Page 176

My voice was strangled when I implored, “You guys need to leave.”
“No,” Javi disagreed. “He wants this so bad, he should know. I am damaged. You can’t fix me.”
“I don’t want to fix you,” Austin said gruffly. “I just want you in our lives.”
“But you’d be the only one who could fix me, man, because it’s you who broke me.”
Julia whimpered. Cath didn’t even try to silence her sob.
Austin, though?
He looked destroyed.
I turned and pressed my cheek to Javi’s chest and wrapped my arms tight around him.
“And now you bring them to my door?” Javi asked. “Shoving right in my face another two precious things I never had because you kept them from me?”
I burrowed closer.
“I see that was a mistake, Javier,” Austin replied.
“Why? Because you just gutted me? Or because you gutted them?” Javi demanded.
“All three,” Austin said, and now he sounded like a dying man.
“Congratulations. You’re batting a thousand on this dad shit,” Javi said while shuffling me back and then slamming the door.
I heard the lock go.
I heard another sob from Cath on the other side of the door.
I tipped my head back and looked up at my man.
“Sweetheart,” I whispered.
“What else does my place need?” he asked.
“Wh-what?” I asked back, perplexed at his question.
“I need a rug. Under the couch. It gets cold in winter. I’m not gonna have my woman running to get socks to keep her feet warm on my floors.”
He did need a rug under his couch. Everybody knew from The Dude that a rug brings a room together.
And sometimes (rarely) it did get cold in winter.
“Nightstands. A new dresser,” Javi continued. “More lamps. Good knives, so you can cut your fruit.”
I thought I was following him, and where he was leading was killing me.
I took my arms from around him so I could cradle his face. “Honey.”
“What else do I need?” he pushed.
“You have time,” I whispered.
“Fuck it, fuck it…fuck!” he exploded, pulling away from me and prowling into his living room.
I turned with him and took a couple of steps toward him but let him have his space.