Silence fell over the table and then every eye was on Logan. He sat down the other end, glowering over his own plate, but of course, he couldn’t back down and say sorry for being an arse, could he?
“We were always told to eat what was on our bloody plate or else,” he continued, damning himself further.
People mumbled in response to that, shifting in their seats, both Sophie and Carmen mimicking my own posture as my spine snapped straight, but in the end, Reed dealt with it.
“Thank you for inviting us for dinner,” he said in a colourless voice. “It smells lovely, but Logan and I have somewhere to be.”
Logan turned around with a frown, about to argue with his brother, but Reed’s hand snapped out and grabbed the back of Logan’s shirt, using that as a means to drag him away.
Logan went to protest, to complain, but Reed just nodded to us before twisting the collar of the shirt tight enough to strangle his brother’s replies and manhandle him out of the house. For a second, all you could hear was the sounds of cicadas singing and the whirr of the pool filter, before Evie piped up.
“I don’t like him,” she pronounced, her brows jerking down. “He’s mean.”
“Evie…” I started to say.
“He’s not my dad.”
Well, OK then. I bit my tongue, watching, waiting to see how the rest of the pack responded to that.
“A man has to prove his worth being your dad,” Ben said, “and right now, Logan’s not doing that. You don’t have to call anyone Dad unless you’re ready.”
“OK,” she said with all the blitheness only children seem to be able to summon. She grabbed her knife and fork and deliberately speared a chunk of cucumber, putting it in her mouth and crunching, even as her nose wrinkled slightly at the taste. As I watched my daughter, they watched me. I nodded to each brother, feeling like I could actually take a breath now that Logan was gone. I grabbed my own plate and started to fill it.
“How’s this going to work?”I asked Ben, sometime later. I was lying on one of the sun lounges that were set up beside Sophie’s pool, Evie nestled into my side. She was dozing, having been at school all day and swum some of the evening, and was now more than ready for bed. He sat on the end, nursing a beer.
“How’s what going to work?” he asked me, then smiled. “There’s a lot of moving parts right now.”
“Logan,” I replied, then lowered my voice when Evie shifted, my hand stroking through her knotty hair. “And Reed, but mostly Logan.”
“You’ve got nothing to worry about with Reed,” he said. “My brother…” He let out a long sigh, then finished his beer before setting the bottle down. “Us trying to find our omega was hardest on him. All Reed wanted was to build a pack, make something solid, but it never turned out. Each time we failed, something inside him died, until he stopped trying altogether. He’s like a robot now. He works on the farm, keeps his head down and stays out of… everything.” He snorted then. “That’s what shocked me about tonight. I’ve never seen him stand up to Logan, ever.”
His big hands rubbed together.
“But Logan? Logan has always been Dad’s go to, the one he used to keep the rest of us in line when we were growing up. That crack about the food…” Ben shot me a wary look. “That’s nothing compared to the stunts the old man would pull. Sit at the table until you cleared your plate and if that didn’t work, pinch your nose and force it down your throat. It was fucking brutal, especially if you threw up. The rest of us want to be nothing like that with our daughter. We’ll probably err on the side of being big softies rather than being like him, but Logan…”
He shook his head slowly.
“Logan never learns, ever.”
“And he doesn’t get to put his training wheels on with Evie,” I insisted. “Your family shit is just that, yours.” My voice dropped down to a harsh whisper. “My parents haven’t seen Evie since she was born, because they couldn’t step up to the plate. I’m not taking on any Morrison trauma.”
“I’ll protect you from it, I promise,” he said, turning now to face me. “That’s what the city always was, an escape. A glimpse at a life beyond Campbelltown, beyond the farm, beyond Dad and his shit… That’s why I never forgot that night, with you.”
His eyes stared into mine and it wasn’t hard to see the boy there, where now there was a man.
“I held the memory to my chest like a flickering candle, trying to keep that flame burning, no matter what happened. I’m not letting that blow out now, not for him or any of my brothers.”
He let out a long, shuddering breath as his head dropped.
“We had our first session at Crowe Corp the other day. The Taylor pack is recommending group therapy. They want to teach us how to be a pack, how to be effective dads… It feels fucking weird, but if that’s what it takes.” He shrugged.
“Remind me to tell you about allll of the therapy sessions I had to sit in with Evie,” I said with a snicker. “At one point I was asked to talk to a chair, pretending it was my parents.”
“Oh fuck…”
“Then there was primal scream therapy. Evie loved that. Made absolutely no difference.”
“God, Lily—”