Neither the story nor the characters belong to me.

Chapter Twenty-Three

SHIKA

It was just after five by the time I pulled into Konoha, and the vehicle the crew had left at the tiny airport in Gunnison was on fumes. Damn it, I was going to have to stop for gas. I'd only bothered showering at the airport because I had time before the flight, and I still smelled like ash and soot, it was permanently branded into my clothes.

Temari wasn't answering her phone. It had gone to voicemail thirty-seven times, and all Grams would tell me was that I needed to go home, so I'd driven up the pass like a bat out of hell.

I pulled into the gas station on the edge of town and slammed my credit card into the reader like it was the source of all my frustration. Temari's voicemails had been on repeat for the hour it had taken me to drive, and for the first time since Dad died, I fucking hated fires. I should have been here. Should have been holding her hand walking into that courtroom just like I was the day we walked out of it, married and fighting to keep the boys together.

The boys.

Hopefully they'd still be awake by the time I got home.

They'd be at home. They had to be.

There was no way Temari would let DSS yank the boys out of our home before they'd even spent the night at Nolan's. I was prepared for visitation to go to weekends, honestly. I just didn't know how many weekends it would take for Nolan to show his true colors and abandon the boys when the novelty of fatherhood wore off.

I jammed the gas nozzle into the tank and started filling. And why the hell was she even thinking of giving Hoki's crib away? If Nolan Clark wanted a crib at his house, he could damn well buy one, just like we had.

"He better have fucking bought one," I muttered, leaning back against the mud-splattered SUV and tapping my foot like I needed to keep rhythm with a marching band on speed.

"Shika?"

I pivoted and saw Gemma Stone filling up his Mercedes.

"I thought that was you." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Look, I want you to know that it had nothing to do with her name."

"What the hell are you talking about?" My eyes narrowed.

"Temari. The Clark boys." He raised his eyebrows at me, and I stared right back, putting it together. He would know what had happened because he was there. He'd been on the bench. "It wasn't that I didn't think you weren't a stable couple or anything."

"Explain." I pushed off the vehicle.

He looked at me like I was clueless, and at this moment, I couldn't argue with him.

"I didn't rule to reunite the Clark family because Temari didn't take your name. It didn't play into my thinking at all, and I didn't want you thinking it was. Or that it was prejudice against Temari..."

"You fucking what?" I snapped, lunging toward him only to be stopped by the gas hose.

He put his hands up and retreated two steps, then cocked his head to the side.

"Oh shit. You don't know, do you? You haven't talked to Temari?"

"You gave my kids back to him?" I was yelling, and I didn't fucking care.

"They weren't your kids, Shika." He shook his head "And I don't owe you an explanation beyond the one I've already given, but there was no legal reason to keep them separated, and I chose what I thought would be best for the boys' long-term stability."

"You. Gave. Away. My. Kids?" I yanked the nozzle out of the tank and shoved it back into its holster at the pump. It was far less violent than the thoughts I had racing through my head of putting my fist through Gemma's face.

I didn't wait for him to answer. Instead, I got behind the wheel, cranked the ignition, and put the car in drive, giving exactly two shits that the tank was barely half full. I didn't even swing by the clubhouse to get my truck. I went straight home.

He had to be fucking with me, right? There was zero chance I was going home to find Hoki and Denki gone. Gemma was being true to his dickish nickname and getting in a jab because I'd managed to do the one thing he hadn't—put a ring on Temari's finger.

Temari didn't take your name.

He didn't know what the hell he was talking about.

I broke the speed limit in a few places, but I shaved five minutes off the drive by the time I pulled into the driveway and parked. I left my line pack in the back seat and got out, punching the garage code into the panel and waiting for the door to rise. Everything looked the same. Denki's bike was in the corner, and I peered into Temari's car to see two car seats still installed. Then I barreled through the mudroom door.

"Temari!" She wasn't in the living room or kitchen.

"Temari!" I called out again, striding toward the stairs.

"You're home."

I spun to see her coming out of the laundry room, her head down and a basket full of clothes in her hands. She walked right past me and into the kitchen, setting the basket on the island between us.

"What the hell happened?" I trudged after her. "And why the hell haven't you answered your phone today?" My voice rose.

"Hell is a great word for today." She took out one of my shirts and folded it. "And I didn't answer because you didn't call."

There was no anger, no grief, no emotion whatsoever in her tone.

I ripped my phone out of my back pocket and showed her the call log.

