Page 51 of Free Fall

One of the drunk fuckheads stumbled to his feet toward the bar, leaving his buddy to sway in his seat by himself. I tore my gaze from him, plotting how I could hurt him, ruin his night, when my phone buzzed in my pocket.

I knew it would be Cole. Knew where he was.

It was a picture of Leo, asleep in his bed and sucking his thumb.

Cole: cutest fucking baby

I smiled at the image my eldest son - by mere minutes - had taken of my youngest. Leo looked like the twins had, though his hair was all mine. Where Cole and Jesse had their mother’s dark coloring, Leo was more like me. Replying with an affirmative, I shoved my cell back in my pocket.

Zelda was going to kill us both when she figured out what we’d been doing. The ruse Cole had played this entire time. I hadn’t been away from Zelda for long, and I also had never been far from Leo. Cole took him for walks or to the park, and I met them. We spent afternoons together feeding the damn ducks or eating ice cream - and Zelda had no idea. The thought of her fury made me smile.

Leo liked me, called me Cole too because it was an easier lie to pull off, but I knew it was going to end in disaster one day. I just couldn’t stay the fuck away. Zelda should have moved further afield if she truly wanted to disappear. She’d never tried to hide. Her social media presence remained the same, she gave my sons her address, she didn’t want me to not find her.

Her act finished with a loud applause and a rain of dollar bills, the lights dimming for her to sneak off. She didn’t do any crowd work like a lot of the other performers, wasn’t interested in getting paid more for a bit of groping. The two fuckheads were shit out of luck there. They’d have to work for their women.

It worked better for me, anyway. She’d be back on in a few hours and I could hang out in the shadows, nursing a beer and watching the other shows. Cole sent me another text, the little bubble showing me it was just words, no picture.

Cole: Zel’s coming home early, she’s pissed. I heard your name.

Shit.

I jumped up from my seat, heading for the door. On a whim, I shoved my hand into the greasy hair of the loud-mouthed fucker and slammed his head onto the table. Before his nose had finished crunching on the wood, bursting with blood already, I was gone, grinning as the cold air hit my face even though I might have fucked things with Zelda already. When I was getting so close.

“Yeah, shit. She got home in a huff and was having a fucking whisper argument with Seren about something for a fucking age before she found me and kicked me out,” Cole told me the following day, frowning as we walked through the busy park. Leo was a few steps ahead, counting pebbles and piling them into his little pockets. “She didn’t seem pissed at me, though, just at the shitting damn universe.”

“Do you mind not swearing in front of my son?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. Only half kidding.

Cole scowled. “I’m your son.”

“Talking of, when’s Jesse getting in?” Cole had taken Leo out for a couple of hours. Despite her kicking him out yesterday, she agreed to this morning’s walk with no issue. What the hell happened last night? Why did my name come up? I didn’t believe for a second if she’d seen me, she wouldn’t have stormed over with a mouthful of angry words and her fists raised high.

Was she so desperate for Leo to have some paternal family connection that she would trust the ass beside me so much? Jesse visited too, was coming to the area soon, but he kept himself out of my business. He didn’t agree with the subterfuge, about as much as Cole didn’t give a fuck. The rift between Jesse and Cole, Jesse and me, wobbled between too deep to see the bottom of, to tentative healing. I never knew which Jesse I was going to get.

Leo circled back to us and demanded Cole pick him up. His Uncle Cole saw him way more than I did, and despite the pain it caused me, I enjoyed seeing their bond. I never would have pegged Cole as the older brother type — even though he had been an older brother since he was seconds old — but he was nailing it with Leo. Who clambered on his shoulders, shoving his tiny fists into the thick, dark hair Cole got from his mother, and shouted, “Yee haw!” Cole scowled but obliged, bouncing up and down.

The kid mostly ignored me, too shy to speak to the stranger who occasionally hung out. But it was enough. For now, it would have to suffice. When I figured this shit out with his mom, it wouldn’t be so hard to slip into his life. If she would forgive me for it. And I had no plans to stop until she did.

“Tonight,” Cole said, wincing when Leo tugged his hair. “We’ve grabbed a rental apartment in the town center, near the bars.” Cole side-eyed me, slowing as we reached the ducks so Leo wouldn’t want to dart off too soon. “You going to say hi?”

“Yeah, I need the bastard’s help.” Jesse had his law degree and practiced real estate law not too far from here. It was about the dullest law could be, but it paid well. I was proud of him. Cole was more… free spirited.

Leo didn’t speak, but floundered his way to the ground and charged ahead, his words a garble of squeaks and giggles as he found the birds. We chased him, we laughed with him, we fed him ice cream and took him on the swings. Cole didn’t let me do any of it alone, and it made me feel like an asshole, but still, as I snapped a selfie of Leo dozing on my shoulder, it was enough for now.

“You keep looking at your phone,” I pointed out to Cole when he returned it to his pocket for the fifth time in as many minutes.

He rolled his eyes. “I promised that curly-haired deviant I wouldn’t bring Leo home til two,” he replied.

I tilted my head. What curly-haired deviant? Avery? Cole’s tone was much softer than his words. Not my business.

“Why?” Everything else, though, my business.

A bit of Cole’s former wickedness flashed over his eyes. He was debating something, his expression shifting back and forth between demon and angel, perhaps wrestling with his old and new self. Asshole who ruined people’s days just for fun, or family-friendly big brother moving to a new town to be closer to his loved ones.

“She’s got a date,” he told me after a few beats. “A real sexy dude, too, by Seren’s rambling. They were gossiping about…” He scowled, gave his head a wobble. “Fucking hell, I spend so much time snooping in that fucking house, I learn too much. You don’t want to know, Dad. I don’t want to know. That time in Hawaii was enough to ruin Zelda for me.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I asked, stopping on the street as a line of dribble from Leo soaked into my t-shirt, his little body jostling. But he didn’t stir, remaining a dead weight on my shoulder.

“Ah, fuck it,” Cole said, and I could see the joy coursing through his veins. “She’s meeting a guy at a sex club.”

---