at arm’s length by not talking about the hard stuff. And that’s not fair. Not to you or to me. If I want to drop the asshole act, I need to let the people who matter in. And you matter. I’m not asking for forgiveness. I’m just asking for a chance to introduce myself to you.”
Joe held out the box with an air of humiliation and importance.
My words stuck in my throat, held captive by my jackrabbiting heart. I simply held out my hands, shivering as Joe passed me the box, his fingers brushing mine with just as much electricity as they did the first time we touched. I lowered myself to sit on the step and he sat beside me.
“This house is kind of like me. Great bones. Tons of potential. But falling to pieces after years of neglect from the one person who had the power to put things back together.” Joe glanced my way. “Me. I had the power to put myself back together.”
I laughed despite myself. “Yeah. I got that.”
“I’m nervous, Kennedy. You know I babble when I’m nervous. I’ve never shown anyone what’s in that box. I’ve barely looked at it myself, but I kept it anyway, just to prove how unwanted I’ve always been.”
Slowly, carefully, I lifted the lid to find a jumbled pile of photographs and drawings inside. No order. No care. Just chaos. I plucked out a picture and found a dirty infant with a shock of dark hair and blue eyes. He lacked the chubby rolls that beg to be squeezed. No toothless, gummy grin with just a touch of drool. My training ticked off the boxes of neglect, one after the other, after the other.
Listless gaze.
Wary eyes.
The child looked half-feral, staring into the camera with distrust.
Dirt caked his face, his arms, his little cherub hands.
A lump choked me as I flipped through the rest of the pictures. Joe grew up, sometimes looking as dirty and neglected as the infant in the first photo. Other times, he was clean and smiling, tucked into the arms of a caring adult. Sometimes he had long hair, sometimes it was short. Sometimes there were other kids in the pictures. Sometimes he was alone, with hints of bruises marring his skin. The only thing that stayed the same was the suspicion growing in his eyes with each passing year.
His drawings looked nothing like the one Shane gave me. Nothing like the one still clipped to the fridge in Nan’s kitchen. There were no smiling faces. No yellow suns. No stick figures holding hands.
There was black. Harsh lines. Frowning faces. Angry slashes for eyebrows and mouths. They hurt my heart and I wanted to go back and adopt him myself. To hug the kid who would grow into this man so he would never hurt again.
When I looked up, Joe was staring at me with so much love in his eyes that I put down his past, fitting the lid in place with a sad shake of my head. “I had no idea.”
“I really don’t like to talk about it.”
“It might do you some good to let all that stuff out. It’s not who you are. It’s who you were. Talking about it will take away its power.”
“Collin says secrets eat us up from the inside out.”
“He’s a smart man.” I held up my hands and gave Joe a wary look. “In a totally platonic way. Just in case it’s not clear.”
He bobbed his head as the smile I loved so much tried to make an appearance. “I learned what love looked like when Collin met Harlow. I saw the same look again whenever Maxine talked about George. And I saw it when you looked at me. It scared the shit out of me, Kennedy. I spent my whole life wanting someone to look at me the way you do. Needing it. Not believing it could happen. You’re looking at me like that right now and I’m terrified because I don’t know if I ruined everything. I know I have a lot of growing up to do, but I need you to know, in case you can’t see it in my eyes as clearly as I see it in yours, that I love you, Kennedy Reagan Monroe. I love you in a way that makes me want to wear floral shirts and flipflops.”
I put a hand to his cheek and he nuzzled into my touch, his gaze meeting mine with an intensity that set my heart