Hold on to Hope

by Jackson, A. L.

  He kept me pinned with that unrelenting gaze as he slowly pushed back to standing, heated eyes sweeping me head to toe, lingering on my breasts that I didn’t realize were spilling out.

  Okay. So spilling was an exaggeration. There wasn’t a lot there to brag about. But Evan was staring at them like they were an all-you-can-eat feast.

  I readjusted my top that Everett had dislodged.

  Swiveling away, Evan strode toward Jack who was still mumbling about getting sucker-punched by a ball, the ball Evan dipped down and snagged without saying a word, moving to where the sand was softer.

  He set Everett on his feet. The little guy bounced at his knees and clapped his hands over his head, his tiny fingers wiggling like he was fully prepared to catch a pass.

  Evan pretended like he tossed it, soaring it through the air before he carefully placed it in Everett’s hands.

  Everett’s squeals filled the air with a ridiculous amount of delight. My head filled with worry for my well-being, my teeth back to chewing off my bottom lip.

  Because I was pretty sure I heard my soul scream with delight, too.

  Ten

  Evan

  Was she for real?

  I stole a peek back her direction where she’d pushed to standing and moved over by her and Carly’s tent, two of them whispering their secrets where they were partially hidden by a tree.

  Yep.

  It was for real.

  She was wearing a white bikini.

  No big deal, right?

  Except unicorns were printed all over it, like they were stamped on.

  A statement.

  Unicorn Girl.

  Hadn’t missed the fact that she was still wearing that necklace, too. Thought she might toss it in a bid to forget me, but nope, there it was, dangling between her tits that were making me insane.

  Fuck. I was getting all messed up looking at her.

  That body sleek yet toned.

  Slim and muscled.

  The subtlest curves that I was itching to remember if they were as soft as they looked.

  Had to wonder if she was playing some sick game. Tormenting me. Showing up dressed like that, that douche in tow.

  Dude was an asshole.

  It was my fault. Wasn’t trying to deny it or pretend like I hadn’t caused all of this.

  Didn’t mean getting in the middle of it wasn’t about to send me off the edge.

  Out in the lake playing, prick had obviously been trying to make it clear that Frankie belonged to him.

  Like he was pissing on his property.

  Didn’t think he had the first clue what belonging to Frankie meant. That give and take.

  The uncontrollable connection.

  I glanced back over to where she was in a heated conversation with Carly.

  For a beat, those eyes dashed my way. A deeper-colored heat slashed through the hot summer air. My insides clenched in a tight fist.

  Guts knotted.

  Dick hard at the sight.

  Basically, I had been dealing with that same unfortunate predicament since she’d come traipsing down the trail and hit the cove this morning.

  All those wild brown curls blowing around her.

  That look in her eyes.

  Attraction bounding.

  Thank fuck she was sharing a tent with Carly and Josiah was sharing one with Jack. Last thing I wanted was to have to commit murder tonight.

  A little hand patted my knee.

  My attention jerked that way, and a grin was taking to my face.

  Affection bounding free. This feeling that I was willing to do absolutely anything to ensure his safety. His happiness.

  Honestly, it felt good to get him away from my parents’ house, this place a reprieve from the constant looking over my shoulder.

  Every rumble and vibration and shift in the air putting me on edge.

  Couldn’t shake this nasty sensation that someone was watching.

  Problem was, I didn’t know who it was. If Ashley was some kind of threat or if she was the one being threatened.

  If Everett could be in some kind of danger or if it was all just bullshit.

  Dad had called his old friend, Seth, who was a cop. I told him everything I knew, and he said he would keep an eye out, told me to be vigilant, but he agreed with Dad. I needed my goddamn name on that birth certificate.

  That had to come first.

  Everett patted my knee again, and I looked down at my son. An outpouring of devotion flooded out.

  Only thing that I made out from the babble was Da.

  Was pretty sure it sounded better than a goddamn love song.

