Page 118 of Healed Hearts

She shakes her head slowly, not taking her eyes off the charbroiled pancake that I currently have sitting on the counter. Well, seems Julianisbetter at making pancakes than me. Oh well.

“Holden?” Julian yells. His voice is shaky and a little choked, like it took all his strength to get it to come out. I scoop Wren up and take off toward the bedroom quickly, my heart racing.

When I step into the bedroom, Julian’s sitting up in the bed, looking half-terrified, silent tears pouring down his face. “Hey, I’m here. What’s wrong?”

I step closer and the second I’m near the bed, he grabs the arm I’m not using to hold Wren and tugs us down until we’re sprawled across his lap. He buries his face in my hair and squeezes us to him. “You left,” he croaks out.

“I was making Wren breakfast.”

“You left,” he says again, his body starting to shake.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t want Wren to wake you up. It’s okay. I’m here now.”

Wren squirms around in my arms until she’s free from our bear hug. “Daddy?” she whispers.

“I’m okay, baby girl,” he whispers back, though I’m not sure that’s entirely true.

“Daddy,” she says again, and then she’s crying too.

I pull her back toward us, enveloping her in my arms. “Daddy’s okay, Wren. He’s just feeling a little bad, okay? He’s okay, though.”

She sniffles, but nods, staying tucked against my body. We stay that way for a few minutes. Julian’s nuzzling my hair and Wren is finally relaxing against my body.

The peace is interrupted when the wail of the smoke alarm starts blaring. Wren screams and starts sobbing. Julian jumps out of his skin.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. The pancakes. I jump up as quickly as humanly possible without dropping Wren in the process, sitting her down on Julian’s lap as she cries. “I’ll be right back. I think I’m burning the pancakes.”

I make it two steps and Julian’s voice stops me. “Stay with me, please.”

The plea in his voice breaks my heart, but I very well could be burning down the kitchen. “I’ll be right back,” I repeat, rushing from the room.

There’s smoke pouring from the black pancakes on the pan, but thankfully no fire, so I pull them off the heat and turn off the stove. The smoke alarm is still blaring, the disgusting scent of charred pancakes filling my nose. I drag a kitchen chair to the smoke alarm, and climb up, pulling it down and pulling the battery out to shut it off. Once I’m back on the ground, I slump against the counter, letting out a heavy sigh. This is not my day.

I give myself a few minutes to get myself together and glare at the burned pancakes. Not like it’s their fault. I can’t very well take care of Julian and Wren like this. He doesn’t need me to burn down his house, and since he doesn’t want me to leave him, it limits my options.

I peel myself off the counter and head back into the bedroom, where I find Wren curled up in Julian’s arms, both of them crying. Wren brightens slightly when she sees me, pulling herselffrom Julian’s arms and sitting up fully. “Burned the pancakes?” she asks.

I almost laugh. Almost. “Yeah, I burned the pancakes.”

“That’s okay,” she assures me in her sweet little voice.

I climb back into bed. “Thanks, pretty girl. Hey, Jules?”

He turns to look at me, his eyes a little dull. “How about I call Ruby and Henry to come get Wren for the day?”

He shakes his head. “No, I already failed her yesterday. I can’t do that. I want her here.”

I bite the inside of my cheek, trying to come up with a solution. “First, you didn’t fail her. But, okay, what if they come here?”

Another shake of his head, this time with his eyes widening. “No. I don’t…” His voice trails off as he looks at Wren. “I don’t want them to see how badly I’m messing up. They’ll be disappointed in me.”

He sounds so fucking dejected. I know there’s no way in hell Ruby and Henry would be disappointed in him. It’s pretty clear they think the world of him. But I also know this is going to take more than a conversation to work through, and it’s not something that needs to happen around Wren. “Okay… What about Beck and Ro? Can they come sit with her?”

He doesn’t shoot the idea down outright, which I’d call progress, and after a few seconds he nods. “Yeah, I think that would be okay.”

“Okay, let me call them. Can I step out for a second?”

He looks at me like he’d rather me do literally anything else, but he does nod, so I step into the hall, already pulling my phone out. Thankfully, Ro answers on the second ring. “Hey, Hold. What’s up?”

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