“I—­” he cut off and breathed out heavily through his nose. “It’s not my story to tell you. The only reason I’m worried is, well, other than the obvious of you being my little sister, and Parker being my nephew, and I would be worried no matter what. But, I know Steele’s seen some things, and I know that it’s f**ked him up—­”

“His demons,” I whispered.

“What?”

“He told me something about that the other night before we met up with you and Erica at his condo, when you kept calling us.” Keegan just stared at me like he was waiting for me to continue. “Keegan, it was kind of personal.”

“Reagan. My guy told you about his demons, and you’re not gonna tell me what he said, and you expect me to let you take my nephew to dinner with him?”

I rolled my eyes and huffed. “He said I could silence his demons just by looking at him. He said it was because of his time in the army, about things during that time that he couldn’t tell me.”

Keegan no longer looked worried, or like the big, protective older brother. He looked shocked. “He said that to you?” he asked softly.

I nodded. “Why?”

He looked down, and a small smile crossed his face as he nodded softly. “Good for him,” Keegan said as he turned and walked toward the stairs.

I just stood there staring at his back, completely dumbfounded for a few seconds before I took a step toward him. “Wait, so you’re just okay with this now?”

When he looked back at me, he looked like he was trying to figure out what to say, and finally just shrugged. “Yeah, Ray. What he told you that night . . . that’s about as honest as he can get with what happened, and what’s going on with him. Knowing that he’s not keeping anything from you . . . and having seen how good he is with Parker. I think you’re just as good for him as he is for you.”

I was still staring at where Keegan had been when Parker came racing through the house. “Mom!”

“Hey, baby! Did you have fun today?”

“So much fun!” Parker launched into a play-­by-­play of their day, and I tried not to laugh when my mom walked in behind him and rolled her eyes before smiling.

“That crazy, huh?”

“Oh, it was nonstop today,” she said. “Did you want to stay for dinner?”

I shifted on my feet for a second before glancing down at Parker. “We can’t. Coen’s taking us to dinner tonight.” I’d barely looked up to see Mom’s reaction when Parker jumped up in front of me.

“Me too?”

I smiled widely at him. “You too, buddy.”

“No way! Come on, Mom, let’s go!”

“Okay, just a second, let me talk to Grandma first.” Looking up at my mom, my body tightened when I couldn’t read her expression. “Too soon?”

“We liked him.” She shrugged. “He does have an awful lot of tattoos, though. You don’t want Parker thinking those are okay.”

I suppressed a groan. “Mom. Really? Keegan has tattoos.”

“Not like that.”

“Mom!”

“Okay, okay!” She held her hands up. “We did like him. Despite the tattoos,” she threw in. “He seems like a wonderful young man. Keegan had a lot of great things to say about him when we asked him, but, I would trust his judgment on this.”

It was there, on that last bit that I realized Keegan must have told my parents his worries about Coen and his demons. Whatever they were. I could see it in my mom’s eyes. She was worried about this too, just as Keegan had been. But she didn’t understand, she didn’t know Coen. What was I saying? I barely knew Coen.

“I approve,” Keegan said as he appeared from out of nowhere.

I pointed at him. “He approves!”

“You do?” Mom asked, eyeing him warily.

“One hundred percent. I think he’d be good for them, and she’d be good for him.”

Turning, I sent him a thankful smile, and he winked at me as he opened the front door and walked out. Looking back at my mom, I saw her blink a few times before clapping her hands together once.

“Well, since I just put it all on Keegan, I guess that settles that.”

“It’ll be fine, Mom,” I said, hoping to reassure her. “You ready to go, buddy?”

Parker was studying his forearm intently, so he just nodded as he started walking toward the front door. “Mommy, do you think Coen will still have his stars?”

My eyes widened and I turned to look at my mom. “Uh, yeah, Parker. He will.”

“Because he’s old so his won’t wash away.”

“Right.”

“I’m gonna get old so mine won’t wash away, because I’m getting stars just like Coen’s.”

Mom groaned and rolled her eyes, and I tried covering my laugh with a cough, and failed miserably. Blowing her a kiss, I put my hand on Parker’s back and led him outside.

“Why don’t we wait a decade or so until we think about that, okay? Right now, let’s just go have dinner with Coen, sound good?”

“Cool!”

I smiled and followed my son to the car. The entire time I chanted to myself that this dinner was a good idea. That one day I wouldn’t regret letting my guard down for a guy like Coen and letting him into my son’s life.

Chapter Six

Coen—­September 2, 2010