  “Hey, little man.” My mouth moved with the affection.

  “Ehvie, up?” His little arms were over his head, his fingers moving like crazy, kid needing me.

  I swung him into my arms and gave him a small toss into the air.

  Carefully.

  Protectively.

  A riot of laughter tumbled from him, the crash of it a thunder I felt against my chest. His joy alive. I was going to be sure that I kept it that way. “Are you done playing ball?” I asked, tucking it between our chests after I shifted him over to my side.

  “Milk.” At least that’s what I thought he said.

  “Are you hungry?”

  He gave me one of his ridiculously cute nods where his head dipped down so low his shoulders went to his ears.

  “All right, let’s feed you.”

  I headed up to camp where everyone had gathered after the football game.

  We’d demolished Uncle Rex’s team. Of course, they weren’t so keen to agree.

  “No way, Uncle Ollie. That call was bogus. I totally made it into the endzone.” Preston was facing me, and even if I could have heard him, I thought the words would be slurred with the way he was shoving a hot dog into his mouth while he rambled.

  I went to the cooler and grabbed the bag with the containers of food mom and I had prepared for Everett and carried it to the picnic table where the two teams had gathered, everyone hungry after playing in the water all morning.

  I situated myself so that I could hear. My eyes flitting between the faces, finding moving mouths, listening to the conversations firing around me the best that I could.

  I set the bag on the table, watching as I did.

  “You wish, Preston. You were at least two feet away,” Uncle Ollie told him before he tossed a potato chip into his mouth and chased it with a gulp of beer.

  Ryland laughed and hooked a thumb in Preston’s direction. “Dude right here is a sore loser. He wants to make varsity, he’s going to have to give that shit up.”

  “Language,” Uncle Rex scolded, and I chuckled considering I thought the only thing that had come out of Ryland’s mouth the entire time we were playing were curses and jabs.

  “Yeah, language,” I said, covering Everett’s exposed ear. Not that my poor little man wasn’t constantly getting himself an earful. Guessed I was proof that it really didn’t matter all that much if you could hear them or not.

  I’d picked it up just the same.

  Hell, all the kids in elementary school had begged me to teach them how to sign every bad word in the book.

  You’d think I was a fucking comedian with the way they’d laughed like that shit was hysterical.

  Ryland slapped a hand over his mouth and mumbled something behind it. Widening my eyes, I flipped a playful finger at my ear as I called him out for totally forgetting that I couldn’t hear whatever nonsense he was mumbling behind his hand.

  A thud of affection pulsed, seeing him changed so much.

  Growing up so fast.

  I’d missed Frankie’s brothers like crazy. They’d been as close as brothers growing up. Of course, that’d had a ton to do with Frankie, the way we were tied at the hip. Was no surprise the two of them had always tried to follow us around.

  Ryland was laughing hard when he pulled his hand away so I could see his mouth. “Sorry, man. Sometimes I forget.”


  “No worries, dude. Probably didn’t want to hear what you had to say, anyway,” I razzed.

  “Asshole,” he said through a grin.

  Uncle Rex smacked him on the back of the head. Nothing more than a love tap.

  I laughed.

  Ryland rubbed at it and grumbled, “Dad, come on, man. Uncool. Uncool.”

  “Way more where that came from,” Uncle Rex tossed out, though he was wearing all that care that shone in his eyes.

  Could feel someone staring at me from the side, a piercing intrusion that hissed across my skin. I shifted my attention that way.

  Jack took me in like he had assumptions to make. “Seems you hear a lot better than you’re letting on.”

  Was he serious?

  My brow rose in question.

  Or maybe it was in challenge.

  My blood ran hot.

  Jealousy crawled down my spine.

  Wasn’t ashamed to admit it, either.

  I was jealous. Fucking seeing green at the thought of this guy putting his hands on my girl.

  My fault.

  I knew it.

  It didn’t change how I felt.

