Page 111 of Twins for Three Bad Boys

I think about Evan’s mom.

About the way the house felt after she died. Too quiet but too loud at the same time, every corner holding an echo I couldn’t escape, reminding me of standing in that hospital room where love turned from something warm and alive to something cold and dead, leaving a terrible gaping wound in my chest where my heart had been torn out.

I remember standing there, holding a tiny bundle of blankets and grief, thinking how I’d never risk getting hurt like that again. I’d build walls so high that nothing, no one, could get in. Or out.

And I did.

I built them strong. Solid. Impenetrable.

But now June is standing in my kitchen, a question I don’t have an answer for, and Fletcher and Rex are part of it too, whether I like it or not. This isn’t a problem I can fix with a wrench or a schedule or brute force.

This requires trust.

And I don’t know if I still remember how that works.

“Wayne?” June says softly.

I turn back.

She’s watching me, concern etched into her face.

“I’ll see you later,” I say.

“Okay,” she replies. “Drive safe.”

I step outside before I can say anything else. The air is cool. I breathe it in as if it might clear my head.

As I head for the truck, one thought follows me, unshakable.

I spent years believing that love was something you survived.

Now I’m not sure I know how to live with it.

And the question I can’t stop asking myself is the one I’ve been avoiding since the night everything changed.

If I let these walls down…

What happens if I lose it all again?

I get home after dark.

The house is quiet again, but not empty. There’s a difference. June’s presence lingers in small ways, even if she and Evan are both tucked up in bed. The lamp she always leaves on in the corner of the living room, the faint smell of sawdust that follows her like a second shadow, the way the place feels lived in instead of just… occupied.

My jacket ends up slung over the back of a chair. I don’t turn on the TV. I don’t pour a drink. I just stand there, listening to the house settle, the old bones of it creaking the way they always have.

Then I notice the table.

It’s cluttered. Scraps of wood laid out in careful piles. Sandpaper. A pencil worn down to nothing. Small, half-finished shapes that look like they’re waiting to become something.

I step closer.

She’s been working on her toys.

One looks like an animal, unfinished, but already the curves suggest a bird’s wings emerging. Another has interlocking pieces, designed to turn in on itself as a puzzle.

I pick one up.

It fits in my palm perfectly.