The more I let the idea roll around in my mind, the more I wanted to know what had triggered this reaction in the first place. Was it a symptom or the problem?

“Ash?” I asked, my lips brushing against his.

“Yeah?”

“You are okay, right?”

He nodded, his lips grazing against mine.

“You can tell me anything,” I whispered, my eyes searching the unknown depths of his.

“I know, Spitfire. I know.”

“You don’t have to do anything alone anymore.”

In that moment, it felt like his soul spoke to mine, that it reached out and coiled around my own, spreading warmth through my entire body. Together we could do anything, be anything and take on the entire world.

As his lips met mine once more, it seemed within our grasp. All he needed to do was to believe it just as much as I did.

Ten

Ash

I pulled my car into a spot along the leafy outer suburb street and killed the engine.

It clicked as it began to cool in the frosty Melbourne air, and I sat, looking at the typical housing development home a few doors down. It looked like it was straight out of one of those display home catalogues and made to order, but that’s what these places were. Everything looked the same—the facades, the gardens, the garages and the front lawns looking like they were laid with Astroturf. It was about as fake as the people who lived in them.

Cookie-cutter houses for cookie-cutter families.

When Violet and I were kids, we’d grown up in a little house out in Bundoora. Every house in the neighborhood was different, from the size and color to the people who lived in them. Now I lived above a gym, Violet lived in Sydney in a posh apartment with her boyfriend, and our parents lived in a flimsy cardboard housing development in Caroline Springs on Melbourne’s outer fringes.

Truthfully, I’d done a couple of turns around the block before I even had the courage to park the car. I was now familiar with the entire street and had multiple options when it came to escape routes.

What was I actually hoping to find here? Closure, I guess.

My parents had kicked me out when I turned eighteen, and the only time I’d seen them since was when Violet was attacked. Dad came around to my place threatening me for brainwashing his daughter, caused a scene, and a neighbor had called the cops to break it up. Vee had never stopped coming to see me train and fight after they’d disowned me, and I think that pissed them off more than anything—until the attack that was. Still, she’d never given up on me just like I never gave up on her.

In my dad’s eyes, I’d stopped being his son the day I fell off the rails. That’s why I respected Ren’s father so much. He’d taken me in when I was a young delinquent and had taught me discipline, but it never seemed to be enough for the man I came from. Then I went to prison, and all contact stopped. Even the threats fell to the wayside. Vee was cut loose in her greatest moment of darkness, and I did whatever I could to take care of her.

I had no idea why I was sitting in my car watching their house, and I had no idea why I felt like it was important to even see them, let alone try to talk to them. Did I want forgiveness? Closure? Approval to marry Ren? Maybe I just wanted clarification that I hadn’t turned out like my old man before I pledged the rest of my life to my Spitfire.

That was the thought that gave me the courage to get out of the car and walk up the front path. I wanted to know that I was nothing like him. That I was a good man, not a monster waiting for the day he’d finally explode.

I stood on the front porch and stared at the door, the frosted panes of glass set into the wood revealing nothing about what was on the inside. They were home because there were two cars in the driveway. A beat-up Ute, which meant my father was still working construction, and a Holden Astra, which looked pretty expensive. They must be doing well for themselves.

Before I could chicken out, I knocked on the door. There were footsteps inside and a shadow appeared through the frosted glass, then the door opened and there she was.

She hadn’t changed one bit, other than a few more lines on her face than I remembered. She’d changed her hair, too. It was shorter and her black locks were flecked with grey.

“Ashley?” She blinked hard as recognition flooded her features.

I shoved my hands into my pockets. “Hi, Mum.”

Her mouth fell open. “How…”

“How did I find you?” I asked, trying to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. “You can find almost anyone if you look hard enough.” The last part came out full of accusations.

“Who’s at the door, Nance?”

I flinched at the sound of my father’s voice. The voice that had always been so full of bitter disappointment for the kid who could never seem to stay on the straight and narrow for more than five minutes at a time.

“No one,” Mum called out, watching me carefully.

No one. So that’s what they thought of me to this day. I was nothing and no one to them.

Narrowing my eyes, I said, “You don’t want him to know I’m here?”

“You know what your father’s like.”

I curled my lip in distaste. “I can see he knows how to keep old wounds open.”

Mum glanced down nervously before asking, “How is she?”

I scoffed and shook my head. She wanted to know how her daughter was after all these years? Would she have even looked her up if I hadn’t shown up at their door? Probably not, and wasn’t that a slap to the face.

“I took care of her,” I hissed. “I made sure she was looked after and wanted for nothing.” She glanced up at me with an unasked question in her eyes, and I snorted. “Yeah, Mum. Even when I was in prison for protecting her.”

“Nance.”

Mum flinched at the sound of my father’s more persistent voice, her eyes closing momentarily.

“If you don’t want to argue with him, you better leave,” she said, her shoulders tense. I could see nothing had changed in that area, too.

Movement from within the house drew my attention, and before I could make a decision either way, my father’s silhouette appeared in the hallway. He paused, and for a split second, I almost believed he was going to let it go, but then he moved toward us.

As he came into view, I almost gasped at how much he’d changed. He looked beat down by the world. His face was creased with lines, and his hair was sparse on the top of his head, but he still had all the anger I remembered him carrying sitting on his shoulders. Then, his gaze met mine, and something unknown but very dangerous, flashed through them. Seriously, if we were in a cartoon, steam would be billowing out of his ears.

Shoving roughly in front of Mum, his hand curled tightly around the door, his fingertips turning white. “What the hell do you think you’re doing here?”

It was a good question because I actually didn’t know anymore.

“I’ve got my life together, Violet has hers back and I came—”

“You want money? Is that what this is?” he asked, fuming.

My mouth fell open at his accusation that I was still a drag on society. “I just opened a million dollar gym,” I spat. “I don’t need your fuckin’ money.”

“You want approval then?” he prodded. “You’re not going to get any of that here.”

I shook my head. I didn’t need his approval for anything. It was a huge fuckin’ mistake coming here.

“You were nothing but a disappointment to us,” Dad spat. “Dropping out of school, fighting, stealing and dragging your sister into it? You ruined her.”

I ruined her. There it was as plain as day. Instead of blaming the man who attacked Vee, they were still pinning it all on me. They’d never forgive me for something that was out of my control. Maybe I did want their forgiveness. Maybe that’s what this really was all about.