“What are those?”
“Bioculens,” Navarro said. “Magnifies things. You need to stay.”
“I can’t.”
“You can’t afford to just think about yourself anymore. Those boys need stability.”
Joe bristled. All he did was think about others. He hadn’t even wanted the kids to come, but ever since they’d joined him and Devin, he’d thought of almost nothing but protecting them. He swiped the flask from Navarro and took another, bigger, drink. “What is it you think I’ve been doing?”
Navarro scratched his chin with the edge of the flask. “Look, I get that you got them mostly safely to Purcell —”
“Do you? It doesn’t seem like it.”
“But there’s more to taking care of children than just not getting them killed. They need a home, a family.”
Joe barked out a laugh and rubbed his hand down his face. “I’m only four years older than them. I’m not... I can’t be someone’s father.”
“I know,” Navarro said quietly. He took off the glasses and turned his gaze to Joe. “I’m not asking you to.”
“You want me to leave them here.”
“I want you to stay.”
Joe inhaled sharply and curled in on himself. Pain came, so sharp and biting that it took his breath away. Navarro wanted him to stay. That didn’t seem... Navarro had said before that Joe should stay, but that wasn’t the same. Navarro wanted. Joe wiped at his eyes. It had been so long since someone had cared about him like a parent cares for a child. Selfless. Without expecting sex or protection or entertainment in return.
When Navarro’s cool hand landed light and tentative between Joe’s shoulder blades, Joe shook a little from the crying and the alcohol, and burrowed his head between his knees.
“Stay,” Navarro said again.
Was this how it had felt, back before Joe’s dad had left? It must have been, because Joe couldn’t put a name to the warmth inside him, but it was familiar and sad, something he’d lost a long time ago. Little boy lost. Little boy come home.
“The greatest regret of my life is that I thought about killing you,” Navarro said.
Joe could tell Navarro wasn’t looking at him, didn’t expect an answer.
Navarro tapped his fingers on Joe’s back. “I wish I could say I didn’t go through with it because I was morally strong. But it was because I was weak. God knows I’ve thought about what happened often enough to be sure.”
Navarro had been Joe’s first friend when he’d come to Flights of Fantasy. Joe had been Navarro’s replacement, and Navarro already had Sadie and Aria to think about. He couldn’t afford to lose his job.
“I never blamed you. I still don’t.” It had hurt, realizing that some part of Navarro’s kindness was an attempt to get close enough to cause him harm, but Joe had understood. He’d never fully trusted anyone again, not until Devin, but he’d understood. Family comes first. It should. “And you didn’t do it, obviously.”
Navarro growled and pulled his hand away. “Not because I’m a good man. That’s what pisses me off about you. You should hate me, or at least think I’m a worthless prick. You still think I’m a good guy, you dumbass.”
“That’s why you wouldn’t join the Sons. You wouldn’t hurt people to get ahead, even if they’ve got their foot on your throat.” Joe hadn’t put it together before, but it seemed so obvious now.
“I was scared. Weak.”
“Sadie told us what Aria did, how she hurt you.” Joe turned so he could see Navarro, who was still staring at the townspeople and the fire. “You stood up to an armed gang, and you didn’t back down, even if it meant losing someone you loved. That’s not weak, Navarro.”
Navarro bit his lip. On his thin face, the tight clench of his jaw was obvious. “Lili and the girls. You. My mami. Everyone thinks the best of me despite all the evidence to the contrary. I wanted to get it right this time.”
“Aria will come home.”
“I hope so.”
“She’s a smart girl.”
“Says the smart boy.”
Joe snorted and took another drink out of Navarro’s flask before handing it over. He was beginning to feel lightheaded. “Now you know what you’re talking about.”
Navarro swallowed the drink and turned the container over. A drop or two fell onto the roof. He smiled, and it was the most relaxed, genuine smile Joe had ever seen on the guy. “I’m asking. Stay. Please.”
It was the being welcome, the acceptance, that did it. The knowing he had a place, people to call home.
Joe returned Navarro’s smile. “I can’t.”
Navarro nodded and returned his gaze to the bonfire.
Joe laid back and stared at the stars. He must have drifted, because the noise came in a dream of childhood, a soft buzzing of his father’s snores. It brought him just to the edge of consciousness when Navarro’s hand gripped his thigh.
“No. No. No!” Navarro shouted at the night, and Joe sat up and rubbed his eyes.
A muffled, mechanical voice spoke above the distant music, then the bonfire exploded.
TWELVE
Air rushed out of Joe’s lungs. A bell rang in his head, obliterating all other noise. Heat seared his skin, and a chemical stench overpowered his lungs.
A drone dipped and delivered a second bomb. This one hit the other side of the highway, and a circle of houses was ripped apart. Bodies flew through the air.
Numb pop-pop-pop noises filtered through Joe’s haze, and the drone fell.
The bonfire. Devin. Oh God.
Joe dropped his legs over the side of the roof and shimmied down until he dangled by his hands off the edge. He let go and fell, vaguely registered Navarro doing the same. But Joe was young and fit and fast, and as he ran toward the fire, where already he could see people lying still, he didn’t wait for Navarro to catch up.
His fuzzy brain couldn’t focus. Where had Devin been?
He’d been sitting with Flix and Marcus, away from the fire. That had to be good, right? They weren’t close, not like Peter and Sadie and the children dancing. Oh, God, please
