He was so fucking happy to see her.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“You might suck at love, but I at least have remedial ability at it,” she burst out.
Soren’s brain locked up.
The wide-eyed silence between them was thick. Then Cate refused to look at him, and felt immediately farther away to him, like she was retreating inside herself. Her brow was furrowed, her eyes on the floor.
“You don’t have to say anything,” she said. Then she looked up fiercely. “I don’t
want
you to say anything, not right now, at a freaking wake. There are no strings here, I promise, no strings at all.”
Soren’s brain started moving again, enough for him to know, right then and there, that he was an ass.
“Cate,” he started.
“I’m serious,” she said. “Don’t say anything. I just…I couldn’t let you hide away after what you did for me. So suck it up, tough guy. I’m not leaving.”
And then she shivered again.
“You’re cold,” Soren said gruffly, and stepped forward to engulf her in his arms.
And she fit. She fit something in him, that cavern that had opened up deep inside when he’d thought about the risk of hurting her, the crook of his shoulder, the perfect way she let him know that she saw through his crap. Because she’d been right: he had hidden this this
all away
, like a wounded animal hiding until it healed. Just reflex, just instinct at this point, and she’d seen through it and tracked him down.
“You don’t owe me anything,” he said.
“I call bullshit again,” she said. And then, softer: “I don’t know what this is.”
Soren heard t>Soing,he vulnerability in her voice and he reacted. Didn’t think, didn’t analyze, just reacted. He leaned down and kissed her hard, kissed her well, kissed her
thoroughly
. Kissed her until he could feel her warm under him, until she opened up and pressed into him, until he knew he could coax a moan from her mouth.
“Me neither,” he said. “But I’m glad you’re here.”
***
Things seemed to warm up after that.
Well, not entirely. It was still a wake. And Soren could feel his presence wearing on his mother—he was like a constant reminder that things hadn’t been perfect. He’d burned some time checking up on what Declan had done about Desi—that dog would go nuts without someone he knew, so it was good that they’d gotten their drummer Gage to do it—and he’d managed to almost navigate the minefield that was introducing his mother to Cate.
His mother had taken one look at Cate and said, “This one of your women?”
Soren had introduced her as his lawyer, wanting to protect her from his mother. He thought Cate knew why, though she’d winced a little bit.
He was sure he’d find out later.
He’d needed a breather.
Which was why Sonya found him outside in the old yard, watching Brian and Cate play with the twins in what had become a light dusting of snow.
“You cooled off?” Sonya asked.
“About as cool as
I’m
gonna get,” Soren allowed.
“So I should just jump right in?”
Soren laughed again. “Sonya, you’re killing me.”
“It’s about Julia.”
There was a beat.
“Yeah, I figured.”
He looked at his sister, and she looked nervous again.
“I never told you that I knew,” she said.
Soren was still looking at her. His sister refused to look back, which he understood. She was looking at her kids, clenching her fists, her knuckles red and raw.
This was hard for her.
“You knew what?” Soren said quietly.
“That she h>">
“I know that.”
“No, you don’t, because she hid them because she was in love with you. She was clean when she was with you, as far as I know,” Sonya added. “But she just…she always ran away from anything too intense, you know? And you wouldn’t know this, but after you’ve been clean for a while is when you’re most likely to screw up and OD. You lose your tolerance.”
Soren stared.
“Jesus Christ, you were a junkie, too?”
“I was never a junkie,” Sonya said sharply. “I dabbled. I partied. Lots of us did when we hung out with bands. You were all straight-edge because of Mom, but I never inherited that gene, I guess, so I didn’t get hooked on anything.”
“Holy…”
Soren didn’t fully have words for this particular revelation. He tried to hold on to the thing that mattered: Julia, using. Not using with him.
“You know why she dumped you?” Sonya asked.
“No,” Soren said. “Never did.”
“You scared the crap out of her, because it was like it was this forever thing. She didn’t know how to deal with it, but you did, and she just… She wasn’t deeply damaged or anything, Soren, she was just young and stupid and unlucky.” Sonya blew into her hands and smiled as both of her kids tackled Cate. “She would have been back with you in, like, a week, I’m sure of it.”
Soren sat down heavily.
He had never felt so stupid in his entire life.
He had carried Julia’s death with him for so long…and even now, that feeling didn’t go away. Hell, it had never really made sense, had it? That feeling that he just hadn’t loved her well enough, that he’d failed her somehow. No, it was always dumb as rocks. It was just that now it was perfectly clear exactly how dumb it was.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” he said hoarsely.
Sonya sat down beside him, their legs hanging off the deck.