"I've called you thirty-seven times!"

"Did you?" She looked up at me, and my chest caved in. Her eyes were swollen and red, mascara leaving long black streaks down her cheeks. She moved robotically to her purse and took out her phone. "Huh. Guess I forgot to turn it back on after court." She pressed the side of the device and it lit up, turning on.

"You didn't turn it on." I repeated the phrase just to see if it sounded as ridiculous when I said it. It did.

She turned her head slowly, and there was fire in her eyes.

"Sorry, Shika. I was a little busy packing up everything Hoki and Denki own!"

I jerked my eyes from hers and took quick stock of the space.

"Where's the high chair? And the playpen?"

"I put them in the basement because I couldn't stand to look at them." She set her phone on the island.

Gravity pitched sideways. Had Gemma been telling the truth?

"Temari, where are the boys?"

"They're home. At Nolan's."

"You let them take our kids?" I blurted.

She reared back like I'd struck her.

"Let them? You think I let them?"

"Fuck," I muttered. "That came out wrong."

All of this, every part of it was wrong.

"You think?" she fired back.

"They're really gone?" I stared across the kitchen at the empty space at the end of the dining room table where Hoki's high chair was supposed to be. "Just like that?"

"Just like that." She folded another shirt.

"I didn't even get to say goodbye!" I ripped my hands over my hair. "How the fuck is that fair?"

"None of this is fair!" Temari shouted, throwing a pair of my shorts onto the island. "I begged Shizune for more time when we were at the courthouse, but immediate reunification is just that, immediate."

"At least you got to say goodbye to them."

Misery and rage colored my vision red. How could they just be…gone?

"Yes, Shika. I'm the one who had to assure Denki that he hadn't done anything wrong, that everyone in this situation loved him. I'm the one who had to pack up every single thing while holding myself together! I'm the one who had to testify, had to look Nolan in the face, had to listen to Gemma rule. Me. Not you, because you weren't here! You're never here!" She swung her arms out, gesturing to the empty space of the house.

She may as well have gone for the jugular.

"Are you telling me that this happened because I wasn't here? That I could have somehow stopped it?"

Maybe I could have. Maybe if we'd presented a united front…

"It had nothing to do with us! It never did!" She swiped at her cheeks, wiping away tears that cut me to the quick. "We were never their parents. They were never ours."

I stepped back.

"They asked us if we'd be willing to adopt them, and we said yes! We made plans. We rearranged our entire lives to be their parents. We prioritized them. We love them. We got married for them!"

She flinched.

"Yeah." She nodded her head, her face tenser than I'd ever seen it. "And it was a beautiful, chaotic dream, wasn't it? We risked our hearts because that's what they deserved and let ourselves fall in love with them, but the reality is that they were never ours to dream about, and it was never about us. I mean, let's face it. You're right. We did get married for them. Without them, you never would have even looked my direction, let alone let yourself feel something for me. It was all about them."

Wait... It wasn't all about them, not for me. Maybe the boys had been the catalyst, but I'd fallen for Temari all on my own.

Temari didn't take your name. Bile rose in my throat.

"I've been calling you Mrs. Nara since April," I managed to say. Temari looked away.

"It's true, isn't it?" I scoffed. "You didn't take my name, did you?" She shook her head.

"Wow."

How fucking stupid could I have been to think that Temari Uzumaki, the belle of the Konoha ball, would have wanted my name.

"Shika, it was because..."

"Save it. It's not even that you didn't take it. I'm not that chauvinistic. But to let me believe the lie that you did for all these months? That's low."

My heart broke in a whole other way. Losing the boys had fractured it, but never having actually had Temari? The shards crumbled to powder.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, taking a step in my direction. "Look, maybe we both need to take a second and breathe here."

I moved back, keeping space between us, and she halted.

"Breathing isn't going to help."

This felt like someone had taken an eraser to the chalkboard of my life's plan and wiped it all away with one swipe.

"You're right." Her shoulders squared. "Maybe I should spend the night at my apartment..."

The motor in my brain blew a gasket.

"You still have your apartment?"

Holy fucking shit, she'd had one foot out the door this entire time?

"Yes," she admitted. "I just thought..."

"Don't." I wasn't sure my heart could take the explanation. She'd always been planning to leave. Guess it was more than one dream ending tonight. "Maybe it's better this way."

"What do you mean?" Her eyes flew wide.

