Page 127 of The Troublemaker

“More than half,” Brody said. “But anyway. We’re going to have some of our own full-time kids eventually. We were just waiting for Benny to feel totally settled with all the other changes.”

“I know that it’s good,” Lachlan said. “Because you’ve all gone from being the most interminable assholes to being functional people. I give your wives credit for that, and it’s why I went and found one of my own. And those of you that have kids...even better. So I look forward to my own transformation.”

“You think it’s magic?” Gus asked.

“Seems like it to me.”

They laughed at him. All of them.

And he just stared at them. While they laughed.

“It’s blood, sweat and tears, little brother,” Hunter had said. “Elsie and I have all kinds of things we’re still working out. Crap that our parents did to us.”

“Yeah,” Brody said. “Hate to break it to you. But you come into your marriage with baggage, and you spend a lot of time unpacking it.”

He couldn’t process that. “But you’re all happy.”

“Yeah,” Brody said. “Deliriously happy. That’s kind of the miracle. You learn to be happy, even while you bring all that with you. Because what you decide is that your love is bigger than all that stuff. That’s the key. That’s the secret.”

He felt rocked by that. A little bit duped.

Because they were his goal. His dream for himself. His proof he could be normal. That there was a different kind of love out there and maybe if he did all the right things, he could have that, and not the monster.

“But...”

“But nothing. It’s all good. You’re going to be a great dad.”

“Why do you think that?” Lachlan asked.

“Because you’re a good person. So you’re going to figure out how to do this, just like you figured out how to love her.”

Except he wasn’t sure hehadfigured out how to love her. That day in the forest she had stripped off another layer for him, and he had gone ahead and reinforced his own guard inside him. Because he decided that he didn’t want her getting too close to the parts of him that were disastrous. He still felt that way. Because she was too good to be exposed to all of his bullshit.

Well, what the hell was he supposed to do with a kid? He wondered if he’d been lying to himself.

If it didn’t just fix you...

She had said to him one time that she thought it was amazing he hadhope. That he believed in the way things were meant to be. And he wondered if he was actually kind of an idiotic optimist, all things considered. Life had never given him a reason to be. He just sort of was one.Because. Because being a pessimist had felt like a long, dark road to hell, and he hadn’t been able to live with that. So he decided that things would work out. Maybe there was a mistake in that. What if there was?

What if there was no fix for him? For this growing need in him that he feared pointed to a deeper, darker part of him that he had successfully kept covered all this time.

What if.

It was a pretty damn sobering thought. He lifted his beer bottle to his mouth, but suddenly it felt acid.

He set it down on the table.

“What’s going on in your head?” Gus asked.

“Nothing. Just thinking about how expensive diapers are.”

“Good thing your wife is a vet. And has a rental. She brought a lot to that marriage.”

“Ibring a lot,” Lachlan muttered.

“You’re the one whining about diapers.”

“I’m not whining.”

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