Page 59 of Boston
“You can’t be something you’re not,” Jem said.
“No, but Icanchange,” Blaze said. “I have before, and I can again if he needs me to be something different. I would do it for him.”
“Maybe he has to change too,” Mav whispered, almost expecting Blaze to throw shade at him and dump him out of the hammock.
Instead, he nodded. “Maybe,” he said. “But maybe sometimes you just need to be validated in how you feel, and I think that’s what those cousin nights are. They show up there feeling lost and unanchored, alone and abandoned. They think we’veabandonedthem.” He shook his head and made his voice quiet again as he continued. “And they validate one another. They feel like they belong together. They remember they’re not alone.”
“Well, we should be glad they have each other then,” Jem said.
“Doesn’t change the fact that they think we’ve moved on and replaced them.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Mav said, his thoughts on Beth and Boston, who had both attended the cousin nights.
They’d never said anything about them, just that they had a good time and they liked hanging out with their older cousins.
Out of all of them, Boston didn’t even have Young DNA,and Mav wondered how lost, alone, and afraid he truly felt. He’d never thought to ask him or find out how the boy felt.
“I’m going to go talk to Momma and Daddy,” Blaze said. “See if they can help me figure out what I should do.”
“This was just yesterday?” Mav asked.
“Last night,” Blaze said.
“Have you talked to Cash since?”
“I tried calling him, but he wouldn’t pick up. I texted him. I told him how much I love him, and that whatever he needed I would be there. He only answered with two words: I know.”
“You think he’s lying?” Jem asked.
“Yeah,” Blaze said, the word angry. “I think he’s lying. I think he thinks I’m all words and no action. Of course I’m going to say I’ll be there, but I can’treallybe there because I have a baby and three other kids and a wife who need me. So of course, I can’t leave them and choose him first.” He sighed, and Mav watched him close his eyes, and Blaze looked so, so tired.
“He said no one chooses him, and as I laid awake last night, I realized—he’s right. No one puts Cash first.” He exhaled heavily. “Not even me.”
“But you have in some instances,” Mav said, his own guilt kicking up against the back of his throat.
Every man in his family had been in Blaze’s position, with one kid from their first marriage. Then, they’d each gotten remarried and started new families.
Mav could definitely understand the younger generation’s perspective of the situation, but no, he had no idea what to do about it.
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
Cole Young rose to awareness when someone cracked his bedroom door and walked inside. Only two people were brave enough to do that: his daddy or his younger sister, Rosie. Nine times out of ten, Rosie was the one hissing at him in the darkness to get up, and today proved to be one of those nine times.
“Cole,” she said, almost under her breath and almost inaudible.
“Yeah. You going?” he asked.
She pulled back his covers, and Cole scooted back against the wall in his slim twin bed. Rosie climbed in with him, though he could tell she was already dressed. The slide of her denim along his leg and the cuff of her shirt against his bare chest told him that.
“You’re so warm,” she said.
“You’re dressed already,” he whispered back. “How can you be cold?”
“Because Sunny keeps this place so freezing.” Rosie also didn’t have any body fat, so that didn’t help her temperature issues.
Rosie always came in for a reason, at least one that made sense to her. Sometimes just to tell Cole to have a good day, and sometimes to whisper something about Sunny, or Daddy, one of the little kids, or even their momma down in Las Vegas. Rosie had what Cole liked to call atalking problem, where every thought she had usually came out of her mouth—good, bad, and ugly. He actually loved her for it, because he was the complete opposite.
