"Hold up." Tanner held his palms up in surrender. "Are we doing this again?"
Dan rubbed his hands together, chewing on something in his mind. Finally, he said, "Family doesn’t leave. You aren’t getting rid of us."
They hadn’t leftyet.
Mach didn’t have to voice the thought because Dan pulled him into a tight hug. He’d done that when Mach was fifteen, but it’d been a long time since then. "Stop feeding yourself shit when you know you deserve lasagna."
Mach couldn’t help the laugh; it came out all on its own. That was a Dan-ism if he’d ever heard one.
"I’m not sure what to say to that," Mach said, scratching at his ear because his skin felt too tight.
"Then say nothing," Dan suggested.
"You have a family now and it may not be what normal people get, but since when have we ever been normal?" Tanner asked.
"Found family is the best kind," Dan said, tilting his chin toward the house.
Mach followed his gaze to where all of Dimefront and their girls stood on the grass lined up behind him, watching the show.
"We are thebestbecause we choose to love you even when you’re being a dipshit," Knox amended Dan’s statement.
A bubble of something grew in Mach’s chest. Hope? Was this hope? Or was it just happiness? He wasn’t an emotional guy, but maybe it was time to re-evaluate.
He met the band halfway on the path, took a deep breath, and asked, "How do you even get a girl back?"
"Well, first you ask nicely," Knox said, arm slung around Irina.
"Then you buy her something outrageous," Linx added. "I bought Becca a sports car."
"Write her a song," Bax suggested, with Courtney tucked into his side.
"Flowers?" Tanner asked, kissing Sam on the temple. "Maybe hire a skywriter?"
"You are all idiots," Courtney said, crossing her arms even as she snuggled into Bax’s side. "Darla doesn’t want any of that." She paused, thought about it. "I mean, she probably wants all of that—not the skywriter—but really, what she wants is you, Mach. That’s all she wants. She knows it, but she doesn’t know how to reach for it either when you’ve taken yourself so far out of her grasp."
"I don’t know how to do this," Mach admitted.
"That’s why you have us," Knox said, and the shit-eating grin wasn’t totally necessary.
But it was Knox.
This was Dimefront. They were his family, and they had his back.
Chapter Twenty-Six
DARLA
"Puncture woundin exam five is ready for discharge," the hospital clerk said, handing Darla the chart.
Darla took it and brushed her bangs out of her face. She needed to get them trimmed soon, and it was probably time to let the purple go. Her nursing supervisor made it clear she didn’t like it, even if there wasn’t exactly a hospital rule about it.
"I’ll handle that before I take off," Darla said. "Dr. Brewer needs to do another panel on exam one." She flipped the pages to check her notes once more. "Numbers are still higher than they should be."
Life was normal.
Life should’ve been great.
Her throat got thick at the memory of floating pizza slices in the pool and arguing with Mach over how messed up things had become, and then not arguing and going on adventures all over Los Angeles.