  Trying to hold the anger back, I sat Everett down on the edge of the table, wedging myself up close to him to keep him safe, and I dug into the bag and grabbed one of the small containers. I pulled off the lid so he could go to town on the diced-up pieces of grapes and honeydew while I tried to figure out how the hell I was supposed to deal with this bastard standing at my side without being a prick.

  Josiah didn’t seem so cautious, pushing out two hands from where he stood on the opposite side of the table. “Whoa, man, not cool. Probably should watch yourself with that kind of insinuation.”

  “Just sayin’.” Jack shrugged.

  What a dick. He wasn’t just sayin’.

  “That’s fine, man,” I said, canting a look at Jack before I turned my attention to Josiah and lifted my hands, signing quick. GUESS MY PRESENCE SHOUTS A LITTLE TOO LOUD FOR HIM.

  Josiah laughed and tipped the neck of his beer in my direction. “Think you’re right, Mars Bar.”

  Dad gave me a look that told me to cool it.

  Sometimes I thought Dad could feel me the same way I felt everyone else. That he could sense the anger. Feel the rage.

  I was feeling plenty of it right then.

  For no other reason than the fact this sack-of-shit had my girl.

  Thing was, I was pretty sure he was hating me even harder considering he knew I’d had her first. Because he’d already had the premonition that I was taking her back.

  That the girl belonged to me the same way as I belonged to her.

  Could feel the truth of it riding in with the wind.

  All’s fair in love and war and all that shit.

  Jack lifted his chin with an amicable smile on his face, but it wasn’t all that hard to read between the lines.

  An invisible gauntlet had been thrown.

  I didn’t hesitate to pick it up.

  Eleven

  Frankie Leigh

  Sitting on a blanket on the ground, I hugged my knees to my chest.

  Mesmerized by the fire. By the feel and the vibe and the peace I’d always found in this place.

  Flames flickered and leapt toward the star-strewn sky. Small waves lapped at the lakeshore, and a speaker playing old indie songs my parents had listened to when I was growing up hummed with temptation, seducing the shadows to dance through the trees.

  Uncle Ollie quietly strummed along, his guitar propped on his lap, his face tipped toward the heavens.

  Most everyone had mellowed except for my brothers and Bo who were still out in the lake roughhousing, tossing each other around. Charlotte and Becca giggled from their tent, whispering teenaged scandal, while my mother and her friends shared a bottle of wine where we’d all gathered around the fire.

  Carly was sitting on the ground to my left and Josiah was on the right in a chair where he was laughing at some tales my daddy and Uncle Kale were regaling him with.

  Tales that seemed to get taller every time they were told.

  Stories I’d heard so many times they’d become legend.

  Behind me, Jack sat on a chair, tossing back beers. No question, he was feeling the tension that wound and whispered and thrashed.

  It didn’t help that Evan was sitting directly across the fire from me, holding that child who was fast asleep against his bare chest, his emerald eyes watching me.

  Hotter than they’d ever been.

  A shiver rolled the length of my spine, and I tried to rip my attention away. To stand against the lure and attraction that rose and lifted like it was fueled by the flames.

  The problem was, it only seemed to dump gasoline on the inferno of mourning and need and love that toiled inside of me.

  That power only increased with every erratic beat that thudded from my heart.

  My best friend. My best friend.

  My everything.

  I wanted to reach through the distance to the way things used to be, but I was still having the hardest time trying to figure out my way back there after all the obstacles that had been dumped in our path.

  The potholes and pitfalls.

  The fathomless scars that grieved.

  Maybe the hardest part of that was the way the wounds ached to be soothed, well aware that balm was sitting right there, five feet away.

  “She was always gettin’ into trouble, wasn’t she?” My mother’s soft voice touched my ears, and I barely turned that way to catch onto the conversation that was clearly going on about me, too much in a daze to notice until she’d mentioned the word trouble.

