Page 6 of Forgiving Her First Love

A jolt of alarm went through him because babies were also helpless and fragile and wormed their way into the rotten-cored apple of your heart even when you wished they wouldn’t.

“What happened?” Logan hurried to the counter where Trystan stood with their seven-month-old sister strapped in the sling against his chest. She faced out and her face was crumpled up while her staccato cries pierced the air.

Tall, dark, and unflappable Trystan was holding her hand, examining her tiny, wet finger while a customer stood before the counter wearing a look of tested patience. The customer glanced hopefully at Logan, but Logan was more concerned about Storm.

“You have more teeth now,” Trystan chided the baby. “It’s going to hurt if you chew whatever you put in your mouth.”

Storm sniffled down to a whimper as she noticed Logan. She gave him a very pitiful look as she held out her hand to him, entreating him to fix it since Trystan had failed her.

She was their father’s daughter, very quick to switch affections, always willing to love the one she was with, especially if they loved her back.

Logan was starting to think he might, damn it.

The customer held up a valve, asking Trystan, “So, this one?”

“That should do it.” Trystan nodded. “If you need to come back and exchange it, that’s no problem.” Trystan rang it through, then gave Storm’s tummy a comforting pat as the man left. “Okay now, Jaws? If you’d quit dropping your teething ring in the dirt, we wouldn’t have this problem.”

“Want me to take her?” Logan held out his hands.

Storm smiled and kicked with excitement, exactly as he had known she would.

Trystan grunted and caught her feet.

“I don’t think that game is as funny as you do.” He clasped her in one firm arm while he released the buckles on the sling. “I need to adjust these straps again. Either she’s growing or your balls are a lot droopier than mine. How come you never get sacked when you wear this thing?”

“I wear a cup.” He didn’t. And he got sacked on the regular when he carried her.

Logan took Storm while Trystan fiddled with the straps and buckles.

They’d been here ten weeks, Sophie had said. In some ways it sounded like forever, but he couldn’t believe how much this mix of sunshine and vinegar had changed in that time. She moved nonstop and was grabbing at everything. When she was on the floor, she scooted around, trying to crawl. She knew their names because when he said, “Where’s Trystan?” she turned her head to look for him.

She was strong enough to hold herself in a plank like a figure skater when Logan held her over his head—careful to watch for sudden spills out of those grinning lips.

“How’d it go?” Trystan asked.

Logan had asked him to cover for him while he went to “see a man about a room.” He had known Sophie would rather dig him a grave to sleep in. That’s why he’d walked over to tell her himself, away from work while her kid was at school. It had gone exactly as well as he’d expected.

“Art’s letting me stay with them,” he said very casually.

Trystan dropped the carrier back onto the counter. “No.”

“Tell me about my options.” Logan refused to sound defensive. “I could couch-surf, but we’re trying to make people believe we have our shit together. The lodge is overbooked. We need every contractor and laborer housed here so they can solve that problem for us. I looked into sleeping in one of the salvage boats in the boneyard. They all smell like rotten kelp and lung disease. Art was here yesterday, I asked him if he knew of anyone renting a room and he said I could stay in Biyen’s playroom. It has a bed. Mom slept there when she was here for Dad’s service.”

“What about Sophie?”

“What about her? Why are you so possessive of her?” He scowled at Trystan as Trys took Storm. “Maybe you’re the one we should be worried about where she’s concerned.”

“So we agree she ought to be worried about? I’m not possessive, I’m protective. She’s my friend.”

“She’s my friend, too.”

“She has never been your friend.” Trystan was pulling the sling back into place with one arm, firmly holding Storm against his chest with the other. “She had a hard case of hero worship that you encouraged because it fed your ego. Then you screwed her and left. That’s not how I treat my friends.”

“Is that what she said happened?”

“She didn’t have to.”

“Well, you have your facts wrong.” Not that wrong. He’d been immature and selfish. He knew that. But, “I’m not talking about her with you. Especially when you left this place on your own high horse, same as Reid and I did. Quit acting like your loyalty runs any deeper than our shallow ponds. Sophie and I are fine. That’s all you need to know.”

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