“Same reason Mom still treats you like she does, I guess,” Sonya said. “You know she’s never going to apologize, right? She can’t wrap her head around it, Soren. I mean, I can barely wrap my head around it, and I have forty, fifty years to try to make up for it. And I’m just your sister. Mom’s head would explode if she was ever actually honest with herself about the stuff she let happen to you.”
“And now you’re all reformed?” he said. “That doesn’t fly, Sonya.”
“I know. I just had some of my own, and that makes you reevaluate things.” Sonya ngsSonypaused. “You know why we were like that, don’t you?”
Soren was silent.
“We were afraid of him, Soren. Ok,
I
was afraid that if he ever stopped going after you, he might come after me. I think Mom was the same. It was just easier to blame you for everything. And now he’s dead, and he’s not hating anyone anymore, and…”
“Jesus Christ, Sonya,” he muttered.
He knew that. Intellectually he had figured that out years ago, even if it never felt true. That’s what made it complicated. That’s what made him send Sonya money when she needed it, or get Uncle Jim to check in on his mother every once in a while. But that didn’t make any of it better.
What a goddamn trip.
“You know what else?” Sonya said.
“Sonya, my head can’t take any more.” Soren put up a pleading hand. “It’s like you’ve put it in a paint mixer.”
“You know, that is not the first time I’ve heard that,” she said.
“That is not even a little bit surprising.”
“I was going to ask you for a cigarette.”
“Don’t smoke, ask Brian,” Soren said. “Brian!”
Brian’s head popped up from beneath a pile of yellow-headed kids. He almost looked glad to be summoned, although Tyler—or Madison
?—
got one last kick to his shin as he got up.
He limped over, his expression alternating between a smile and a grimace.
“Lovely children, Sonya,” he said.
“Thanks for wearing them out,” she said. “They should go to sleep fine. Can I bum one?”
Soren was already checked out. He was watching Cate.
As always, he was watching Cate.
She had a four year old stuck to each leg and was trying to pretend like she was stomping on downtown Tokyo, only it turned out that four year olds were a lot heavier than they looked. She kind of shuffled around while the twins laughed, making monster noises,
her
arms waving around in the air.
She made this all seem normal. Made it seem natural. She had two kids that looked like him attached to her, and she made it seem…possible.
Soren couldn’t stop watching.
Cate hadn’t been to many funerals. She certainly hadn’t been to one where at least three people in attendance felt obligated to hide their faces and stand far, far away, just in case there happened to be any photographers present.
The funeral itself was sober, and calm, and anticlimactic.
There weren’t any big blowouts
,
there wasn’t any drama
. Soren mostly seemed interested in making sure his mother was ok, which for him meant staying out of her way. It was surreal. The world didn’t seem to return to normal until later, when they’d all gone back to Uncle Jim’s.
Cate had stayed there the previous night. She was staying there again tonight.
She’d stayed there with Soren. In the attic room he’d fixed up for Jim, the place where Soren stayed when he was in town. It was this private, intimate place, filled with little things that Soren had chosen—his music, his books,
his
place. She’d booked a hotel room, but after the wake Soren had told her she wasn’t going anywhere, and then he’d fallen asleep holding her in his arms.
It was the first time they’d just gone to sleep together, no sex involved. Well, ‘first’ was a bit presumptuous. She shouldn’t think like that. Whatever was happening here, there was definitely no road map for it, no rules.
And definitely no guarantees.
But it did feel like the cusp of something great, like something just out of reach.
Something that might disappear if she tried to hard.
Cate tried not to think about too much, especially because they hadn’t exactly had time to talk about it—a funeral, with all this family stuff, with Soren clearly in the middle of dealing with things from the past, wasn’t really the right time. Cate wasn’t always the most tactful person on the planet, but she had at least gotten that one right.
Didn’t mean it wasn’t making her crazy. It just meant she had to suck it up. Really, it was her own fault for letting her imagination run wild, but Cate couldn’t even get mad at herself for that. Every time she looked at Soren she thought,
Who
would blame me?
And now? Watching these people all gather around each other, regardless of the messy issues and drama and whatever else was going on? It seemed like a family, in its way. Even Soren’s mother looked happy when she was with her grandchildren, or as happy enough as she could be under the circumstances. Sonya and Soren were talking, even if you could see them dance around each other like fencers, not quite sure of each other. Declan and Molly
were
in their own little world, and Brian was hanging out with Uncle Jim, who had turned out to be great.
No matter how messed up these people were, Cate found she was a little bit jealous. It was a real family that cared about each other, even if they didn’t always know it. And Soren, as far as she was concerned, was the beating heart of it.