Chapter 1
“Did you call DCS yet?” Myah asks.
I’m leaning against the fence in Gavin’s backyard, pretending the question doesn’t make my stomach try to crawl out through my ribs.
I look over at her and manage a hesitant smile. She has so much confidence in me. Way more than I’ve ever had in myself, which is probably one of the reasons I married her. Still haven’t completely figured out why she married me, but I’m not dumb enough to bring that up too often. Some miracles shouldn’t be questioned.
“Yeah,” I say. “I called.”
Her expression softens, but she doesn’t crowd me. That’s one of Myah’s many talents. She can stand close enough to make me feel steady without making me feel trapped.
“What did they say?”
“We’re supposed to meet them at the DCS office in an hour to pick him up.”
Myah nods slowly, then turns and leans against the fence beside me. For a moment, neither of us says anything. We just look out over Gavin and Nikki’s backyard, where half the people I love are scattered around with drinks in their hands and laughter in their voices.
Patchwork family reunion. That’s what we call it, mostly because none of us fit together in the neat, normal way families are supposed to fit. Some of us are blood. Most of us aren’t. A few of us come with legal paperwork, trauma responses, and emotional baggage heavy enough to qualify as a checked suitcase.
Still family, though. Somehow, against all odds, Gavin and Nikki built this.
I know exactly what the best things in my life are. The first was Gavin and Nikki taking me in when I was sixteen and had nowhere to go. They didn’t just give me a roof. They gave me a home, a family, and a future I could actually be proud of.
The second is Myah. She lived next door back then, and in the beginning, she mostly annoyed me. In my defense, I was sixteen, emotionally wrecked, and fully committed to acting like anyone who smiled at me too much was probably a threat. Myah was more Ryan’s friend at first. Ryan was Gavin’s little brother, technically, though Gavin had been raising him long before anyone put official words to it. Ryan and I had a lot in common. We had both survived homes that should’ve protected us and didn’t.
Gavin had, too. Maybe that’s why the four of us fit together so well.
Then college happened. I went to ASU, and Myah was there getting her nursing degree because she’d idolized Nikki from the start, and she followed in Nikki’s footsteps. Gavin influenced Ryan and me too, though I don’t know if he’d admit how much. Gavin became a family court attorney because he wanted to fight for kids who didn’t have anyone fighting for them. Ryan followed him into law, and now the two of them have their own practice together.
I got my bachelor’s degree in social work and started working with kids too. Apparently, trauma in our family comes with career counseling.
Only now, DCS has called me because I have a half brother I never knew existed, and he needs a relative placement because his mother has been arrested. Our father is still in prison, which leaves me.
Me. Levi Tanner, once the kid being hauled out of a broken home, is now the adult they’re asking to step into one. That thought still doesn’t feel real.
Myah leans her head against my shoulder. “You have a pretty incredible family, you know that?”
I turn and kiss the top of her head. “I know. They’re your family too, Myah.”
“They are,” she says softly. “And soon they’ll be your brother’s family too.”
My brother. The words still sound strange inside my head. Gavin calls me his brother all the time because he was too young to be my father, even though he felt more like one for most of my life. He was only nine years older than me, so we went with brother. It worked. It still works.
But this is different. This kid is my actual brother. Half brother, technically, but I already know better than most people that family doesn’t care much about technicalities.
I look up and see Ryan walking toward us, a beer bottle hanging loosely from his fingers. He has that expression on his face, the one that says he’s trying to be casual and supportive at the same time. Ryan is a lawyer now, so he should be better at pretending than this.
“Hey,” he says. “Gav told me about DCS calling you.”
Myah straightens and smiles at both of us. “I’ll let you two talk.”
She heads toward the patio, probably to find Karlie, Ryan’s wife, leaving me with Ryan and the uncomfortable realization that I’m about to be psychoanalyzed by someone who has both brother privileges and lawyer confidence, which feels wildly unfair.
“Yeah,” I say, looking back at him. “It’s kind of strange. My dad had another kid and never told me.”
Ryan leans against the fence beside me. “Do you think your dad knows?”
I open my mouth, then close it again. I haven’t really let myself think about that. I’ve been too busy trying to wrap my head around the fact that my father apparently left a whole human being behind for me to discover like some kind of emotional land mine.
“I don’t know,” I admit.
My dad disappeared into drinking and drugs after my mom died when I was eight. At least, that’s what I used to tell myself. Grief swallowed him, and instead of fighting his way back to me, he drowned in it. The man I loved didn’t vanish all at once. He flickered in and out. Sometimes he’d show up again, and I’d catch small glimpses of the father I missed so badly it hurt to breathe.
Then the next drink would take him. The next high. The next rage. After a while, those glimpses weren’t enough to keep pretending he was still in there somewhere.
“I haven’t talked to him since the night he was arrested,” I say. “Since DCS took me.”
Ryan studies me quietly. “You thinking about going to see him?”
I shake my head fast. Maybe too fast. “No way. He stopped being part of my life a long time ago. I’m not going back to that.”
Ryan looks down at the bottle in his hand, his thumb scraping at the label. “Yeah. I understand that.”
He does. Ryan’s dad is in prison too. His father was charged after kidnapping Gavin, assaulting him, and holding him captive. It happened only a couple of weeks after I came to live with Gavin and Nikki. I still remember the night Gavin came home afterward. He looked awful, bruised and exhausted in a way he tried to hide because that’s what Gavin does. He bleeds quietly and then asks if everyone else is okay.
