Page 117 of More than Need

Gideon nuzzled Dawson’s cheek and kissed him. “They need to work it out. Theyhaveto because they both want to keep you, and this is the only way they can.”

He wasn’t sure he liked being the bone in that kind of analogy.

Please don’t let this make it worse.

Chapter 22

Riley easily found Sadieat a nearby park on the same street. Devoid of any children, thankfully.

Sadie swung absently on a swing set near the far corner of the tiny playground, hands wrapped around the chains. She glanced at him as he approached. “What do you want?”

“To talk.”

“Why, because you want to keep fucking my best friend?” she asked bitterly.

“Yes,” Riley said bluntly. He wanted far more than that with Dawson, but he knew she wouldn’t listen. And regardless, he was still the only reason Riley had come here. Before him, Riley would have given himself time to sift through the emotions hindering him, and then he would have moved on, knowing that the life he’d always known, the family he’d grown up with, mattered more.

Risking any of it for people who had given him up, for a sister he didn’t know or care about, wasn’t worth it. Dawson hadchanged everything, and Riley wouldn’t lie about that. He had become important to Riley, and that meant having to make hard decisions that would affect them both and the relationship they were attempting.

Dawson loved him. Riley couldn’t find a way to voice the feelings in his chest, but he knew they existed, and that he returned the sentiment even if it went unsaid. And for that, he would talk to this woman. He would learn to live with the fact that she existed, and that his family had grown that bit bigger now.

“You know, I was perfectly fine without you,” Sadie said, still not looking at him. “And I’ll be perfectly fine after I get over it.” She sighed. “That doesn’t mean that I didn’t want to try. Didn’t want to find out which parts of me are you. Think about what our lives could have been like if I’d grown up with you.” She rubbed her stomach. “I don’t understand the choices that they made, only that they thought they were the right ones. I know that I couldn’t do it. I could never—this child has only been a part of me for a few months, and I can’t imagine my life without them. I dream about being able to hold them, and see their eyes open, and that first cry. To experience all that and then… I couldn’t then choose to give that up.”

Riley didn’t say anything. Many of his own thoughts had gone in that direction. Wondering what they’d been thinking. How they’d felt. What he’d done wrong as a barely days-old infant for them to give him to someone else to raise and wipe their hands of him.

Useless thoughts that he wouldn’t have an answer to. Ones he didn’tneedan answer to, because he had a family and parents that loved him. Whoever his biological parents had been, they meant nothing. As much strangers as the woman in front of him with eyes so much like his own. He would extend this branch for Dawson, but he didn’t want to meet the people who’d raised her.

“I don’t agree with what they did, and I don’t stand with them on it,” Sadie said. “I need you to know that.”

Did she think it would make a difference? That hewishedfor her and her parents to be divided over this? He had no desire to destroy someone else’s family simply for existing.

“Are you going to say something?”

“I’m not very good at saying something.” Not things that made anyone feel good. He didn’t temper his words to avoid hurting people’s feelings. He didn’t know how to be a brother to a sister. Brothers were different.

“Will you tell me about them?” Sadie asked.

“Who?”

“Your parents. Your family. Who you grew up with, what it was like.” She let out a harsh laugh. “I always wanted a brother. I had no idea all this time that I actually hadone.”

Riley didn’t know if he could do this. He’d avoided it for a reason. Talking to her opened all the wounds he’d carefully stitched up a long time ago.

He sat on the other swing. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been on one. Not since he was a kid. Lucas had been banned from them after the second broken arm, Peyton preferred getting to the top of the rope spider pyramid and hang off it just to give their parents a heart attack, Danny and Kellan were sandpit kids, and Parker had always found a group of other kids to follow him around and mutiny with.

“My parents’ names are Theresa and Simon,” he said eventually. “I have five brothers. Kellan, who’s older than me. Then Lucas, Danny, and the twins—Parker and Peyton.”

Sadie looked at him then. With eyes that were so much like his that he almost couldn’t hold the stare for long. “That’s a lot of kids.”

“Chaos,” Riley agreed. “My mum honestly deserves a medal for keeping us all alive until adulthood.”

“You don’t have other—it’s just me. I didn’t have siblings growing up; for my whole life I’d thought I was an only child. But I had Dawson. He lived down the street, and we went to the same play group as kids. I don’t have any memories growing up that don’t have him in them.” She laughed. “We got into so much trouble together.”

Riley could imagine. Dawson was particularly good at getting himself into trouble as an adult too.

“We went to all the same schools. Worked at the same place as teenagers. Saved up together to get our own place. We moved in together as soon as we turned eighteen. Not this one; this one’s an upgrade. I was there when he got injured playing footy. When he thought that he’d never play again. When he decided that he didn’twantto play again. All of it. He was there for me when I had my first breakup. When I went to university and almost dropped out. When I met Richard and got pregnant before I realised what a twatwaffle he is. We have effigies we haven’t burned yet. I couldn’t do them without him; it felt wrong.”

“Excuse me?”

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