all kinds of different shots at the bar we’d gone to. Haley kept saying we needed to slow down, but J.J., he was a big bear like me, so he kept telling her we could handle it.” I paused, choking on my laughter. “The next morning, we woke up and the smell of bacon permeated the place. J.J. stumbled into the kitchen telling Haley what a goddess she was, and she gave him the stink-eye, told him he was on his own, and that she’d made breakfast for me. He asked why for me and not him, and she told him that I shouldn’t have to suffer because he was an idiot.”
Creed chuckled, and I laughed harder remembering J.J. lamenting on and on about Haley’s lack of love, and then scoffing at my betrayal when I started shoveling the food into my mouth as fast as I could chew.
Memories of all the good times rapidly assaulted my mind, and the next thing I knew, Creed wrapped me in his strong arms, rubbing my back and murmuring words of sympathy as guttural sobs tore out of me. If he hadn’t held me so tightly in his warm embrace, I worried that I might finally fly apart. All of the anguish I’d suppressed to be there for Jakey and my parents flooded out of my eyes, my nose dripped, and my loss consumed me too desperately to pull away from this life raft that had appeared out of nowhere giving me someone to cling to.
I clutched Creed until my tears subsided, and he led me to the couch. We sat next to each other, with his arm still draped over my shoulders. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, embarrassment dueling with the remnants of my grief.
“You don’t have anything to be sorry for. It sounded like you needed that.” I nodded, and Creed leaned over me and grabbed a Kleenex out of the box on the side table. I blew my nose as subtly as one could when their nose had been dripping like a faucet, but Creed didn’t acknowledge it. He just resumed rubbing comforting circles in wide sweeps across my back.
“Ha. Wow. I’m not sure where that came from,” I finally said.
Creed scooted back, tugging me with him, and pulled my arm to lay across his chest, tucking my head into the crevice of his shoulder. Being held like this practically brought on another round of tears, but I choked them back. Once I thought—hoped and prayed—I could speak without breaking down again, I spoke softly. “I was home by myself when I got the call. J.J. and Haley had needed a night out, and the weather was perfect for a motorcycle ride. I don’t know the particulars, my dad dealt with that, but a car veered off the expressway, pushing them off the side of the embankment with them. No one survived. I went to my parents too stunned to even cry, and it was like, I lost the opportunity once I had Jakey in my arms…it all became about him.”
“So you didn’t grieve at all?” Creed asked with concern, his voice as low as mine.
“I did. And I cried, but not like just now, never like that. I was scared that if I went there…”
“That you wouldn’t be able to find your way out.”
I sniffed, blinking back more fucking moisture. “Yeah. That’s exactly how I felt. How did you know? Did you lose someone too?”
“Not me specifically, but my brother’s boyfriend before Shane died in an accident. We all loved him, so it hit us all pretty hard. At the time, we were worried that he wasn’t dealing with it, but that was before we knew about Davis.”
“That’s his boyfriend too, right?” I asked, a little confused.
Creed snorted. “Yeah.” He ran his hand through the back of my hair. “That’s a story for another day. Tell me about Jakey.”
After sniffing a few more times, I said, “Jakey’s so little that of course he didn’t understand. For days he asked me when Mommy and Daddy were going to be home. I knew the day he finally understood that they weren’t coming back because he just stopped talking.”
“Oh, Logan.”
The pain laced in those two words reassured me that he wasn’t judging but that he genuinely hurt for the little boy who’d lost his parents way too young. “We started seeing a child’s grief counselor immediately, and he wanted us to give it time. Let Jakey process, you know? Mom was concerned that