Page 69 of I Found You
The attendant brought out a bucket of various-sized axes and started to walk us through a tutorial on how to use them. Seb stepped up in the middle of the guy’s spiel and threw his axe right into the bullseye.
“We got it from here,” he told the guy. A kid, really. Dude looked like it was probably still in high school.
Wes towered over him and placed a hand on his shoulder. The kid’s face paled like he thought Wes was going to throw an axe at his head. “We’re not going to fuck around. We’re all adults here.”
“Well, we’re going to fuck around a little,” Reid piped up.
I huffed out a laugh, Seb shot him an amused smirk, and Wes sighed in exasperation. I loved these fucking guys.
“I’ll keep them in line,” Wes told the kid, gently pushing him away.
I popped open a beer and swung back my head, chugging it down in one go. “Let’s do this.”
Reid and Wes stepped up to the two bays, side by side. At the same time, they both threw their axes. Wes struck the bullseye dead center. Reid’s axe bounced off the boards and clattered to the floor.
Seb and I were next. I picked up my axe and took out all my fury on that target. The axe had a shit-ton of power and absolutely no aim, jamming deeply into the boards just to the left of the target rings. When I turned back around after I retrieved the axe, all three of the guys were watching me, brows raised in silent questions.
“Who’s up next?”
“Take my turn. I’m going to eat some wings,” Reid offered.
Somehow, we ended up with the three of them taking turns at one bay while I took all my anger and hurt out on the other bay by myself.
We ate, drank, and threw axes for the next hour and a half. I could see the kid from earlier standing around after our hour time slot was up, but he didn’t come over to us to kick us out. The place was pretty dead; only two other bays were taken, while the other four were unused. I didn’t really feel too bad about going over our time. And if the kid didn’t have the balls to even talk to us, that was his problem. I had enough of my own problems today.
That made me think about Maeve again, and Jane. I hatednot knowing where Jane was. How could Maeve just pack up her stuff and send her on her way? She said herself that the lady was cold. She couldn’t want Jane to grow up like that. I knew I didn’t. But I didn’t have a voice in this. As much as I had been in Jane’s life, it was always on the periphery.
Wes clapped me on the shoulder and pulled me back to the present. “We got to start packing it up soon. That poor kid looks like he’s sweating just thinking about coming over here. You want a few more throws while I clean up?”
“No. I’m good. Let’s get this cleaned up,” I told him.
I was about to call over to Reid and Seb to get them to help us when Wes spoke quietly. “You want to talk about it?” he asked.
I looked back at the other two, working on their trick shots and trying to throw each other off every time someone went to throw. “Not really.” I hesitated for a second before continuing. “But, uh, if you have a couch I could crash on, I wouldn’t say no. My place stinks like stale air and despair.”
He let out a huff I was pretty sure was supposed to be a chuckle that he was trying to hold back. “Yeah, brother. My couch is free anytime.”
We finished cleaning up and pried the other two away from the axes. I didn’t necessarily feel any better than I did before, but I didn’t want to rip someone’s head off, so I guessed that was progress. Reid and Seb both took off, and Wes brought me back to his place to crash.
That night, as I lay on Wes’s couch, looking at the ceiling, my mind was on Jane, wondering if she was okay in her new house. I hated being away from her. And Maeve. I was still pissed about how it all went down. Furious that I didn’t even get a chance to see her before she was ripped from my life. Iknew she wasn’t mine, but that didn’t mean I didn’t love that little girl more than I ever thought possible. I already missed the way her little fingers would grab things, the look on her face when she was processing the world around her. Every little thing was like the most magical thing she’d ever seen.
Maeve always laughed when Jane would wrap her sticky little fingers around her hair. She never got mad or annoyed at it. She would smile that bright-as-a-star smile at her and tell her how strong she was. Fuck, I missed Maeve too. I wanted my body swathed around hers, breathing in the scent of her hair, her skin. The way her soft, curvy body responded to me was addicting. I didn’t know when it happened, but it hit me with certainty. “I’m fucked.”
“Yup. You are.” I turned toward the voice and found Wes standing in the hallway. He walked by the living room and into the kitchen. I heard him fumbling around with glasses, and the sink turned on. When he came back, he sat a glass of water on the side table for me. “You just now realizing it? This about Jane?”
“She’s gone. That grandmother that came out of the blue came and got her. I was working and didn’t see Maeve’s texts and calls. By the time I got to her house, Jane was gone.” I moved my feet so he could take a seat on the couch. “I may have said some shit things to her.”
“What the fuck did you do that for? You got some beautiful, kind, compassionate woman to fall for you, and you’re going to screw it up?”
“She could have tried harder to keep her. She could have made sure I got to say bye. She just let Jane go with this random woman. I know whatever environment she’s in now isn’t going to be as good as she had it with us.”
“Us? Like a family unit?” Wes asked with his eyebrow raised.
“I don’t know, man,” I lied. I did know. I knew that Maeve and Jane meant the world to me. I could see us being the perfect family unit. Sunday morning breakfasts watching Jane play on a swing set. Tuesday night pizza on paper plates. Waking up to Maeve’s hair in my face, or my chest, or anywhere she damn well pleased to lie, so long as it was next to me. What I didn’t know was how Maeve and I would work without Jane. She was the reason Maeve was brought into my life, and I couldn’t imagine lying with Maeve and not having to wake up to Jane’s soft cry as she stirred in the morning. “It doesn’t matter anyway. We’re not a family. We never were. Maeve was Jane’s foster parent. She did her job, and now it’s over.”
“What’s over? The parenting or the relationship?”
“I don’t know. Both?”
