Then, he whispered, “With Tessa O’Hara, what you see is what you get. No bullshit. No games. No masks. No lies. No nothin’. Just her, all her. I’m forty-five years old and, baby, I gotta tell you, I’m so sick of that shit you wouldn’t believe it. Meeting a woman who doesn’t have a clue how to even initiate a play was f**king refreshing.”

Oh my.

At that point, for some totally unhinged reason, my mouth blurted, “Ellie has ordered a pink flower girl dress.”

Brock stared at me. Then he burst out laughing and shoved his face in my neck to do it.

Then, while still doing it, he rolled to his back so I was on top and I lifted my head to watch as the laughter died to chuckles and his hands came up to gather my hair at the back of my head.

And when he controlled his hilarity, his warm, quicksilver eyes locked on mine and he said quietly, “There it is. My sweet Tess doesn’t have a clue how to initiate a play. No bullshit. No games. No masks. No lies.”

“Brock,” I whispered.

“Thanks for dealin’ with the kids so I could deal with Mom and Dad.”

“You’re welcome,” I said softly and he pulled my face to his for a lip touch then moved it back an inch whereupon I informed him, “Just a head’s up. Grady hears stuff, so much of it, he might go out of his way to listen and he doesn’t forget much.”

He pulled in a breath. Then he shared openly, “We got dissension. Laura and my older sister Jill want my Dad back in the fold. My younger brother Levi, Laura’s husband Austin, Jill’s partner Fritz and obviously my Mom disagree. Austin because he’s overprotective of Laura. He met her two years after she was raped, she was still raw but he liked what he saw, put on the kid gloves and hasn’t taken them off. He’s a good man, a family man and he loves her. He doesn’t like the history and he didn’t like it when my Dad came around and asked for money. Fritz because Fritz likes his money and that’s because he works his ass off for it and anyone comin’ around and askin’ him to give it away isn’t real popular. Levi because my brother hasn’t worked shit through, he’s got a short fuse, carries a mean grudge and takes loyalty to extremes. Shit’s comin’ to a head. There’s a lot of talk. Grady’s a smart kid, he feels deep, he loves his Mom and he’s gonna hear and be confused.” He paused then said,

“I’ll have a word with Laura.”

“Why is this happening?” I asked. “I mean, you’re all adults. Can’t those who want your Dad in their fold do it and those who don’t –?”

Brock cut me off with, “Dad’s got cancer, Tess.”

My body stilled on top of his and I whispered, “Ohmigod.”

“Yeah,” he whispered back. “This is the second time. It’s come back. First time, he beat it easy. This time, they say it’s more aggressive. He wants to make amends, wants his family back, wants peace in case he passes. There are those in our ranks who question his motives and timing. There are those who see our Dad is gettin’ old, he’s sick, he’s not only f**ked us over but also a lot of other people so he’s lonely and he’s a social guy but even if he wasn’t, lonely isn’t good when you’re sick. So we got dissension, it’s bringin’ up shit that’s been buried awhile and emotions are high.”

I slid my hand up to curl my fingers around his neck as I whispered, “I’m so sorry, honey.”

“I am too. This shit sucks.”

“Yeah it does,” I agreed, still whispering and I saw his eyes intense on me.

Then he asked quietly, “How’d your Dad pass?”

“Hepatitis C,” I answered. “No one knows how he got it but he was an EMT when he was younger so maybe something happened on a call. He had it for ages before they caught it. He was close to dying when he got a donor liver but it attacked the new one and still, he lived twelve years after that before it beat him.”

“And your Mom hated him because…?”

“Mom hated him because he fell in love with his partner in his ambulance and they got married two weeks after the divorce was final. She was humiliated and I get that. But he also genuinely loved Donna. I mean truly, he adored her and it just sucked that he found her after he found Mom. Mom isn’t a bitch or a crazy person, she just wasn’t his other half and Donna was. He felt guilty all his life and made that clear but she never let it go. She isn’t like that with anyone else but unfortunately, for her, Dad was her other half and she genuinely loved him, truly adored him so her heart just broke and never mended.”

“Makes you wonder why we do this shit,” he muttered and I had to admit, there were a lot of times I agreed.

Though, the four months with him and the last three days, I didn’t.

“Why does your brother want to break your ex-wife’s neck?” I asked and he shook his head but smiled.

“Because he loves me and she made me miserable for ten years. The four of us kids were close growin’ up and sometimes, honest to God, Tess, sometimes I could swear the only things Levi wants in life are to see Jill, Laura and me happy. He’s not married, never has been, has dedicated his life to his career, his summer softball league, his season tickets to the Broncos, gettin’ laid as often as he can and his family. He’s the one we all call to babysit, he’s the emergency contact at all the kids’ schools, he never fails to prop his latest piece in a chair at the dining room table at Mom’s house for Thanksgiving dinner and he runs his ass ragged to get to every house on Christmas.”

“I don’t know if that sounds nice or a little crazy,” I shared cautiously.

“You and me both, babe. I get his struggle. There were times I wondered if I’d grow up to be Dad and let a good woman down and f**k over my family because none of us know why the f**k he did all the shit he did and, as a man, you watch the man whose seed made you and you think that shit’s in you. Then again, you also gotta live your life and if that beast lives within, you gotta have the balls at least to try and tame it. But the beast doesn’t live within.

This is not to say that I didn’t think of steppin’ out on Olivia who was a pain in my ass but I didn’t have it in me. And when it got so miserable I couldn’t take it anymore and I had the choice of eatin’ shit my whole life and teachin’ my sons eatin’ shit was the right thing to do, which it isn’t, or getting out from under that mess and showing them it was important to be a man and find my own happiness, I made that choice for me and for them. Levi doesn’t get that life will always be f**ked one way or another and you can’t run away from it. He’s living a life that’s been over for years. We aren’t livin’ with Mom and doin’ our homework at the kitchen table. That family’s changed and that life is gone and he needs to make his own life and his own family.”