Page 23 of Heartbreaker

Everything.

Again.

Repeatedly.

“Royal…”

“I’m right here, baby,” he murmurs against my skin. “Not going anywhere.”

But that’s a lie.

Because when I wake up in the morning, the space beside me is cold and the room chillingly empty.

Like he was never here.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Royal

“Look, Uncle Royal!”

Frankie, my niece in everything but blood, runs toward me, her dark brown hair flying behind, little backpack hanging on her shoulders. She’s clutching a paper in her hand, one she shoves in my face the moment I bend down and scoop her up.

I wave at her teacher, then the receptionist, and push through the preschool’s door, stepping back out into the sunny SoCal winter day.

The only thing that makes it winter is that it’s a brisk fifty degrees instead of summer’s nineties or hundreds.

My lips twitch.

God, my blood’s gotten thin if fifty degrees isbrisk.

“Look, Uncle Royal,” Frankie says again, holding up the paper a second time. “Look what I made!”

I lean back enough to get a glimpse of the collection of stick figures and smile. “Is that you and your mom?”

“Yup,” she says with a pop of the P. “And there’s you and Uncle Atlas and Uncle Dash and Uncle Banks.” She points to each of the squiggles. “And there’s Auntie Aspen.”

“What’s that?” I ask as I open the car door and set her into her seat, supervising her as she buckles in.

She’s a big girl and likes to doallthe things herself.

So, I’ve learned to give in on this one—and by give in, I mean I let her put the snaps in and then distract her so I can adjust the buckles to make sure she’s safe.

“That’s the baby in Auntie Aspen’s belly.”

“Oh, that’s nice.” I grab the strap and pull, straightening the buckle and securing my little princess. “Do you think it’s going to be a boy or a girl?” I ask, knowing it’ll be a bit before they have the scan to find out for sure.

“A girl!” she says, arms shooting up, nearly giving me a papercut to my eye in the process.

“Because you want another girl to play with or because you really think that?”

Her face screws up as she considers my question, and I press a kiss to the top of her head, bend out of the car and climb into the driver’s seat. I buckle in, hating the dulled sensation in my right hand. I’m lucky, I guess—even though it sure as fuck doesn’t feel like that—but logically I know I am.

I struggle with the fine motor shit—like hitting the right chords on my guitar—but at least I can do this: pick up the little girl who’s still considering my question in the back seat, get this time with her, and help Briar out when she deserves a fucking medal for being there for me these last couple of years.

Yes, that’s what family does.

Or at least whatthisfamily we’ve built does.

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