Page 100 of The Loves We Lost

“What’s so funny?” he asks as he gives me one last kiss and tugs his T-shirt down over my thighs. As quickly as he can with aching ribs, he jumps out of bed and pulls on a pair of shorts.

I tip my head in the direction of the door. “I might get the chance to sleep in occasionally now that there’s two of us.”

Two hours later, we’re on the road. Avery chatters away to Miles as he drives. The windows are down, the warm air blowing hair loose from my ponytail. Miles’s hand is on my thigh, stroking the skin below my denim shorts.

It’s so normal and so real.

Letting Miles parent Avery is going to take some getting used to. She didn’t really want to make the drive home today, had a borderline meltdown, and just as I was about to lay down the law, Miles crouched down and managed to talk her through it.

I think it’s the novelty of just meeting her dad, but she seems to listen to him more than she listens to me.

When the house finally pulls into view, I’m struck by my sweet home. It’s not much, but it’s all mine. Tears sting as I realize it’s not going to be home again for a while, and I’m not ready to part with it.

I’ll put it up for rent and save the money it earns.

“You okay, buttercup?” Miles says as he turns the engine off.

“Just thinking. This place has been so good to me and Avery. A real home. Even if it needed work. I’m sad.”

He turns in his seat. “Sad enough you need more time?”

I shift in mine to face him. “No. But sad enough that I might cry a little as we work through this.”

Miles takes my hand and brings it to his lips. “I’m gonna spend the rest of my life making sure you never regret this.”

We get out of the truck, and Avery runs to hold Miles’s hand as I get the house keys out of my purse.

Niro pulls up behind the truck in the club’s van so we have extra room for any bigger pieces and things.

But when I open the front door, I stop in shock at the devastation. “Oh my god,” I gasp as I take in the broken photograph frames, the slashed sofa cushions, and other casualties.

Miles takes one step in and quickly pulls me and Avery back out of the house. “Go back in the truck,” he warns.

Niro discretely pulls a gun from a holster sitting beneath his cut.

Unable to process what has happened to my former sanctuary, I do as Miles says.

“What’s happening, Mommy?” I scoop Avery up and hurry to the truck. I climb into the back with her, and from the safety of the driveway, I watch for signs of Miles and Niro, who have gone into the house.

“I don’t know.” I stroke her hair as she snuggles against me. “But I trust Uncle Colton and Daddy to find out.”

“What happened to our things?” Avery says, her voice small.

“I don’t know, pumpkin, but we’ll replace everything, I promise.”

“Even my fish?”

Oh, god. The ceramic fish she made in kindergarten. It’s ugly as sin, but the idea it might be one of the fragments on the ground brings tears to my eyes again.

When Miles and Niro appear on the driveway, I’m too shaken to get out of the truck. Miles walks to us and opens my door. “It’s bad, but not as bad as it looks. It’s not every room, and no one is in the house now. As much as I hate to say it, you might want tocall your cop friend, because you’ll likely need a police report for insurance, and we need to look back at the camera footage to see if we can figure this out.”

“When you arrived at the clubhouse the first night, you mentioned cupcakes,” Niro says quietly. “Where was that?”

I point in the right direction. “Less than five minutes that way. A straight line. Why?”

“I’m thinking I’ll take a ride with Avery while you guys deal with this. Maybe find a park and hang out for a bit. She doesn’t need to see ... you know.”

For all his gruff exterior and ability to say the wrong thing at the wrong time, he cares about my daughter. “Thank you. I think she’d like that. She knows where the bakery is.”