Page 47 of Hero for the Holidays

And some people would never understand the dichotomy of loving those animals, and raising them for meat. But it was in his blood. The care and keeping of the food they ate. Making sure that they were given good lives. That they were respected for what they gave in return.

Nobody loved cows more than the Kings.

“What is it?” Fia asked, taking a sniff of the liquid in her glass.

“It tastes like pie,” he said.

She looked at him skeptically, then took a sip. “Well. It does. It doesn’t even taste like booze.”

“Itisbooze. Be careful. What I poured you should be all right, but it’s a whole thing.” He was silent for a long moment. “I was wrong, Fia.” He turned to her. “Just about everything. I have gone out of my way to never think about this in a more mature way because if I did, then it was going to mean that all the hurt that I felt over all these years was unreasonable. That I was the one... That I was the one who took a bad situation, a difficult situation, and made it damn near impossible. But I have to face the fact that I was. I am so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

She looked down into her glass. “Is this stronger than I think it is, or are you actually apologizing to me?”

“It’s what you said,” he said. “About the fact that Lila doesn’t regret the adoption. I wanted to believe... Ineededto believe that I could be enough. That I could love a kid in a way that my father couldn’t. I needed to believe that the baby would keep you with me.” He paused for a long moment. “A lot of it was about keeping you with me, Fia. I told you, I was a mess. And I was being serious when I said...” His throat worked. “I was struggling. Sometimes I had thoughts. About ending it.”

He could see the words hit her hard. Life had been bleak here. It really had. They were a pack of feral kids with parents who ran the gamut from cruel to indifferent. That they’d all made it this far was probably a miracle.

But he’d never confessed that to anyone.

“And I... I’m not using it as an excuse,” he continued. “But loving you was the thing that made me enjoy my life. Loving you was what got me through being Elias King’s personal experiment. You know he loved it when I felt like things were precarious. Like I had to do something to earn his love, and then he liked to withhold it. Dangle it in front of me. You never did. I was just really afraid to lose it. I was happy when I found out that you were pregnant, because I thought it meant you had to stay with me. And fucking hell, if I could go back and tell that scared, stupid little idiot one thing it would be he didn’t love you like he thought. Because I should’ve been a better boyfriend, and counted onthatto keep you with me. Not a baby.” He dragged his hand over his face. “I realize that the way I’ve treated you is closer to my father than I ever wanted to be. Bringing Lila back... I did want to hurt you, you’re right. And I twisted the truth of it all to tell myself I didn’t.” He paused. “But I did. Because I hurt, and I wanted you to hurt along with me.”

It was honest. Not in a mean or spiteful way, but he could see it hurt her all the same.

“When we were young, we were so angry,” she said softly. “We were never honest. If we came close to it, it was always really just us being spiteful. I feel for you. But I can’t feel more for you than I do myself. Not about this. Not when my own memories are so clear. So painful. But you...you gave me honesty and I owe you the same. Not to hurt you, but to make you understand.”

She took a sharp breath and continued. “Landry, I realize that you aren’t lying to me about how much it hurt you that you didn’t have Lila. I do realize that. I also... It was the hardest thing I’ve ever been through. The only way I could survive it was building a wall between us. It was so hard. To need you like that. We were...each other’s safe place for a long time. I know, I know we hurt each other too, but we were still able to share more with each other than we did anywhere else. And I had to cut you off. To save myself. I had to build that wall.”

She swallowed. “It’s been weird to not have it there. It’s been weird to be around you again. We spent all these years denying the truth. I get it. I get why you couldn’t look at this differently. Because for me it feels a lot the same. I never imagined Lila at thirteen. I still imagined her as the little strawberry-haired baby that I held for just a minute. Because it’s like I had to leave it back there. And even though I loved her, even though I carried it with me all this time, I didn’t... I couldn’t really think about the passage of time. And I really could never bear to look back on all of it. I accepted the lie that we made up, the one we told everyone without even talking about it. That nothing ever happened between us. That we just didn’t get along, and I even kind of played into my sister’s idea that I just wanted to...jump you.”

He laughed, even though it was forced through a throat that felt like it was lined with broken glass.

“Yeah. Well. That was a simpler story, wasn’t it?” he asked.

“So here we are. And here this is. You and me and Lila. The secret that we carried all this time.”

She looked at him and hesitated. Then she reached out and put her hand flat on his chest. It was the first time in thirteen years that Fia Sullivan had touched him, and it was like making contact with a live wire. He didn’t move. He didn’t trust himself to move. “I am sorry about all the pain we both felt all this time.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, putting his hand over hers and holding it there. “I’m sorry for everything. I’m sorry that I was sixteen and stupid. I’m sorry I didn’t use a condom. I’m sorry that I loved you like it was a crash test and I was the dummy. I’m sorry for all the stupid shit that ever came out of my mouth.”

“Me too. It wasn’t just you. You weren’t alone in that. Landry, that alone would’ve left us both scarred. The way that we were... It wasn’t...”

She didn’t have to finish. He knew. It wasn’t normal. It wasn’t healthy.

It wasn’t common.

They’d had a real, scarring, tragic kind of love. A real Romeo and Juliet kind of thing. And for a while there, it felt like that. Like drinking poison.

He would have.

And that boy could never have been a father. What had he learned since then? What had he done? They were still holding each other’s hands, pressed to his chest when he moved even closer. “I don’t know if I’m going to be any better at this now.”

“I don’t know if I am either. I taught her to crochet today.” Fia looked down at their hands. “I asked her about the things she used to do with her parents. I wasn’t sure what to say half the time.”

“I’m not either.”

He felt connected to Fia now, like he hadn’t for a long time. He searched her face and tried to see if she was less certain than she’d been at first, if like him she felt wrong somehow. He knew he wanted Lila in his life, but he’d been grappling with his feelings of inadequacy and what that meant for the feelings he’d had back then.

He doubted himself.

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