Liliana laughed and kicked water in his face. “Papá, I can swim!”
Of course she could. Ten minutes with Folk and I felt like I could do anything too.
An hour later, we pulled the kids from the pool and dried them off. We’d come in my car, but Saint appeared from nowhere with Mateo’s keys. “I’ll drive you home.”
I frowned as they left, though Saint’s sudden presence explained the unseen attention I’d felt on us while we’d been in the water. I always knew when my brothers were watching over us, just not alwayswhy.
It didn’t usually worry me. It couldn’t if I wanted to survive this life. But it bothered me that Folk knew and I didn’t. It wasn’t fair that he carried a burden my brothers had excused me from.
He came back from showering salt water from his skin, rubbing an old towel through his hair, his lean golden muscles an absolute thirst trap.
I asked him straight out. “Why was Saint here? Did something happen today?”
Folk let the towel drop and gave me his full attention. Hesitation clouded his gaze, but he made no attempt to hide it. “That’s not an easy question to answer. I don’t want to lie to you, but the truth is something you probably don’t want to know.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
“Was there a moment when you might not have been?”
“Yes.”
I chewed on that. “This is about Mateo’s bike crash? Did someone run him down?”
Folk said nothing.
Which said everything. I scrutinised every inch of his face, but what I was looking for, I couldn’t say. Honesty? No. He was giving me everything he could—I felt it in my bones.Then what? What do you want from a man who’s already giving you so much?
I had no fucking clue, and I reached for him in the same moment he reached for me. Our hands collided, fingers twining like they had so many times by now. That instant connection ricocheted through me, and it left no room for the mistrust and suspicion that had clouded my past. “Let’s go home.”
* * *
I drove us home, distantly aware of the MC tail that followed us all the way to my house before Nash roared on by.
Ivy didn’t notice; she was too attached to Folk, dragging him up the path to show him every little thing she hadn’t already shown him this morning.
I followed behind, my phone burning a hole in my pocket. All day, I’d followed Folk’s advice and left Lauren’s vitriol unread, but I knew I’d have to face it eventually.
Folk unlocked the door with the keys I tossed him, pausing a moment to listen before he let Ivy inside.
The simple gesture scared and endeared him to me in equal measure. I wanted to touch him again. Kiss him. Feel his bare skin beneath mine. But more than that, I wantedthisevery day he wanted to be here.
You don’t know what he wants.
No. But he seemed happy. Relaxed. And hungry if his stomach was as empty as mine.
I moved to the kitchen and found the dinner Rubi had cooked for us. I threw it in the oven and poked my head into the living room in time to catch Ivy tying the bracelet she’d made around Folk’s wrist, her knot clumsy and loose. It was a scene I’d witnessed already today when she’d jumped on Locke and given him his, but seeing her with Folk hit different. Like it did when I saw her with Saint, and yet it wasn’t the same as that either.
IvylovedSaint. Their bond was deep and sweet, but with Folk it felt like more than a friendship.
It felt like a journey, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why. I mean, I knew why. Because that’s how I wanted to see it. Wishful thinking, or whatever. But I couldn’t grasp what it was that had me thinking my careless fantasy could ever come true.
Of course she liked him. He was really fucking nice and easy to like.
So was Rubi.
But I didn’t get a painful heart when I watched Rubiunclemy kid within an inch of her life. When Alexei taught her to count in three different languages, and Nash snuck her sweets under the table..
