She nodded.
He moved.
He saw who it was through the filmy curtain on the door and he wanted to turn right back around.
He didn’t.
He sighed, moved to the door, unlocked it, and opened it.
Two kids, one a little girl, one a little boy who was holding his mom’s hand, Millie’s sister and her man.
Before he could open his mouth, both kids started to make a dash inside but stopped dead when they saw who had opened the door.
They also both stood staring up at him, mouths wide open, eyes big.
But High was frozen.
Solid.
And he was this to fight the pain.
It wasn’t the boy. The boy was cute. Dark hair. Brown eyes. Maybe three, four years old.
It was the girl.
She had her aunt’s eyes.
She had her aunt’s hair.
She had her aunt’s mole.
All this something he wasn’t able to see fully when he took her in in the candid, but black-and-white photos Millie had around her pad.
She was the vision of what he thought he’d have when he gave a girl to Millie.
Exactly.
She was adorable, top to toe, and the beauty of her carved out his insides.
“Well, I see you weathered the storm,” Dottie stated, and he tore his gaze from the little girl to look at her mother. “So, let’s get this started,” she went on. “Katy, Freddie, this is your uncle Low. Logan, these are my kids, Katy and Freddie. I think you can figure out which is which.”
Katy.
She’d named her daughter what Millie and him were going to name theirs.
This wasn’t a surprise. It was her grandmother’s name too.
And she’d do that kind of thing, Dot would, giving that to her sister when her sister couldn’t give it to the world.
He forced his eyes back to the kids and rumbled, “Yo.”
Their eyes got even bigger and their mouths opened even wider.
That was cuter.
And more painful.
Then his world suspended completely when their attention was taken with something, they looked away from High and their faces lit with pure happiness.
They forgot their amazement that a man had opened their aunt’s door and the girl shouted, “Auntie Millie! You’re back from France!”
The boy just tore his hand from his mother’s and started running, hands up in the air waving.
High turned to look and saw Millie in the hall, beaming at her niece and nephew, her hands up in the air waving like Freddie’s before she dropped to a squat and they both hit her, dead-on, taking her right to her ass.
She didn’t care.
Fuck no.
Her laughter rang through the room, filled with joy, her face saturated with it—the first hint he had of his old Millie since he’d seen her again—as they crawled all over her and she wrapped herself in them, hugging them, holding them, tickling them.
Loving on them.
Christ.
Christ.
He thought he got it. He was sure he understood what she did to tear them apart.
He didn’t get it.
Not until then. Not until he watched that. Not until he felt the memories of a million moments just like that he’d had with his own girls.
It was only then he got it.
She’d saved him from this. She’d saved him from having to watch her never having this with their kids. She’d saved him from having to watch her only getting it when she got her hit of Dot’s kids.
And she’d given him his own.
It was all the same as what he thought he got but witnessing it made it more acute.
So yeah, now he really fucking got it.
And it killed.
“Kids! For goodness’ sake! Get off your aunt Millie! You’ve got her pinned to the floor in her pajamas!” Dottie demanded, shoving in.
“Jesus.” He heard a man mutter, and he slowly turned back to the door as Dot’s husband stood outside it, not moving, and went on critically, “Knew you were a biker but you’re rough.”
High took in the big man with dark hair clipped short, undoubtedly due to that making it zero maintenance. He was wearing a white thermal under a padded flannel shirt, faded jeans, scuffed, worn work boots, and the stubble on his face said he hadn’t used a razor in, High’s guess, at least three weeks.
High then extended his hand and replied, “Right. You’re pot. Nice ta meet you. I’m kettle.”
The man’s eyes narrowed.
Dot burst out laughing.
High dropped his hand that was ignored.
“Auntie Millie!” the little girl cried in despair. “Your boyfriend’s name is kettle?”
“Boyfriend?” the boy asked in disgust, his attention coming back to High and it was not difficult to see the kid found him lacking.
“Alan, honey, do me a big favor and shut the door on that cold,” Dottie called. “And, no, I told you. That’s your uncle Logan,” she said to her kids. Then she kept talking. “So okay, how about we take this into the house where there’s coffee?” She looked at her sister, who was pulling herself up from the floor. “Alan insisted we come, not call, to check in on you. Sorry we’re interrupting but whatever. We’re here now and I’m two cups down since it took us twice as long as it normally does to get here on those blasted roads.”
“I—” Millie started, but her attention came back to High when he had to shift back, something he did only slightly, to let in her brother-in-law.
When the man was in, High shut the door while the little girl asked her aunt, “Did you bring us presents from France?”
“Did I bring you presents from France,” Millie replied. Not a question, a scoffing astonishment. “I can barely go to the drugstore and not get you presents.”