Page 32

He finds a crimson, silk ribbon forgotten on his passenger seat.

He stares at it for entirely too long before tucking it in his pocket.

“ Mama. ”

Sticky hands smash my cheeks together. “Auntie Lottie. Wake up.”

Prying my tired eyes open, I jolt when I find my nephew an inch away from my face. “Let me guess,” I drawl, poking one chubby cheek. “Another teleporting child?”

As sweet little giggles warm my chest, I rake my gaze over Alex, searching for any sign that yesterday’s events have lingered, that he’s scarred or still upset or, fuck, mad .

When I find none, I lift my tired arms—wincing as my achy upper back proves that yesterday sure is lingering with me—but before I can wrap them around my nephew, someone else beats me to it.

Yanking her son towards her, Lux buries her face in the crook of his neck, peppering him with kisses until he squirms and giggles some more. “How’d you get here, sweet boy?”

“He rode Ruin.”

My head snaps to the side, to the teenager holding her phone in front of her face. Blinking innocently at mine and Lux’s less-than-impressed expression, Eliza climbs onto my bed. “Too soon?”

I bend a leg, rearing up to boot my little sister to the floor, but before I can connect, a familiar laugh makes me freeze. Sitting up, I lean forward so I can get a better look at Eliza’s phone screen—or more accurately, at the incredibly familiar face filling it. “Grace?”

“Oh, thank God.” A breath of relief makes me frown. The dramatic swiping of an imaginary bead of sweat from a crumpled brow, on the other hand, makes me roll my eyes. “I’m still the prettier twin.”

Two fingers let my twin sister know exactly how I feel about that—much to Alex’s delight and his mother’s chagrin. “In your dreams, maybe.”

Grace grins. I grin back. I… fuck, I kind of want to cry? Something about seeing the face that’s essentially mine but a little different, a little more like our brother’s, makes my eyes water.

There were a lot—and I mean a lot —of times over the past two years when I found myself reaching for the old phone I turned off the second I passed Haven Ridge’s border and still haven’t turned back on.

Times when I missed home so badly it made me sick, when all I wanted to hear was my siblings’ voice, to see if they even tried to call after finding me gone.

It was always, always , Grace’s number I thought about dialling. I missed my other sisters, I missed Jackson, but Grace was different. Grace is… well, Grace. My twin. The other half of me, the better half of me.

Going without her was like going without a piece of myself, and if the matching sheen reflected in hazel irises is anything to go by, I wasn’t alone in that sensation.

There’s so much to say. So much we need to talk about. So much to catch up on, to digest, to fucking repent for, but we both know now isn’t the time.

“Hey.” Eyes the mirror image of mine shift to Eliza. “Is Finn still there? Ask him who’s the better-looking twin.”

“Oh, he’ll say Lottie.” Cradling her squirming son, Lux sits up enough to pinch my cheek. “They went skinny-dipping yesterday.”

“ Swimming ,” I correct, but it’s too late.

Girlish, wince-inducing squeals already echo around my attic.

“What the hell?” My twin exclaims, wood creaking wherever she is as she throws herself on what I assume is her bed. “You’ve been home for, what, two weeks and you’ve already bagged a hand?”

“I have not bagged a hand .” I slide Lux a threatening glare. “Why would you do that?”

“Because it’s fun.” Lips stretched in a wide grin, Lux smacks a kiss to my temple before rolling out of bed, hauling Alex with her.

“You’re taking the weekend off. No buts.

Stay off that ankle and—don’t give me that look.

You think I’m blind? Stay off it. I’m serious.

You go to your meeting tomorrow and you come to family dinner, but that’s it. ”

“Yes, mother,” I flippantly remark, my breath catching when I realize what I’ve said.

Lux’s does too. Flashing across her face, I see the same thoughts running through my own mind, the same replay of last night, of what she told me.

Expression so soft it makes my chest hurt, she bends to drop another kiss on me, on the top of my head this time, maneuvering Alex when he demands to do the same. “Get ready. We’ll be downstairs.”

“You’re staying?”

“Me and the girl,” she nods at Eliza, “and the boy,” she tickles the tummy of the toddler wriggling in her grip, “are taking the day off too. Thought we could use some time together.”

“Uh-huh,” our little sister agrees emphatically, downright erratic as she bounces on her knees. “And we can use it talking about Finn.”

Groaning as all three of my sisters’ fucking ears prick—as Alex’s ears prick, the kid feeding off the palpable curiosity even though he has no real idea what he’s so curious about—I scramble out of bed only to swallow another despondent noise when an onslaught of aches and pains attack my poor, battered body.

