Page 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

Royal

“Look, Uncle Royal!”

Frankie, my niece in everything but blood, runs toward me, her dark brown hair flying behind, little backpack hanging on her shoulders. She’s clutching a paper in her hand, one she shoves in my face the moment I bend down and scoop her up.

I wave at her teacher, then the receptionist, and push through the preschool’s door, stepping back out into the sunny SoCal winter day.

The only thing that makes it winter is that it’s a brisk fifty degrees instead of summer’s nineties or hundreds.

My lips twitch.

God, my blood’s gotten thin if fifty degrees is brisk.

“Look, Uncle Royal,” Frankie says again, holding up the paper a second time. “Look what I made!”

I lean back enough to get a glimpse of the collection of stick figures and smile. “Is that you and your mom?”

“Yup,” she says with a pop of the P. “And there’s you and Uncle Atlas and Uncle Dash and Uncle Banks.” She points to each of the squiggles. “And there’s Auntie Aspen.”

“What’s that?” I ask as I open the car door and set her into her seat, supervising her as she buckles in.

She’s a big girl and likes to do all the things herself.

So, I’ve learned to give in on this one—and by give in, I mean I let her put the snaps in and then distract her so I can adjust the buckles to make sure she’s safe.

“That’s the baby in Auntie Aspen’s belly.”

“Oh, that’s nice.” I grab the strap and pull, straightening the buckle and securing my little princess. “Do you think it’s going to be a boy or a girl?” I ask, knowing it’ll be a bit before they have the scan to find out for sure.

“A girl!” she says, arms shooting up, nearly giving me a papercut to my eye in the process.

“Because you want another girl to play with or because you really think that?”

Her face screws up as she considers my question, and I press a kiss to the top of her head, bend out of the car and climb into the driver’s seat. I buckle in, hating the dulled sensation in my right hand. I’m lucky, I guess—even though it sure as fuck doesn’t feel like that—but logically I know I am.

I struggle with the fine motor shit—like hitting the right chords on my guitar—but at least I can do this: pick up the little girl who’s still considering my question in the back seat, get this time with her, and help Briar out when she deserves a fucking medal for being there for me these last couple of years.

Yes, that’s what family does.

Or at least what this family we’ve built does.

Her life was upended by the pregnancy, by the deadbeat asshole who skipped out on her.

We were there for her—me, Banks, Atlas, and Dash, of course, and hers and Dash’s parents are great. But she went from a college student to a mom.

And she was chronically independent (still is), didn’t want to ask for help unless she was desperate (still doesn’t), worked— works —hard to provide for herself, even though we would have all chipped in financially to take care of both of them (and still would).

It’s better now, but it got so bad there for a while that we had to almost bully her into accepting our help.

Thankfully, we got through the stubbornness, she moved out to California, and things have been better since.

We all have a solid family unit.

She gets regular breaks.

And I get to have my Frankie time.

“I think it’s going to be a girl,” she says, finally done pondering my question. “Plus, Mom says that we do not need another man in our family.”

I chuckle. “Why’s that?”

“She said…”

My gaze flicks to the rearview, and I see the scrunched up look of concentration. I give her time to remember, to find the words. She’s extremely verbal for her age, but sometimes she gets frustrated when she can’t get out the words she has in her head.

So, I give her that time as I back out of the stall and carefully navigate my way through the school’s parking lot—because tiny humans.

“She said it’s because of test tone!”

I pull to a stop at the signal, taking a moment to ferret that one out.

It’s Briar, so really, it could be anything—there’s a reason her nickname is Thorny.

But this…takes that moment.

“Testosterone?” I ask when the pieces eventually come together.

“Yup.” Another pop on her P, her legs swinging (and thus, kicking the back of my seat in a regular interval). “You guys have too much of it.”

I grin but change the subject before I say something that will no doubt get back to Briar and get me in trouble. “So who’d you play with at school today?”

“Felix and I did blocks. And then Ms. Mya pushed me on the swings before we did our letter of the day. Did you know that giraffe starts with G?”

“It does?” I tease.

A beleaguered sigh that’s far too old for her years. “Uncle Royal .”

I grin. “You know what else starts with G?”

“What?”

“Goose.”

A pause as she decides if that passes muster. “What else?”

