Pieces of Us: A Confessions of the Heart Stand-Alone Novel

by Jackson, A. L.

  My insides were a tangle of emotions I wasn’t even close to being able to put my finger on. “Might have gotten into a fight with a couple bad guys.”

  Left out the part that they were still out there.

  He came to a stop a foot away, a massive frown wiping the happiness from his expression. “Did they hurt you? Nana has a special bag in the freezer that makes it better, but I really think it’s the love she sends with it that does the trick. Do you want me to get it for you?”

  Fuck, there went my heart, banging in my chest.

  An uproar that didn’t know where to land.

  “That’s okay, little man. Looks worse than it is.”

  It was everything else that was making me feel like I’d gotten a fist through the chest.

  Izzy moved to his side and ran her fingers through his hair.

  “So, I know you two sort of met yesterday since this one decided to disobey.”

  She was looking at him with a gentle reprimand when she said it, her mouth tipping up.

  Guilt took hold of his face. “I’m really sorry. I just wanted to meet your friend who is a cop.” He turned his attention to me. “Except you don’t really look all that much like a cop.”

  Dillon was clearly speculating as he took me in. “Where’s your uniform?”

  I stood there, trying to keep up, this kid shifting from one topic to the next without so much as a blink of his eye.

  “I’m a detective which means I should probably be wearing a suit like my partner likes to do, but I think this looks better, don’t you?”

  Pretending to play it cool usually wasn’t too much of a stretch, but I was having a bitch of a time managing it right then. I forced a grin around the agitation, trying to win a few extra points with the kid.

  Could anyone blame me?

  “You look pretty cool to me.”

  Then his eyes doubled in size when a thought struck him.

  “Are you undercover?” He whispered it, looking around all covert-like, kid all-in at keeping the secret.

  Fucking cute.

  “You do kinda look like a bad guy,” he said even lower, and he looked at his mom in awe. “Your friend is the coolest.”

  If only she could be that impressed.

  “Boom. Bang. Bam! Sneak attack,” he whisper-shouted as he launched into a couple karate chops and a side kick that was nothing but awkward.

  My chest tightened.

  Shit.

  This was almost too much, and I set my hand to the achy spot that was pressing firm.

  I glanced over at Izzy.

  She sent me a wistful smile that nearly bent me in two. Hazel eyes shimmering under the light, brimming with soft encouragement.

  Different than it used to be.

  But still there.

  Taking her expression as a go, I knelt down in front of Dillon.

  This kid who I didn’t have a clue where he came from.

  What her life had been like. If she’d been happy or hurt.

  Envy shivered, a vicious pulse through my blood. I beat that shit down, and instead stuck out my trembling hand. “Glad to meet you, Dillon. I’m Maxon, but all my friends call me Mack.”

  His smile stretched wider, two rows of tiny white baby teeth, two big ones on top.

  Enthusiastically, he placed his hand in mine. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Mack. Is it okay if I call you that? Am I your friend? Do you want to be mine? Are you and my mom friends now?”

  I glanced over at Izzy who was clearly fighting her own war. Chin trembling and moisture glistening in those eyes.

  “Yeah, Dillon. I’m really hoping she and I can be friends again.” I was looking at her when I said it, and her teeth clamped down on her bottom lip.

  I sent her a look that I hoped would convey how fucking sorry I was. For ever hurting her. For doing her so wrong. Wishing I could go back in time and change it all.

  “Then she can call you Mack instead of Maxon, like all your friends, right?” Dillon asked, breaking the connection.

  “Well, thing is, your mom was a special friend, so she gets to call me Maxon,” I told him, words raw, filled up with all the need I was feeling right then.

  I glanced back at her just in time to see the pink touch her cheeks, and I could only imagine what it’d be like to get to pink her up everywhere.

  Watch heat rise to that silky flesh.

  I pushed down the greed when I heard the swinging door creak that I knew led to the kitchen.

  Or maybe it was just those final cracks working their way through my spirit.

