot isn’t giving me any problems.”For now.
“She’s a pretty thing. The nanny.” He doesn’t say it in a leering sort of way. It’s more like he has correctly guessed Mom’s matchmaking thoughts.
I roll my eyes. I’ve been so overwhelmed with everything, I haven’t paid attention to what Athena looks like, beyond my initial impression when I found her and Peony on my doorstep. “I’m just happy to have her around to help make everything smoother for Peony.”
“How’s that going so far?”
“As well as can be expected, given she’s lost her mother.” And she had no idea I existed until five days ago.
Dad winces. “That rough, huh?”
“With me, she’s nothing like she is with Mom.” I nod toward where Peony is giggling at Mom from the swing and Mom is playing peekaboo. “She’s scared of me when I haven’t given her a reason to be. She was the same way with Kellan.”
“Hmm. Well, your mother has already fallen in love with her.” He eases out a heavy, despite-my-warnings sigh and unfolds from the bench. “You might as well introduce me.”
We walk to the swings. The two fathers on the other side of theplayground glance my way. I pretend not to notice them. Hopefully that will be enough to keep them from coming over to chat.
“Peony.” I keep my voice soft and even, hoping that will be enough to ward off any potential problems.
She squeezes Poppy to her body, a shield against perceived evil, and rounded eyes dart between Dad and me.
“This is your grandfather,” I tell her, a bad feeling settling over me. The same feeling that had hit a second before the explosive that killed my friends detonated. That seemingly elongated period when no amount of hoping will prevent the sequence of events from unfolding.
Peony stretches her arms to Athena. “Nina!”
The high-pitched wail of her voice is a hook in my chest, yanking my heart out, dragging it across the artificial turf.
