clueless sometimes.
“Blake?” I called as I moved through the entrance hall, but no answer came from anywhere in the house.
A repetitive thump, thump, thump carried from outside and I pushed the front door open, stepping onto the porch. The thumping continued along with angry grunts and I spotted him punching the side of the barn. My heart lurched and I ran down the steps, sprinting across the yard to my golden boy. I came up behind him, wrapping my arms around his waist, trying to pull him back to make him stop.
“Tatum,” he growled. “I don’t need a fucking hug.”
“Yes you do,” I whispered, clutching onto him as he tried to push my hands off of his waist.
“I just need an outlet,” he snapped. “Fuck Troy Memphis. Fuck him and his fucking empire. I’ll have him at my feet in a pool of blood. I’ll kill him for this,” he swore, his voice full of vengeance and hate.
“We’ll do it together,” I promised and his shoulders sagged, his head hanging forward. “Just don’t hurt yourself because of him. Please.” I knew he had a destructive streak in him. This was how he coped with pain, by causing it to himself, to others. But I couldn’t watch as he punished himself anymore.
“I can’t lose, Dad,” he rasped. “Not after Mom. I can’t, Tatum, I just-”
“You won’t,” I swore, meaning it from the depths of my soul. I would bend the entire universe to ensure Blake’s father was returned to his side. I wouldn’t let him lose him like I’d lost mine. I would not see that fate come to reality.
The cold air made me shiver as I held onto Blake, the heat of his body calling to me like a furnace.
“C’mere,” he murmured, taking my hand and pushing through the door to the barn.
We slipped inside and found the place full of sacks of some crop, stacked high around the wooden walls. It was dark, but there was a skylight in the roof that allowed the moonlight to spill inside. Without the wind biting at me, it wasn’t too cold and I wasn’t going anywhere until Blake felt ready to come back inside anyway.
He started climbing up the sacks towards the roof and I followed him, clambering up to where he laid down beneath the skylight. He tugged me to his side and tucked me under his arm, his muscles folding around me. I snuggled against him, gazing up at the sea of stars above and the half moon which glowed so bright it cast a halo around it in the sky.
“I’ve never been this far out in the mountains,” Blake murmured. “Mom and Dad took me camping at Lake Kahuto in the summer when I was a kid, but that’s about as close I ever got to roughing it. And we had blow-up camp beds, a TV and a barbeque, so it wasn’t exactly the bare essentials.”
I snorted. “Try going wild camping in winter in bear season.”
“You’re a fucking badass.” He chuckled, kissing my hair as he pulled me closer.
“Yeah,” I sang teasingly. “I’ve got my dad to thank for that.”
“I wish I’d met him properly,” Blake said gruffly and my heartbeat faltered for a whole eternity.
“Me too,” I breathed as tears stung my eyes. I’d cried so much over him, and I’d promised I wouldn’t do it again, knowing it did nothing but cause me pain. But with Blake, sometimes I felt like he could see that grief in me so clearly that I didn’t want to hide it. We recognised that part of one another just like we recognised it in Nash. Loss was like the rain. Sometimes it poured for days, other times there was a drought full of nothing but sunlight. But it always came back. It was inevitable.
“You know you can talk to me about anything, Blake. If you’re angry or hurt or you wanna vent, I’m always here,” I said earnestly.
“I know,” he sighed. “Sometimes I don’t think…my head gets so fogged up with rage, it’s all I can feel.”
“I feel that way sometimes,” I admitted. “When I think of my dad and how he died at Mortez’s hands. I replay it in my head over and over until it burns.”
He held me tighter and I knew he knew how that felt without him even having to say it.
“It’s like if you replay it enough, you can change it,” he said, his voice laced with grief. “Every moment that led up to it and