  Soul crashing.

  Slowly, I straightened to standing, doing my best not to crumble to the ground as the door slowly opened.

  Nothing but a pile of bones. Broken and brittle.

  Emotion clotted off the air when the kid with my face struggled to make it through the door.

  He did his best to maneuver with those crutches, his legs so goddamn skinny and the toes of his right foot dragging on the floor.

  His ankles and knees were bent at an odd angle, his arms and shoulders a bit off, too, but not close to being as affected as his lower body.

  And fuck, he had this crooked smile that melted a crater through the middle of me.

  A fist of sorrow squeezed my being, and I felt every fucking thing I thought I’d known shatter.

  Splinter into nothing.

  Devotion rushed in to take its place while a slew of taunts and teases played out in my mind.

  Picture after picture.

  Izzy alone. Her belly round. A tiny baby in her arms. A lifetime I hadn’t known.

  I didn’t know if it was helplessness or sheer determination that lined my body that had me going for him.

  Fuck boundaries.

  Izzy’s hand shot out. Her touch froze me to the spot, fire spreading up my arm. My attention whipped to her.

  She was pleading with her eyes not to make this transition harder.

  Not to go in blazing.

  Reminding me I hadn’t earned the right.

  “Izzy,” I all but choked, and I inhaled a jagged breath, fighting with all of me to keep standing still.

  She squeezed my arm, the girl just getting it the way she always had.

  She knew I was floored.

  Staggered.

  Slayed.

  Benjamin started to hobble my direction.

  My heart burst right there. Nothing but mangled bits crawling for the kid.

  With each lumbering step he took, my chest tightened more.

  Compressing and swelling.

  Energy lashed in the middle of it.

  Different but the same.

  Could feel Izzy’s anxiety where she stood at my side, and Benjamin shot her a careful, searching glance before sliding his gaze back to me.

  And I wondered if he could see it, too.

  Feel it.

  Bleeding and spilling out.

  The way every cell in my body seized in awareness.

  Did he recognize me the way I recognized him?

  And I wondered if this was what it felt like when a man first held a newborn in his arms. What it felt like to hear his child’s first gurgling cry. Destroyed.

  Knocked down so he could be rebuilt.

  Become a better man.

  Izzy moved to his side. Discretely, she swiped at the tear that had gotten loose and streaked down her cheek.

  She cleared her throat, but it didn’t do anything to unclog the emotion that hung from her being, the pain riding out on her introduction.

  “Maxon, this is my son, Benjamin.” She set her hand on his shoulder, her voice a song when she whispered near his ear, “Benjamin, this is my friend, Maxon.”

  “Hiiii, Maxxxxon,” he said.

  The words were elongated, like the letters were getting piled on top of each other. His mouth stretching open wide, jaw wrenching to the side to get the words out.

  My lungs squeezed.

  He let go of one crutch and awkwardly stretched out his hand, hi
s arm a little disfigured, too.

  In it, I saw his perfection.

  “I’m glllllad you came,” he warbled.

  And I knew right then, nothing else in the world mattered.

  Nothing but them.

  Sixteen

  Mack

  Dillon made a beeline for the kitchen, not even pausing as he threw open the swinging door. “Dinnertime!” he shouted.

  Sweat beaded at the base of my neck, and I anxiously rubbed my hands together, nerves rattling as I thought about having to stand in front of Izzy’s parents.

  People who’d been nothing but kind to me growing up. People who I’d stumbled into a few times over the years, but like a coward, I’d always turned my head, dropped my gaze in a shame that I didn’t want to face.

  Acting like a punk who didn’t give a fuck.

  It couldn’t be farther from the truth.

  Time to man up because there would be no avoiding them any longer.

  Benjamin slanted me a wayward smile before he turned around and started toward the door, a whole ton slower than Dillon had gone.

  Izzy stepped up behind him, her footsteps slow and tentative. At the doorway, the girl stopped and tipped that gorgeous gaze back at me.

  Waiting.

