Once he got himself under control, he slipped on a pair of sweatpants and finger combed his hair out of his eyes as he padded out into the hallway in search of June. He smiled as the sounds of Nat mimicking Owen’s babbles floated out from his room, not quite believing how seamlessly she’d slid into this role. As much as she had, he knew she also must have been twitching to get away, something he’d been thinking about more and more after his talk with Gran.
This had been the longest Nat had ever been stuck in one spot since she was eighteen, and he had no doubt the itch to flee was crawling under her skin. They might not be able to escape to Barcelona or Peru, but maybe he could figure something else out. Something they could do in or around Havenbrook to give her a taste of the adventure she craved.
He poked his head in June’s bedroom, his heart lurching at the sight of her empty bed, panic like he’d never known it seizing him. “Junebug?” he called.
Pulse hammering, he glanced into the living room and kitchen before spinning back around. He released a long, relieved breath when his gaze locked on Aubrey’s bedroom at the end of the hallway, the door opened a crack. With trepidation, he made his way to the end of the hall, pushing open the creaky door and glancing around the space he still hadn’t been able to bring himself to step into since he’d been back.
Christ, it still smelled like her, the scent sweeping over him as he stood there, assaulted by memories of her smile and her laugh, the way she cut the crusts off her pizza and saved them for last, and how she dreamed of traveling to California but hadn’t ever gotten around to it. That invisible fist that’d left him alone reached into his chest again and gripped his heart, painful and unavoidable. It might have been weeks since she’d died, but he still hadn’t been ready to go in there. But as his eyes landed on his niece, curled up in the middle of her parents’ king-sized bed, he realized this was about far more than what he was comfortable with.
“Ash?” Nat called from behind him. “Did you find—” With Owen on her hip, she stopped short in the opened doorway, her eyes darting from him to where June lay, blinking her eyes open.
“Yeah, I found her.” With a sigh, he sat on the end of the bed and reached out to rub circles on June’s back. “Hey, bug. What’re you doin’ in here?”
“I had a bad dream.”
“How come you didn’t come get me or Nat?”
She shrugged, sitting up while she rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “I’m havin’ fun with you, Uncle Asher. But when are Momma and Daddy comin’ home?”
The simple question was a wrecking ball to his chest, a knife to his gut. Facing this was something he and Nat had talked about in depth, wondering when the other shoe would drop since it’d seemed like June had taken the news so well. But still, it caught him off guard.
He glanced to Nat because he sure as hell didn’t know what to say. How did he explain death to a four-year-old? How did he define the permanence of it? That it wasn’t just a vacation. That there was no coming back.
From the look on Nat’s face—one filled with a whole lot ofoh fuck—he knew she was just as much out of her depth as he was.
He pulled June into his lap and ran a hand down her long dark hair so much like her mom’s. “You’ve been missin’ them?”
She nodded against his chest, hugging her blankie to her face as he wrapped his arms around her and held her tight.
He rested his lips on the top of her head and closed his eyes. Breathed her in and thanked God he still had this piece of his sister when he could never have her again. “Me too, bug. Me too.”
* * *
Fortunately—orunfortunately, depending on how you looked at it—four-year-olds were highly distractible creatures, and June’s attention had been diverted at the mere mention of pancakes. By her second helping, she was all smiles and laughter, but Asher knew it was only a short reprieve from the issue at hand. An issue he had no fucking clue how to tackle.
“If you food gremlins are done, I’m gonna hop in the shower.” Nat strode to them and dropped a plate of fresh animal pancakes—her specialty—on the table. “Whoa, easy with the syrup, you sugar fiend.”
June giggled as Nat plucked the bottle from her grip before setting it out of reach. “But it’s so yummy!”
“Good thing that puddle of it on your plate says you’ve still got plenty left,” Asher said before stabbing a bite of his own.
Owen smacked a palm on his high chair and snagged June’s attention, effectively ending the argument. Thank God, because he didn’t have the mental capacity to play verbal gymnastics with a four-year-old yet this morning.
Wrapping an arm around his shoulders from behind, Nat leaned down toward him. “We’ve got that appointment with Sheila today,” she said in his ear, though she probably didn’t need to be quite so stealthy. What, since Owen and June were now having a screaming contest, seeing who could screech the loudest. This godawful game was something they loved to do, which his and Nat’s dwindling bottle of ibuprofen could attest to.
Asher exhaled a heavy sigh and closed his eyes. “Shit, I forgot about that. Not exactly the best time for her to come by—when my niece was so lonely for her parents, she snuck out of her room and slept in their bed half the night.”
Nat stepped in front of him and leaned her ass back against the table. Lifting a shoulder, she said, “It might be a good thing. This is her job. Maybe she’s got a referral for someone June can talk to.”
“You don’t think that’ll look bad?” He blew out a frustrated sigh and ran a hand through his hair. “Like I can’t even keep her happy?”
“It doesn’t much matter if she looks like she’s happy if she’s really not. Does it?” She bent and pressed a quick kiss on his lips before standing upright, fixing her gaze on the kids, and then throwing her hat in the ring with her own scream.
The unexpected sound startled Owen and June out of their match, and the two dissolved into deep belly laughs. A smile tugged at his lips, forgetting for just a second what was at stake. He had no idea if Nat was right. If asking for assistance would help or hurt his case. But he’d decided when Cole had played him that video of Aubrey asking him to keep the kids that he was in this to the bitter end. He was fighting to keep June and Owen. To raise them. And that meant wading waist-deep into the shit once in a while, as well as sailing through the good times. And if this wasn’t a pile of shit, he didn’t know what was.
Twenty minutes later, the doorbell rang, giving Asher and Nat both just enough time to get themselves presentable. He opened the door to a chorus of June and Owen’s second screaming match of the day. He’d tried to bribe them before answering, and though June had been willing to stop, Owen hadn’t been able to be convinced. And since he continued on, June figured she deserved to as well.
“Mornin’, Ms. Cummings,” Asher greeted with a grin. “They’re havin’ fun, I promise.”
