Page 49 of Sinful Sorrow

“No.” I turn and sit my ass on the bed beside his. I don’t lay down. But I take a deep breath and catch up on the few I didn’t allow myself to take on the way in here. “You’re not an idiot for wanting to help someone, Fletch. You’re especially not an idiot for wanting to help the woman who gave you your child.”

“So you know what happened, then?” His words are muffled. His voice, completely and utterly exhausted. “You got it figured out?”

“I investigate crime scenes for a living. Kinda figure you had a guest overnight. One who is accustomed to a certain way of life. That person ransacked your place, stole some stuff that might be valuable to a buyer, and then they took off.”

He scoffs, but fuck, I’ll be damned if the sound doesn’t come with a side of devastation. “You got it. She made me a punk.”

“You’re not a punk for helping someone you care about.” I grab the lapel of his shirt and yank him up to sit beside me. His shoulder leaning on mine, and his anger, beating into my veins. “Her behavior doesn’t reflect poorly on you. The fact you help makes you a good man. The fact she can’t, or won’t, accept that help makes her a victim of her own circumstances. You can’t save everyone.”

“She must’ve gotten into our room.” Desperately, he looks across with swollen eyes. “She got in, while we fucking slept, and took the bag of Oxy.”

“That’s not your?—”

“She was desperate for a hit! And had access to me and my daughter while we slept! She ransacked my house, Arch. And I was so fucking wiped out, I slept through it all. She flipped everything, looking for money or cards or fuck knows what else. She took the baby Tylenol,” he groans. “Who does that?”

Devastated, I set my arm on his back and squeeze the top of his shoulder. “She’s sick and in pain.”

“There was no money for her to take.” He laughs. But the sound is broken and almost silent. “I spent the last of what I had on the rehab place. Call me a fuckin’ cynic, but I’m starting to think she won’t turn up next week when that bed opens up.”

“Everything’s gonna be okay.” I squeeze again and breathe. Simply breathe. Because the alternative means letting my DNA take over and satisfying my need to make things right. He’s my family. And Jada Watson has just gone and fucked him over… again. “It’s gonna be fine, I promise.”

He drops his head and takes his moment. His chest and back bouncing as grief works through his body and the reality that the woman he once loved is never truly coming back beats through his system. He’s an optimist. He trusts. Just like he did when they were still married and she was fucking another man.

And just like that time, she took his trust and shoved it up his ass, pointy side first, like she gets off on inflicting as much pain as she can on the way out.

“I warned you back,” he groans, crushing the heels of his palms into his eyes. He sniffs—short, sharp, fast, as though to hide his hurt—and shakes his head. “You were being realistic about this bullshit, and I snapped at you.”

“I don’t take that stuff personally.” I study the side of his face and paste on a grin, though he doesn’t move his hands to see it. “You and I fight. Don’t you remember that first time we met? Couldn’t stand each other.”

He chokes out a despairing, tear-filled laugh. “I beat your ass and taught you some respect.”

“Yeah? That’s not quite how I remember it. I couldn’t stand your ‘the ladies love me’ swagger and smirk. I wanted to belt you from the first moment I saw you.”

“Instead of killing each other, we became brothers.”

“And we’re still brothers.” I pat his back and sigh. “We can argue, Fletch. Doesn’t bother me one bit. I’m still gonna turn up the next day and remind you we’re in this together.”

“I snapped at Sera,” he whimpers. “It was way worse. And she was right about Jada, anyway.”

“So when you have a second and a little emotional capacity, you’ll tell her you’re sorry. These things can be fixed.”

“Jada can’t be.” He peels his hands from his eyes and looks across to me. “There’s nothing left for me to do, Arch. She doesn’t want to be helped. She just wants to use people.”

“You’re divorced. And you have Mia.” I lean to the side and peer into the hall, though Cato does the right thing and keeps the girl busy elsewhere. “It sucks. It didn’t have to go this way. But it did. So now you raise your daughter, and you parent with Jada only when she’s a functioning, healthy contributor. Until then, you gray rock and ignore.”

“It’s not so simple?—”

“It has to be this simple! It’s time to save your sanity now. You need to take care of yourself, because Mia needs a healthy parent. Two is ideal, but one is enough. And if you keep going down this road, trying to save that woman at the expense of everyone else, you’re gonna fail and Mia will have lost both of her parents instead of just one.”

“How did you get to be so fucking knowledgeable on this shit?” He swallows and looks across to meet my eyes. “Your mother was murdered and your father was a prick. How do you know what one healthy parent even looks like?”

“Because I had my brothers. And together, we did our best to create one decent-ish person for Cato. We kinda screwed up,” I chuckle. “He turned out, well… the way he turned out. There’s a lot wrong with him. But he’s kind of alright too, ya know? He’s out there with your baby girl right now, and I trust him completely. That means we did something okay.”

“Arch—”

“We were just a bunch of fucked up kids, doing the best we could. So imagine how amazing he would have turned out with an actual healthy parental figure. That’s how we raise Mia. With all of us reasonably okay, fucked up adults, doing our best. So when she’s grown and our job is done, we know she’ll be the best of us all.”

“Daddy?”

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