Whatever logic was left in my head screamed at me to stop, to pause, to think, but it was like throwing a bottle of water at a wildfire. If she'd always been planning to go, then I needed to let her leave.

"We built everything around Denki and Hoki, and now they're gone. There's nothing left holding us to this, to each other."

Her lips parted.

"We're both free."

Without another word, I walked out, leaving her standing in my kitchen. The engine was still warm when I pulled out of the driveway, my nerves scraped raw and my chest heavy. Where the hell was I going to go? All of my friends were still at the fire, and I wasn't ready to see Grams or hear her account of what happened today. I went to the only other home I had, parking in the lot of the clubhouse. Everyone's cars were still here, lined up like we'd just dropped them off last week. Last week everything had been…perfect, and now life was utter shit.

I shouldered my pack and locked the vehicle, heading for my truck. Maybe tomorrow I'd see about getting a flight back out to the crew, but not tonight. The truck beeped as I hit the unlock button, and I threw my pack in the back seat, and froze. Their car seats were still here, like they were waiting for me to pick up the boys. Another wave of pain…of grief threatened to pull me under.

I needed a drink.

It took exactly nineteen minutes to get to Wicked, Konoha's only bar, and another ninety seconds to park my ass on a stool and lift my hand.

"I wondered when we'd see you around here, Nara," Bobby Atwell said with a grin, leaning on the other side of the bar. "I was starting to think you'd actually turned over a new suburban husband leaf."

"Ha." I wasn't in the mood for his shit, even if we'd gone to high school together. "Fat Tire, please."

"You got it." He turned and poured it from the tap.

The usual crowd was in for a Thursday night, at least who I remembered the usual crowd to be. Ryan Coulter was even in the corner, sipping on a beer and a blonde that wasn't his wife. I used to frequent Wicked every time I came into town, but I'd lived here five months, and this was the first time I'd stopped in.

I spun the gold ring on my left hand.

Suburban husband, indeed. I was a husband without a wife, and a dad without kids.

At least when my mom had walked out, my dad still had me.

"Thanks," I muttered as Bobby slid the beer in between my hands, then I stared at the bubbles rising to the top, the words Temari and I had thrown at each other echoing around my head like a game of pinball.

You let them take our kids?

You weren't here! You're never here!

You didn't take my name, did you?

I should spend the night at my apartment.

There's nothing left holding us to this—to each other.

The beer grew warm.

My eyes shut as a wave of shame swept over me, overpowering the anger. I'd said some horrible shit. The worst of it was that I wasn't even angry with her. Fine, I was pissed as hell she hadn't just come out and told me she'd kept her name, but the rest of it—that wasn't her fault. She loved Denki and Hoki just as much as I did. But had they been the only reason she'd loved me? She'd kept her apartment this whole time, like she knew we'd fail. She knew she'd need a backup plan because I'd let her down.

"You're looking pretty lonely," a redhead said from my left, sliding onto the barstool and turning in my direction.

"Looking pretty married." I held up my left hand, showing her my band.

"I won't tell if you don't."

"Seriously?" My eyebrows hit the sky as my head whipped toward her. She gave me a coy smile and shrugged.

"Never hurts to ask."

The guy I'd been six months ago would have taken her up on the blatant offer. But that guy hadn't known Temari's touch—Temari's love. He hadn't known that sex was simply physical gratification, like eating or drinking, without the emotional connection I'd come to crave, come to depend on. Temari would have lost her absolute shit on this woman if she'd been here.

But she wasn't. She was at home, alone again.

What the actual fuck was I doing here? I didn't need a drink. I needed Temari.

Slipping a twenty from my wallet, I gave Bobby the nod.

"Thanks."

Then I set the money on the bar and got the hell out of there.

That fight between Temari and I had been just that—a fight. It was nothing we couldn't fix or talk out. Cooler heads just needed to prevail, and today had been ruled by emotion. At least that's what I told myself as I drove home. I was already practicing my apology as I pulled into the garage. My stomach sank.

Her car was gone.

"Shit," I muttered to myself as I got out of the truck and walked into the house. She'd probably gone to Sakura's to blow off some steam.

I flicked on the kitchen lights and grabbed an electrolyte drink from the fridge, leaning against the island as I unscrewed the top. My hands froze and my heart stopped beating.

"No, Temari," I whispered as I stared across the island.

I didn't need to check the dresser drawers or the closet to know they'd be empty. Not when Temari had left her rings and her house key on the counter.

She'd left me.