“Why don’t you tell me? ”

Another sigh. “Why don’t we take turns?”

Negotiating. She’s definitely Briar’s daughter through and through. There’s a reason Ms. Thorny has become Atlas’s right hand woman.

She’s smart as hell, ruthless when she has to be, and she’s a master negotiator.

“Works for me. But you’re next.”

I flick my gaze to the mirror again before concentrating on the road again, but the glimpse of her face scrunched with concentration makes me smile.

It’s easy to be with her.

Easy to think about nothing except for silly conversations and words that start with the letter G and how tall the tower of blocks she built was and what snack she had after lunch.

It’s much easier to focus on Frankie than think about…

A tiny blond bombshell.

A dress crumpled on the floor.

A sleeping goddess left naked in a hotel bed.

“Goat!”

I brutally shove the image of Jade from my head, something I’ve had to do far too many times over the past two weeks.

I know it was a dick move to leave like that.

But…

I’d wanted to stay.

So, I had to go.

“What’s yours, Uncle Royal?”

Christ.

I slam the lid on all thoughts of Jade Cantrell. “Gemstone.”

“Gas.”

“Gas can ,” I say on my turn.

“Uncle Royal,” she says, her disapproval clear.

“Game,” I provide instead.

“Good.”

I turn onto her street. “Is that your answer or are you telling me I did a good job?”

She giggles. “Both.”

“Oh.” I pause. “Okay.”

“What’s your next one?”

“Gorilla,” I say as I pull into the driveway and shove the gearshift into park.

“Hey, that’s what I was going to say!”

“Hmm.” I snag her backpack from the floor, her picture from when I’d set it on the passenger’s seat, get out of my SUV, and help her down from the back (she’s even better at unbuckling than she is buckling). “Well, I guess you’ll have to think of another one.”

Scowling, she grabs her picture as we make our way up to the front door.

I let us in.

“Grass!”

“ That’s a good one.”

She smiles proudly. “And I have another.”

“What’s that?”

“Guitar!”

The feelings sweep over me in a way I both love and hate—because I used to love playing the guitar and nowadays I love teaching Frankie how to play, and because I hate that I can’t do what I used to, and…

I hate that it makes me think of a certain collection of chords on a certain song that just won a certain blond bombshell a very important award.

And, of course, while I’m feeling all of that, processing it all, trying to shove it all down so I don’t have to think about it?—

Briar walks into the room.

She’s on a call, but she still clocks whatever is on my face because she hangs up almost immediately.

And though she greets Frankie and oohs and aahs over the drawing and asks all the right questions about her daughter’s day at school, her focus hasn’t completely left me.

Case in point?

How she reacts when I sidle to the door.

“Why don’t you go sit at the table, honey?” she tells Frankie. “I put your snack out.”

“’Kay!” Frankie says, running into the other room.

Briar turns to face me but doesn’t say anything.

“What?” I ask into the terse quiet that falls.

She just crosses her arms and lifts her brows.

But I’ve had far too much experience with the glares that Briar can dish out to crack that easily.

“I need to get home.”

“Right,” she says, telling me she knows exactly what bullshit that is. “Well, you can go…”

I start to turn again.

“Right after you tell me what the fuck is going on.”

“I have the pool guy coming. We think there might be a leak in the spa.”

“ I dealt with the pool guy last week.”

Fuck.

Her brows flick up again. “Now spill.”

“I—” My mind is racing for a believable excuse—the last thing I need is for Briar to get an inkling for exactly how fucked up my head is right now.

Thankfully, the universe is on my side for once.

Because her cell rings.

“I’ll let you get that,” I say. “Tell Frankie I’ll see her Thursday for our guitar lesson.”

“Royal—”

Ring-ring.

I kiss her cheek, tug a strand of her hair. “Bye, Thorny.” I raise my voice. “Bye, Tater Tot!”

“Bye, Uncle Royal!” I hear, though the words are muffled by that snack she’s devouring.

Briar sighs. “Roy?—”

Ring-ring.

“Later,” I mutter.

And then I get the hell out.

I know I dodged a bullet.

Same as I know I need to get my head together before I see them again.

The last thing I need is for my family to know exactly what I was feeling that night in the hotel room.

And how I’m fucking terrified that it might have changed everything.