I'd only been here a handful of times since she died. Funerals, a few anniversaries in the early years when guilt drove me back. Then nothing. Just distance and avoidance and the hope that not visiting her grave would somehow make the loss feel less real.
Didn't work.
I found her easily. Same spot it had always been, beneath a tree that had grown taller in the years since I'd last stood here. The headstone was simple. Her name, her dates, a line about beloved mother and wife that didn't come close to capturing who she'd been.
I stood there staring at carved stone and dead grass, hands shoved in my pockets, breath fogging in the cold. Snow was still falling, lighter now, dusting the headstone and the ground around it in white that looked clean until you got close enough to see the dirt underneath.
“Hey, Mom,” I said finally. The words felt stupid coming out of my mouth. Talking to a grave like she could hear me. Like this would do anything except make me feel pathetic.
But I kept going anyway.
“I'm back in Chicago. Staying with Declan. You'd probably think that was funny. Me running back to the man I spent years hating.” I kicked at a clump of frozen dirt.
The wind picked up, rattling bare branches overhead.
“I don't know what I'm doing here,” I admitted. “Don't know what I thought would happen. That coming home would fix anything? Make shit make sense? I'm still angry, Mom. Still so fucking angry that you died and he didn't. That I had to grow up without you. That he got to stay and you didn't.”
My throat was getting tight. I swallowed hard and tried to push past it.
“Rafael said he probably missed me. Said people don't raise kids who aren't theirs unless they care.” I laughed, bitter and choked. “But I don't know how to be around him without feeling like I'm betraying you.”
The tears came before I could stop them. Hot and fast, burning tracks down my face that I scrubbed away with the back of my hand.
“I miss you,” I said, and my voice broke. “Miss you so much it still feels like someone carved out part of my chest and never put it back. And I hate that I'm still crying at your grave like some kid who can't move on.”
I stood there for another minute, letting the grief wash through me, hating every second of it. Hating that she was gone.Hating that Declan had stayed. Hating myself for not knowing how to fix any of it. Hating that I'd come back here at all, walked right back into the damage I'd spent six years trying to escape.
Finally I wiped my face one more time, shoved my hands back in my pockets, and turned away.
“I'll try to visit more,” I said over my shoulder. “No promises. But I'll try.”
The house was dark when I got there.
I let myself in, kicked off my boots, and grabbed a beer from the fridge.
The front door opened an hour later. I heard Declan's boots on the hardwood, heard him pause when he saw the lights on in the kitchen.
He appeared in the doorway a second later, and my brain short-circuited at the sight of him shirtless and gleaming with sweat.
Sweat caught the overhead light and made every line of muscle stand out in sharp relief. His chest was broader than I remembered, defined in a way that said hours in the gym doing more than just casual workouts. Tattoos covered both arms and spread across his shoulders, ink I'd only seen hints of before now on full display. His abs were cut deep enough to cast shadows, leading down to a V that disappeared into low-slung gym shorts that hung off his hips like they were barely holding on.
He had a gym bag slung over one shoulder and a bag of takeout in his other hand, looking like he'd just walked off a photo shoot for some fitness magazine except he was sweaty and real and standing in my kitchen looking at me with those dark, unreadable eyes.
My mouth went dry. My cock stirred in my jeans, interested in a way that made me want to punch myself in the face.
No, absolutely fucking not. This was Declan. The man I was supposed to resent, not want to lick sweat off of.
My traitorous dick didn't give a shit about any of that.
“Didn't know you were home,” he said, setting the takeout on the counter. His voice was rough, probably from training, and it did absolutely nothing to help my situation.
“Got back a while ago.” I took a long drink of beer, keeping my eyes firmly on his face and not on the way his muscles shifted when he moved. Failed immediately. Looked anyway. Hated myself for it.
“You could've texted.”
“Didn't realize I needed permission to come and go.” My voice came out sharper than I meant it to, overcompensating for the fact that I was half-hard just looking at him.
His jaw tightened. “That's not what I meant.”