Restraining the urge to whimper, I limp to my dresser and snag some of toiletries sitting on top, already concocting grand plans of spending at least an hour in a steaming hot shower. “You guys know more about Finn than I do.”

“Not naked Finn.”

My baby sister. Interested in naked men. Kill me. “We were not naked.”

As Eliza and Grace snort their disbelief, Lux hums a thoughtful, teasing noise. “Y’know, your clothes didn’t look all that wet yesterday.”

I scowl at her. Backed in a goddamn corner, I say through gritted teeth, “We swam in our underwear.”

Eliza squeals.

I wince as the noise adds a pair of burst eardrums to my list of ailments. “Have you always been this boy-crazy—” emphasis on the crazy. “—or is this a new development?”

“I appreciate the male form,” she corrects, all matter of fact. “Now tell me all about Finn’s.”

“Yeah, Lottie.”

For a brief second, I close my eyes and scream internally.

And then, I slowly turn around just in time to watch a smirking man haul himself and a precariously balanced breakfast tray into the attic. “Do tell.”

I wet my bottom lip. “Average.”

Up goes a brow. “Oh, yeah?”

“And that’s being generous.”

Finn runs his tongue over his teeth before kissing them. Setting the tray on my bedside table, he knuckles the head of an extremely meddlesome teenager. “Objectifying the staff again, little one?”

Not even a little embarrassed, Eliza smiles innocently. “Does staring at Lottie’s ass count as objectifying the staff?”

I grab the first thing I find—a half-used tube of toothpaste, unfortunately, instead of something that would really get the message across. Like a rock—and chuck it at my little sister. “Get out of here, brat.”

Dodging the attack, Eliza sticks her tongue out as she scrambles to her feet, miraculously deciding to listen to me for once— un miraculously deciding to be a little shit on her way out.

“Say goodbye,” she says to her phone screen, flipping it around so I get an eyeful of a smirking, waving Grace.

“Lottie and her lover want to be alone now.”

I growl a curse and reach for another projectile, but by the time my fingers curl around a hairbrush, she’s already dropped through the trapdoor. With nothing more than a snort and a shake of her head, Lux leaves too, carrying the little boy wondering aloud what a lover is.

“In my defense,” Finn says once the sound of raucous giggling fades to less of a cacophony, more of a nuisance. “You wear very tight jeans.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I grumble and pray to fucking everything that the flush creeping up my neck isn’t as obvious as it feels. “I know, you like ‘em. You’re gonna give me a big head, cowboy.”

He cracks a grin. “ Gonna? ”

Droning a sarcastic laugh, I cross my arms over my chest, suddenly very aware of how very small my little attic space is.

“Is that what that’s for?” I gesture at the tray piled high with all my usual breakfast fixings—buttered toast with Marmite and eggs, and a glass of juice, a mug of coffee, the Owala bottle I always fill and leave in the fridge overnight so I have cold water for work.

“Hoping if you butter me up, I’ll bend over in my very tight jeans ? ”

Choking on something that sounds an awful lot like Jesus fucking Christ, Finn shakes his head. “Just being nice,” he roughly claims, voice ragged. “Friendly.”

Now, why does that word make my stomach hurt? My eye twitches too, something that’s not quite distrust, but awfully close to it, making me squint at a perfectly soft-boiled egg. “Why?”

“Because I wanted to.”

Why? I almost ask again, but I swallow it. “Thanks,” I mouth instead, clearing my dry throat. “For this, and for yesterday.”

“What’re friends for?”

“I have no idea,” I answer without thinking.

I expect a mocking grin. A pitying one, maybe. Not the tender, sweet one I get.

Nor the even softer, “We’ll fix that.”

Turns out, you don’t feel the worst the day after an accident.

You think you feel shitty, you think you’re in pain, but no.

That’s what the day after the day after is for.

Or maybe I actually did feel this crappy yesterday, but I had a houseful of sisters distracting me, a nephew to keep me occupied too, and just as many over-excited dogs zooming around the living room.

Today, I’ve got nothing. No sisters, no Alex, no roommates, not even Grouch. Just me and a silent, empty house, and as much as I want to enjoy it, I don’t. As much as I try to take advantage of it, I can’t.

I can’t go for a run. Can’t sit still long enough to watch a movie, to knit that blanket I promised, to do anything remotely stationary.

Can’t smoke because not only is my lighter gone, but my cigarettes have magically disappeared too.

A girl can only scream at the sky for so long, and even that doesn’t settle me.