  An uncertain invitation on her face.

  I forced myself to just . . . move.

  To beat down the age-old insecurities. To ignore the scars that felt like they’d been ripped open wide.

  Raw and bleeding.

  I bypassed Izzy who held open the door. When I did, our arms brushed.

  Fire spread.

  She sucked in a breath, and my spine went rigid.

  God. That was going to be a problem.

  The attraction that blazed, barely contained.

  Doing my best to ignore it, I stepped the rest of the way into the kitchen and right into the middle of the chaos going down.

  AKA: Dillon.

  He was running circles around the gigantic island, flapping his arms, shouting the whole way, “Nana, that smells so good. I want all the potatoes. Wait, did you make potatoes? And gravy? You can’t have potatoes without gravy. That’s a rule, right?”

  He didn’t even slow for her response, diverting paths and clambering onto a chair at the table where Izzy’s father was reading the paper. He leaned on his forearms, getting right up in the old man’s face. “Right, Grand-Pop? No gravy—no good, baby.”

  The old guy grunted, lowering his paper an inch to look at Dillon from over the top.

  He was doing his best to front annoyance, but there was no missing the affection swimming in his eyes. “Whatever happened to kids eating what was put on the table in front of them?”

  “That’s called old-fashioned, Grand-Pop.”

  “Old-fashioned, huh? Nothing wrong with that.”

  “You shush, Mr. Grumpy Pants,” Mrs. Lane was saying with a chuckle from where she had her back to everyone, whipping something that no doubt was going to be delicious in a bowl.

  My mouth watered just thinking about it.

  “I finally get the chance to spoil my grandbabies, you can bet your bottom I’m gonna do it.”

  “I’ll bet my botttttom,” Benjamin added in that voice that twisted through me with a force unlike anything I’d felt before.

  Razor-sharp or a caress, I wasn’t sure. Only thing I knew was it cut me wide open.

  Another grunt from the old man who still had his face buried in the paper.

  That was right before awareness spread.

  Thick and hot and clammy.

  In discomfort, I shifted on my feet, sucking in a steeling breath when the door stopped its slow sway behind us, the stillness casting us in a spotlight.

  No longer able to hide.

  Izzy’s father slowly dropped the paper and pinned me with a glare, eyes dark and narrowed.

  If looks could kill and all of that.

  Or maybe he was just calculating how fast he could get to his gun.

  End the threat he was viewing me as right then and there.

  Had never had the courage to talk to him after what had happened. He had to think I was a complete asshole.

  Wouldn’t be that far off base.

  I roughed a hand through my hair, itching in the tension that bounced from the walls, gaining speed with each pass.

  Mrs. Lane clearly felt it, too, because she slowed her mixing and shifted around. Her eyes softened, and my heart squeezed in the middle of my chest.

  “Why, it’s Maxon Chambers,” she mused. Her expression twisted in something I couldn’t quite read.

  I wasn’t sure how the hell I was supposed to stand under the scrutiny.

  Welcoming the judgment because God knew I’d earned it.

  “That’s Mack to his friends, Nana,” Dillon piped in from the table. “Unless you’re a special friend like Mom. Are you a special friend, too?”

  Izzy choked at my side.

  Mrs. Lane busted up laughing, and Mr. Lane grumbled something that sounded a whole lot like, “Special friend, my ass,” under his breath.

  Izzy cleared her throat. “Mama, Daddy . . . I’m sure you remember Maxon?” She peeked over at me when she said it, redness still lighting on those cheeks.

  Girl trying to be a proper hostess in the middle of what had to be the most uncomfortable situation either of us had ever found ourselves in.

  You know, since I was only a friend coming over for a friendly dinner.

  “If only I could forget.” This from her father.

  Apparently, I should have worn my bullet-proof vest. Hell, full on riot gear would have been safer with the way he was looking at me.

  This was a man I respected fully. He was the first man I’d met who fit the image of what a father should be. Ian wasn’t the first man I’d thought deserved father of the year.