But that’s another story entirely. And honestly, this family has too many of those.
I let out a breath. “So Myah and I are supposed to pick him up from the DCS office in about an hour.”
Ryan glances at me. “You nervous?”
I just look at him and arch one brow.
He grins. “Right. Of course you are.”
“You’ve been very insightful tonight Ry.”
He ignores my sarcasm and says, “You should talk to Gav before you go. He’ll give you a pep talk.”
I laugh under my breath because Gavin does love a pep talk. Usually in his office, usually with that calm voice that makes you feel like the world might not actually be burning down around you, and with me, usually during our standing Monday night debriefs. He set those up after I nearly went off the rails when I was eighteen.
They kind of stuck. If I’m honest, I still need them. Even now.
I check my watch and realize we need to leave in about fifteen minutes if we’re going to make it to the DCS office on time. Which means if I’m going to let Gavin talk me off the internal ledge, I need to do it now.
“Yeah,” I say. “Probably should.”
I push away from the fence, finish what’s left of my beer, and toss the bottle into the trash can as I pass.
Gavin is standing near the patio talking to Andrea, who lives in Texas and he’s part of this sprawling, chaotic family too. He and Gavin got close enough that Andrea and his family come out to Arizona every year, and we all make the trip to Texas when we can. At this point, our family tree has so many borrowed branches, surprise siblings, and unofficial adoptions that I’m pretty sure a professional genealogist would take one look at it and quit.
Andrea sees me coming and smiles. “Hey, kid. Gav’s been telling me about your big news.”
I nod and glance at Gavin, who’s watching me with that familiar quiet concern.
“Yeah. It’s kind of strange finding out I’ve got a brother I never knew about.” I say.
Andrea lets out a small laugh and tips his beer bottle toward me. “I know the feeling. When I found out about Luka, it took me a while to process it.”
“That’s right,” I say. “I forgot about that.”
Luka is Andrea’s younger brother, though Andrea didn’t know about him until Luka was eighteen. So, yeah. If anyone standing here understands surprise sibling news, it’s him.
“Hopefully it works out for me as well as it did for you and Luka,” I say.
Gavin lifts his brows. “Does that mean you’ve decided to take him in?”
I nod. “Yeah. Myah and I talked, and we decided to do it. We’re supposed to pick him up in...” I glance at my watch again. “Forty minutes.”
Gavin’s expression shifts into something softer and deeper. Pride, I think. Which is dangerous, because Gavin being proud of me still has the ability to make me panic I’ll drop the ball and lose it.
“How are you feeling about that?” he asks.
I shrug. “Nervous.”
Andrea looks between us and grins. “I’m gonna go check on Luka, see if he needs a ride to the airport. I’ll see you tomorrow, Aussie.”
Gavin gives him a look, but Andrea just laughs and walks off. Gavin and Ryan’s Australian accents have somehow become a whole family theme. Andrea nicknamed him Aussie and Ryan Mini Aussie.
Once Andrea is gone, Gavin turns fully toward me. “You may be nervous, Levi, but remember, this kid is probably terrified. You’ve got Myah. You’ve got us. Right now, he feels like he has no one.”
The truth behind those words is somewhat unsettling, because I know exactly what that feels like.
I nod. “Yeah. I know.”
Gavin waits, because Gavin is annoyingly good at silence. He doesn’t rush in to fill it. He lets it sit there until I have no choice but to say the thing I don’t want to say. I’ve learned there’s no point in fighting it anymore. “I’m worried meeting him is going to stir up all that stuff about my dad again.”
His hand lands on my shoulder. “If that happens, I’m right here.”
I look at him, and for a second, I’m sixteen again. Standing in a house that didn’t feel like mine yet. Waiting for someone to change their mind about me. Waiting for the catch. There never was one. That was the thing I had the hardest time believing.
I give him a small smile. “Thanks.”
“You don’t have to do this perfectly,” Gavin says. “You just have to be there for him when he needs you.”
I breathe out slowly. “Any last minute advice?”
“Remember, he’s probably adjusting to the idea that he has an older brother too. Give him time to get used to that.”
“So don’t push too hard. Got it.” I roll my eyes a little before I can stop myself, then immediately feel ridiculous. Great. I’m twenty six years old, married, employed, college educated, and apparently still sixteen when Gavin gives me advice.
Gavin’s mouth twitches, so he definitely notices. “Once you get him settled,” he says, “bring him over for a family dinner. Let us meet him. Give him a chance to see what real family can look like.”
“Yeah,” I say. “That’s a good idea. We’ll do that.”
“Levi,” Myah calls from the side gate that leads around to the front yard. “We need to get going if we’re going to get there on time.”
I look back at Gavin. “So, I guess this is it.”
“You’ll be fine, Levi.” He squeezes my shoulder. “And if you need to call me tonight, any time, you call.”
Just hearing him say it gives me a little more confidence. Gavin thinks I can handle this, and historically, Gavin has been right about me more often than I’ve been right about myself.
“Yeah,” I say with a grin. “I’ll be sure to call you at two in the morning for a therapy session.”
He laughs and gives me a gentle push toward the gate. “Make jokes all you want, kid. It’s still true.”
I walk toward Myah, and she holds the gate open for me.
“Let’s go meet your little brother,” she says.
My little brother. I never thought those words would belong to me. Never thought they’d sit inside my head with this much fear and hope wadded up together. But they do.
And now we’re about to step into a life I feel one hundred percent unprepared for.
Which, knowing this family, probably means I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.
