Page 54 of Hold

They parked the car in front of the house as usual, and while the boys got the bags out of the back of the van, Thea opened the front door and walked through to the back to call for Audrey.

Only someone was standing on the back porch.

He unfolded himself from one of the plastic lawn chairs that lived there, wearing a coat that was too warm for the weather and a large backpack by his feet.

“Hullo, pet,” he said.

She was in the open back door, the boys spilling in behind her, dumping shopping bags any old way on the counter.

Benji saw him first. “Dad!” he shouted and barreled past Thea to fling himself into Gabriel’s arms.

Chapter 16

It was a good thing Benji was occupying his father’s space and conversation because Thea had lost all ability to speak. She stood in the doorway where she’d stopped. The cool air from the air conditioner blew past her legs. The food in the grocery bags shifted and slumped to its side.I hope that’s not the eggs, she thought faintly.

“I knew you’d come back!” Benji was yelling, and Thea couldn’t tell if he was laughing or crying. “Jake said you wouldn’t, but I knew you would!”

Jake. Thea unfroze long enough to turn her head to the left, where Jake looked as paralyzed as she felt. He still held two bags of groceries.

He looked at her. His eyes held years of hurt and disappointment and anger and fear and—worst of all—love. She wanted to shield him from so much, and she couldn’t do it.

She went back into the house, the screen door slamming behind her, and took the bags from him. Under Benji’s piping voice, she said, “If you want to scoot, you can. You can deal with him later.”

Jake frowned but let her take the bags. “Just come home, okay?” she said to his retreating back as he pushed through the kitchen and out the front door.

Now she had no one to shield her. Not that that was Jake’s job. But she’d come to rely on him to be her partner in the last two years—too much, she knew. But how else could she have survived?

And it was the fault of the man standing on the back porch.

Gabe was still standing out on the porch, Benji clinging to him. “Sure, and haven’t you grown!” he was saying.

“Uncle Antonio says I’ll be as tall as him any minute!” Benji sang.

“You’re almost as tall as me!” Gabe bent over his son to hug him, a long body hug that brought a lump to Thea’s throat.

Gabe’s hair was longer, curlier. The black was speckled with gray—she saw it more clearly with his head bent over Benji. There seemed to be more of him… but perhaps that was because she hadn’t seen him in so long. A memory of the last time she’d slept with him, the exact weight of him as he’d pressed her into the mattress, made her wince.

He broke the hug, then crouched down to Benji’s level. “Do you still play with your Legos, Ben?”

“’Course!” Benji’s brown eyes, which he’d inherited from her, were the shape of his father’s, and the two of them were peas in a pod when they looked at each other.

“What’s the latest thing you’ve made? Will you show me?”

“Okay!” Benji went to clatter up the stairs but halted within a few feet. “You’re staying, right?”

Gabe’s eyes flickered to Thea and back to him. “I’m not leaving, I promise you.”

Thea folded her arms, but Benji grinned and ran upstairs.

Being alone with him again took her breath away. He was still on the porch, looking at her through the screen. Even in the shadows, his Cillian Murphy eyes filled her. He was older, heavier at the jaw, but she felt that heaviness all through him—in his heart, piercing his soul.

“T,” he said.

Thea to you,she wanted to say but couldn’t get any words out.

“T,” he said again. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Thea looked up at the ceiling. His voice was rough and low, as heavy as the rest of him. She hated and loved it at the same time.

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