Page 4 of Tangled Hearts (Mended Hearts #4)

Nic

T he man eyes me warily. “I’m Holden Foster.”

My heart takes off at a gallop. “I’m Nic.

” I already said that. Shaking out my hands, I try for a smile.

“I found out about you from an ancestry website. I hope you don’t mind me showing up.

I couldn’t find any contact information.

Or anything that seemed like it was you on social media.

I wasn’t sure the best way to go about it, but I—” Stop talking, Nic.

“—I just wanted the chance to maybe get to know you. My mom just died, and then my fiancé—well, my ex, actually… No, you don’t need to know that.

” Oh my God. Shut up. “Anyway, I can leave if you want.”

While I was talking, Holden’s jaw kept dropping lower and lower, and now he’s just gaping at me—green eyes wide and jaw practically in hell. I wish the porch would open up and take me with it. There’s a beat of silence, and I bite the inside of my cheek. Hard. Anything to shut up my rambling .

Holden leans against the doorframe, almost like his legs won’t support him anymore. Great, I’ve spent forty seconds around my brother, and I’ve already fucked him up.

To my surprise, he giggles. It’s a little high-pitched and shaky, and then he does it again, and before I can process, he’s full-on belly laughing, and then he almost sobs. Oh god. I fucking broke him. Holy shit.

I just stand there. I’m not sure what I should even do. Turning tail and taking my ass back home seems like the best idea.

“I’m sorry,” he gasps between his giggling cries. “I’m not laughing at you, I promise. I’m just… What the actual fuck is my life right now?” Well, that doesn’t sound good. “Come in, please. I’m so sorry.”

He swipes at his eyes, then steps back, gesturing for me to walk into the house.

“You’ll have to excuse the mess. It’s a little chaotic around here.

” I take a quick look around the living room, but all I see is love.

Toys and blankets and a plate with cookies on it.

Shoes piled up along the wall. Jackets hanging haphazardly on hooks and backpacks lined up under them with water bottles tucked into the side pouches and lunchboxes strewn across the floor.

Warmth fills my entire body as I take it all in.

“Like I said, it’s a mess. I promise we clean daily.

I just haven’t gotten to it yet, and I—”

“I love it. It looks happy. Lived in,” I say, cutting off his embarrassed ramble.

He stops with his apologies, and I follow him to the couch, standing awkwardly while he sits down. He gestures to the seat on the other end and I take it. Everything feels so real now. I can’t believe I’m actually in my brother’s living room.

For a few moments, he just watches me. I can tell the wheels in his mind are turning.

His eyes have this sort of appraising look in them, like he’s trying to feel me out.

When he speaks, I’m expecting it to be questions.

Maybe how I found him or why I’m here or what I want from him.

What I get instead is a softly spoken, “I’m so sorry about your mom. That must have been so hard.”

My throat tightens, but I swallow against it. All I can manage is a nod. The thing is, I’m mostly okay. It hurts and it sucks, but the woman she was at the end was not her, and she wouldn’t have wanted to live her life that way. “Thank you,” I choke out.

Holden’s brows draw together. “What—” His words get cut off as two kids come running into the room. “Hey, guys,” he says, dragging his attention from them to me.

The girl, who looks to be a preteen, cocks her head to the side. “You look like Daddy.”

Holden chuckles. I do, don’t I? I look nothing like my mom, who had pale skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes.

I’m just now realizing how crazy it is to share features with someone else.

His eyes are a vivid green where mine are more hazel, but we have the same jaw structure and the same dark wavy hair.

Our noses are even similar. My stomach does a flip.

Holy fuck. I’m really sitting across from my brother right now. Oh shit. I look at the little girl.

“He kind of does, doesn’t he?” Holden asks. She nods. I glance at Holden to find him smiling. “How about you and Warren go play in your room and I’ll come get you soon?”

“Okie doke.” She grabs Warren’s hand, leading him from the room.

“That’s Wren and Warren,” Holden says, waving a hand in the direction they just disappeared in. “My husband, Julian, is on his way back from helping his in-laws with something.”

His in-laws? Wouldn’t that just be Holden’s parents? What a strange way of saying that. I don’t want to make waves, though, or do something to make him turn me away, so I just nod and try to offer him a small smile.

“So,” he says, facing me and slouching back on the couch. “I don’t even know where to start.”