  Loyal and protective. Loved his wife.

  Playful, too.

  Watching Izzy with a soft smile, losing his mind when she was doing something dangerous that she wasn’t supposed to do, but never in a million years would he lay a hand on her.

  Was terrified of him at first, but I soon understood the difference between a gentle discipliner and a tyrant.

  Night and fucking day.

  And standing there, I hadn’t done a thing to deserve that kind of respect. I got it, but that didn’t mean it didn’t leave me feeling like an intruder.

  I glanced at Izzy, and my spirit stretched tight.

  Emotion gushed in all those vacant places.

  A direct reminder of why I was all too willing to stand in the fire.

  She was willing to take this chance on me, and that was worth any amount of unease or unrest. Any amount of judgment or speculation.

  “Jack,” Mrs. Lane admonished, shooting a scowl at her husband and waving him off like it was no big deal before she was sending a welcoming smile to me. “Ignore him.”

  “Ignore that Mr. Grumpy Pants,” Dillon was all too eager to agree. “He might act mean, but he’s got all the love.”

  Benjamin cracked up like it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard, though those blue eyes were keen on me the whole time.

  Watching.

  Like he was digging for the answer to a mystery.

  “Come here,” Mrs. Lane said, gesturing with her hands at herself as she ambled over. She stretched her arms out in welcome.

  The woman had aged in the last handful of years, though she still had that lightness she’d worn like a signature color. Tenderness oozing from her demeanor with a dash of sass that kept you on your toes.

  God knew, she’d welcomed me like a son but didn’t hesitate to chase my ass out of here in the times when I was getting unruly.

  You know, like when I was climbing into her daughter’s bed.

  She wrapped her arms around me, and I let her, fighting the overwhelming bout of sadness I felt at her touch.

  The kind that could completely take me under.

  Stepping through the doors of this house h
ad always reminded me of what I was missing.

  Made me feel like an outsider.

  A beggar looking in from the fringes and wishing I belonged.

  A family where I didn’t quite fit.

  I gulped around the magnitude of it as she hugged me tight.

  Urges hit me.

  This need to confess a million things. Tell her I was sorry that I’d let her down. Tell her how damn bad I hated that I’d hurt her daughter.

  Hated that I hadn’t been there for Benjamin.

  She beat me to the punch. “I’m really glad you’re here, Maxon.”

  Pulling me closer, she hiked up on her toes and murmured quietly in my ear so only I could hear, “Now don’t go and do something stupid like hurt my daughter. I’ll hunt you down and cut off your balls. Know it took some big ones for you to show up here today, so use ’em wisely.”

  Wow.

  Woman was not pulling punches.

  I pulled away and cleared the uneasiness from my throat. “That’s the last thing I want to do.”

  She patted my cheek. “Good boy.”

  “Good boy!” Dillon parroted, and Mrs. Lane turned around and smacked her hands together. “It’s dinnertime, my favorite little men. Let’s get some food in those bellies. Who’s hungry?”

  “Meeee,” Benjamin stammered, and Dillon was shouting over the top of him, “Me, Me, Me!”

  Entire place was straight chaos. Only the very best kind.

  Benjamin shuffled for the table. “I ggget to sit by Mmmack.”

  My spirit clutched.

  Fuck.

  Didn’t know if I was ever gonna get over that.

  “No way, no fair. I get to!” Dillon argued, and he scrambled to spread himself over the empty chair next to him while remaining seated on the other.

  Kid was a handful, that was for sure.

  “I told you, bein’ a troublemaker is not allowed,” Izzy said, angling her head at her son in tender exasperation as she started for the table, clearly preparing herself to break up a fight.

  Dillon turned up a sour-patch face from over the top of the chair. “Ahh, Mom. I was gonna call it, fair and square.”

  “Your brother called it first,” she told him, voice firm.

  “Don’t you two know dogs sit on the floor?” Izzy’s father offered way too light.

  Izzy gasped. “Daddy.”