  Daddy had once convinced me he’d actually changed my middle name to Trouble.

  I’d cried for two days straight.

  I guessed I had it coming considering I’d stuck a bobby pin in a socket to find out if it actually would shock me or not. Somehow, I’d rationalized that I really needed to know it for myself. Knocked the electricity out for an entire day and burned my hand really good.

  Evan had freaked out, lecturing me about needing to be safe and to listen and to stop being so reckless for about fifteen hours, and Mama had cried for just as long.

  Both terrified over what could have happened.

  “Hey, are you all talkin’ about me over there. That’s hardly nice.” My words were soft, filled with all the adoration I had for this woman.

  God, coming here? I couldn’t help but remember to be grateful for the way she’d come into my life. To never take for granted the sacrifices that had been made.

  I’d experienced both sides of the token—sustained the most damaging sort of abandonment and witnessed the greatest forms of sacrifice and devotion.

  I did my best to remember the sacrifices were the most important.

  Mama giggled and pointed at me around the wine glass she clutched, the red sloshing close to the rim. “Well, all the worry you put us through was hardly nice, either. I don’t remember a single time that we came out to the lake that you didn’t get yourself into some mishap or another. I think Kale only came because he knew we were going to need a doctor on call.”

  “I was just exploring,” I defended with a grin.

  “More like you weren’t listening.” Daddy’s gruff voice was suddenly in the conversation. My attention whipped over to where he sat. I was hit with a surge of the protective devotion he’d always watched me with. “You’re lucky I’m still around with the way my heart damned near stopped every time you up and disappeared.”

  My heart did for the quickest flash.

  Stopped beating.

  People used that phrase so casually.

  Flippantly.

  Not that I could blame my daddy. It was an everyday expression.

  Still, I hated it.

  Hated it so much that it sent a crash of nausea spiraling through my stomach.

  I forced a smile.

  “You told her one thing, she’d do the opposite,” Uncle Kale added, wat
ching me soft, the man my hero in so many ways.

  He’d been there for me through the toughest time of my life.

  Held my secrets in the palms of his hands.

  Never looked at me any different when he did.

  I couldn’t love him more.

  I hoped it wasn’t stingy that some of it had to do with the fact he’d saved Evan.

  Physically.

  Emotionally.

  He’d given him a family when he hadn’t had a father to show him what a man should be like. Given him an example of what love should be. How to treat someone right. How could I not adore him for that?

  “Hey, that’s all y’alls fault.” I pointed around at the faces who’d given me the best kind of childhood. “It wouldn’t have been a problem if you wouldn’t have forbidden me from doing all the fun things.”

  “Yeah because you ran right for danger,” Daddy said. “Dove into it, half the time. Thinking you could fly when you didn’t have wings.”

  “That’s because you all kept trying to cut them off,” I returned. “I even got in trouble for jumping off the cliffs, and if there’s even an ounce of truth to the stories you’ve been tellin’ my entire life, all of you were doin’ way worse.” I feigned my disappointment as I looked at Daddy, Uncle Kale, and Uncle Ollie.

  Uncle Ollie chuckled a low rumble of guilt.

  Evan shifted in his chair, something soft pulling at one side of his mouth.

  And I knew he was thinking about all the times we’d been here.

  Running.

  Flying.

  Soaring.

  Our lives nothing but laughter and joy and hope.

  Okay, and a whole lot of trouble, too. I think we’d found ourselves in time out more than we’d had time to play. It was funny how those memories were just as wonderful.

  Wistfulness pressed down on my chest.

  Nostalgia.

  A fierce kind of longing that pulsed and begged and whispered to be restored.

  I’d do anything to reclaim it. To find that time again. When we’d truly believed that as long as we stuck together, we’d be okay.

  Evan watched me like he was thinking the exact same thing.

  The boy so gorgeous where he was lit up in the glimmer of the flames, the shadows tracing his and Everett’s faces.