I chuckle. “Well, that makes two of us. I must have imagined meeting you a hundred times over the last few months, but I never really thought about what I would do or say when the moment came.”

He gives me a gentle grin. “So, tell me about yourself.”

And I suddenly don’t know a single thing about myself.

Isn’t it funny how that always seems to happen?

“Well, I’m Nic. Obviously.” Holden grins.

It’s playful and carefree. I used to be that way.

I want to be that way again. “I’m twenty-eight,” I continue, trying to quickly think of things to tell him about myself.

“I’m a vet tech, or well, I was. I stopped working when my mom got sick. ”

“And obviously, your dad’s a piece of shit,” Holden interjects. “I’m assuming that’s the parent we share. Unless your mom—my mom, I guess—had a baby I didn’t know about, which seems unlikely since I definitely would have remembered if she had.”

I shrug. “I never knew him.”

Holden scoffs. “You didn’t miss anything. Again, I’m really sorry about your mom.”

I can’t resist asking, “So, if your husband is at his in-laws…” I let my sentence trail off because I’m really so confused.

There’s a second of silent confusion from Holden, and then he’s laughing.

“Oh my God. I just played that back and realized how it sounded. No. Wren’s mom—Maya—passed away when Wren was young.

Henry and Ruby are her parents. They’ve become like parents to Julian over the years, and even to me, to an extent. That’s what I meant by in-laws.”

“Ah, that makes a little more sense. ”

Holden giggles again—this sort of light and airy sound—and it forces a smile to my face as well. “Yeah, Julian and I both suck in the having parents department, so we just get adopted by all the good ones.”

“So, I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t find anyone but you, then.”

“I mean…” Holden shrugs. “If you’re not into men, you’d probably be fine.”

Ah. Tale as old as time. I’m forever thankful my mom was super accepting and loving.

She never had a bad word to say about others, and she always spoke in gender-neutral terms to me growing up.

When it was time to ‘come out,’ I didn’t even think twice about it.

“I wouldn’t have fared well. Card-carrying member of the alphabet mafia. ”

“Alphabet mafia?”

Holden gives me a questioning look, and I burst into laughter. God, I can’t tell you the last time I laughed, and it feels so fucking good. “Yeah. The LGBTQIA+. Alphabet mafia.”

“Is that what those young’uns are calling it these days?” he asks with a smirk.

“I actually don’t know. My best friend Silas started calling it that and it just stuck.” The words get caught in my chest, making the pain of his betrayal bloom there yet again. Goddammit. Why is Silas so much more of a tender spot than Leo? “Well, my ex-best friend anyway.”

That same curious look flashes across Holden’s face, but he doesn’t press for details, which is probably for the best. I haven’t had a single person to talk to about it, and I’m not sure I like my chances of having a relationship with my brother if the first thing I do is trauma dump my entire bullshit life story on him.

Not a soul alive wants to hear about that.

Especially not a stranger. “Anyway,” I say, trying to force myself back into neutral territory.

This day is not about Silas or Leo. It’s about me reclaiming my life and hopefully building a relationship with my brother. “Tell me about yourself?”

It looks like he’s going to push and ask questions I’m not ready to answer, but after a few more seconds of intense staring, a huge smile breaks out across his face. “Well, do you want the long, slightly tragic story? Or the CliffsNotes version?”

I truly want to know everything I can. I want to know every detail. The good, the bad, and the ugly. I want to find out what makes my brother who he is and how he got to where he is. I truly just want to know him. “Whatever you’re comfortable with,” I say instead.

“Well,” he starts, pulling his feet up under him and getting more comfortable.

“I’m a nurse. I work in the pediatric unit.

” That almost makes me smile. We didn’t spend a single second of our lives together, and yet he’s a people nurse and I’m an animal nurse.

I love that. “I obviously have two kids. Wren and Warren.” He pauses, humming to himself.

“This is hard.” His light chuckle has me huffing a laugh of my own.

At least I’m not the only one who struggled to come up with information about myself.

He hums, running a hand through his unruly dark waves.

“Well, shit. Okay, wait. Family.” A knot forms in my stomach, but I nod anyway, trying to encourage him to continue.

“So, I’m married. Again, obviously. I promise I’m not usually this awkward.

” The self-deprecating grin on his face has the ball stuck in my stomach easing a bit. “I have a nephew. Eli. He’s twenty.”

“Oh? So, do we have more siblings?” I ask, interrupting him.