Page 2 of Tides That Bind

The next time I see Nate, he’ll be alive in the flesh and not in a coffin. I refuse to think otherwise.

“You’re my brother and she’s my wife and there’s not one person I trust with her more than you. And…I need you to look out for her, Riley. Especially now.”

I feel sick at the thought of this kind of responsibility. I’ve never had luck keeping a goldfish alive. And what doeslooking out forher even mean? But how can I say no to Nate.

I’ll do it. I won’t like it and I’ll make sure he damn well knows that.

Nate pulls me against him.

“Enough with the goodbyes already,” I repeat even though I’m theone who hugs him harder. I can sense his hesitancy in his rigid stance, in the way he hugs me, like he’s letting me feel how terrified he really is and not Harper. I hate that I know how fear feels, like a parasite that invades your body, infesting all the worst kind of what-ifs and burying them deep in your gut. I sigh and pull away. I’ve got to give him something here.

“You’ll be back,” I promise him before adding, “And she’ll be alright.”

Straightening his uniform, Nate nods and retrieves his duffle. “Yeah. Because she has you.”

The first timeanyone ever celebrated my birthday, I was nineteen and it was only by coincidence. The manager at the bar I started working at happened to be processing my W2 that night. There wasn’t cake. There was a tequila shot, even though I was underage, and five of the bar’s regulars sang, holding a lighter for me to blow out in lieu of a candle.

Like many kids, I dreamed of birthday parties my entire life—grand ones at the roller rink, or sleepovers with friends where we watched movies we had no business viewing, talking about boys we believed teased us because they thought we were pretty.

But nothing close to that ever happened.

In the many places I lived, I’m not sure there was a roller rink. My friends, even as a kid, were all adults. Some of them were clowns. Some, truck drivers, others, lion tamers. My life was a circus.

That’s because I was born into one. And when your mother is the lead acrobat and your father the ringleader, and you live in a trailer on the road, birthday parties aren’t really a thing. If anyone ever remembered, it usually wasn’t my parents.

But me? I’d be different as a parent. And I am. It took meeight years of parenting and thirty-four years of living to finally say I nailed the birthday thing.

I step back from the counter and rub my hands together in delight. The cake is absolutely perfect, another thing for a perfect birthday celebration crafted with love and fueled by copious cups of coffee for my perfectly imperfect eight-year-old.

Pinterest lied about how long it would take to construct the balloon arch and I might’ve spent far too much money on the goodie bags, but there’s less than an hour until the party begins and everything is exactly as it should be.

And with how beautiful the cake looks, frosted with the ideal Captain America blue and fit with a fondant rendition of the superhero’s shield, I’m wondering if I should shut down my yoga studio and open a bakery.

“Tides, heel!”

I should know better than to decide on this exact moment to carry the cake stand to the dining room. Since Tides’s average speed is 75 miles per hour, it only takes half a second between Nate opening the backdoor and Tides crashing into me.

Before Nate even appears, the cake lands where Tides finally decides to heel—on the floor at my feet.

I beam my anger into the mess, into Tides, who tilts his head at what is an unnatural degree for a human but a perfect degree for a German Shepard.

“You’re going to the pound,” I seethe. “I mean it this time.”

Nate curses under his breath. “Tides, come.”

Tides listens on command, but not before he steps into the mound of deconstructed cake, dragging the mess further across the kitchen.

I ball my hands tightly at my side. “Oh, you little—”

Nate raises a hand and leans down, picking up the dog as if he isn’t pushing 100 pounds. Tides wags his tail as Nate carries him out back and I swear it’s only to taunt me.

I groan and reach for the paper towels.

“I’ll take care of it.” Nate returns to the kitchen with a bright blue paw print against the shoulder of his black uniform.

I must be angrier with Tides than I am spiteful at Nate because I don’t remind my husband he said that last night before slipping out the door and heading across the backyard to Riley’s apartment, leaving me tangled in the balloon arch’s wiring.

“Do you know how long it took to make that cake?”

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