Pieces of Us (Confessions of the Heart, #3)(57)

The kind that could completely take me under.

Stepping through the doors of this house had always reminded me of what I was missing.

Made me feel like an outsider.

A beggar looking in from the fringes and wishing I belonged.

A family where I didn’t quite fit.

I gulped around the magnitude of it as she hugged me tight.

Urges hit me.

This need to confess a million things. Tell her I was sorry that I’d let her down. Tell her how damn bad I hated that I’d hurt her daughter.

Hated that I hadn’t been there for Benjamin.

She beat me to the punch. “I’m really glad you’re here, Maxon.”

Pulling me closer, she hiked up on her toes and murmured quietly in my ear so only I could hear, “Now don’t go and do something stupid like hurt my daughter. I’ll hunt you down and cut off your balls. Know it took some big ones for you to show up here today, so use ’em wisely.”

Wow.

Woman was not pulling punches.

I pulled away and cleared the uneasiness from my throat. “That’s the last thing I want to do.”

She patted my cheek. “Good boy.”

“Good boy!” Dillon parroted, and Mrs. Lane turned around and smacked her hands together. “It’s dinnertime, my favorite little men. Let’s get some food in those bellies. Who’s hungry?”

“Meeee,” Benjamin stammered, and Dillon was shouting over the top of him, “Me, Me, Me!”

Entire place was straight chaos. Only the very best kind.

Benjamin shuffled for the table. “I ggget to sit by Mmmack.”

My spirit clutched.

Fuck.

Didn’t know if I was ever gonna get over that.

“No way, no fair. I get to!” Dillon argued, and he scrambled to spread himself over the empty chair next to him while remaining seated on the other.

Kid was a handful, that was for sure.

“I told you, bein’ a troublemaker is not allowed,” Izzy said, angling her head at her son in tender exasperation as she started for the table, clearly preparing herself to break up a fight.

Dillon turned up a sour-patch face from over the top of the chair. “Ahh, Mom. I was gonna call it, fair and square.”

“Your brother called it first,” she told him, voice firm.

“Don’t you two know dogs sit on the floor?” Izzy’s father offered way too light.

Izzy gasped. “Daddy.”

He raised his shoulders, mock innocence on his face. “What?”

“You know very well what. I already warned you that you need to be nice. He’s our guest,” she urged beneath her breath, like she could shield me from the clear irritation her father was feeling at my presence.

Thing was, he was the one who had it all right.

“Seems like Grand-Pop is the troublemaker to me. Why you troublemakin’?” Dillon asked.

“Mind your own beeswax,” the old man said with a tease.

Too bad Mal-Pal wasn’t here to skewer him for that one.

Seemed Dillon’s joke standards weren’t quite as high, considering the kid howled with laughter.

“I don’t got no beeswax!”

I stood there in the bedlam, attention pinging from one spot to the next, not having the first clue how I was supposed to mix.

Where I stood.

Hiding out by the kitchen door wasn’t exactly going to cut it.

Benjamin’s gaze darted between Izzy and me. Questions played out in those keen eyes.

Kid reading deeper.

Between the lines.

Clearly catching onto the fact that there was a whole lot more to this thing than some weird guy standing antsy off to the side.

Wondered if he knew that for me, everything was hanging in this precarious balance.

Time to suck it up.

I pushed out the strain and forced my heavy feet in the direction of the table. “How about I sit between both of you, then you both can sit by me?”

“Aren’t you the good guy,” Mr. Lane grumbled.

“Daddy,” Izzy chastised again.

“Fine, fine,” he mumbled, shooting me daggers before he sent his daughter a winning smile.

“Oh, great idea! See, Mom, we can totally share,” Dillon said, all too quick to vacate the middle chair so I could sit next to him.

I waited until Benjamin climbed into the chair on the left before I slipped into the seat in the middle.

Izzy took the seat directly across the table from me, hands shaking with her nerves, girl clearly feeling just as frazzled as me.

“I’m sorry,” she mouthed.

My head shook.

I wasn’t sorry at all.

She smiled. Smiled a soft smile that might as well have been an embrace. Her presence sure. Like fingertips tracing my skin.

My muscles ticked, flexing with ripples of need.

Hardening with want.

Desire fisted my guts while my mind whirled with questions and worry and possibilities.

Heart game but not quite prepared for this.

Scrambling to catch up, rushing double-time and somehow permanently lagging behind.

Mrs. Lane set a platter piled high with roast and potatoes and carrots in the middle of the table, following it by a big bowl of gravy.

Clearly, she didn’t want to send Dillon into a tailspin.