Page 15 of Saving Sparrow (Slow Burns & Tragic Beginnings #2)

We scrambled to our feet, bumping into each other and falling before getting back up again. We weren’t fast enough and ended up drenched by the time we exploded into the kitchen.

The dishes were piled high, and the garbage needed to go out, as Quentin had told Olga to take some time off, promising to deal with his dad if he had a problem with it.

Elliott was freer with no one but us around.

He laughed louder, and he no longer changed back into his “boy clothes” just to do something simple like go to the kitchen.

He wouldn’t step foot outside in the frilly things he preferred to wear, but here—in this house—he was safe to be himself. Even if he still prayed about it.

We showered and did what teenage boys had done since forever: ate cereal and junk food in place of real food.

The doorbell rang. Quentin and I gave each other stupefied expressions before we all headed to the front of the house. The bell only rang for food and package deliveries, and we hadn’t ordered anything.

My stepfather wouldn’t ring the bell either. Besides, he wouldn’t show up so soon after popping in and out without being noticed by us weeks ago.

The woman waiting beyond the glass doors wore all black, and matching oversized sunglasses swallowed her tiny face.

Amelia.

Elliott froze as soon as she came into view.

“Um, should we let her in?” I asked. She was staring right at us now.

“Fuck no,” Quentin said. “Elliott doesn’t want her here.”

That much was obvious, but we couldn’t just ignore her. And besides, we needed to leave the house for Quentin’s practice soon. Even if we left out the back, she’d see us the moment we rounded the house for the garage.

Elliott stood still as a statue.

“I’m gonna let her in. She probably just wanted to let you know she was back from her trip.”

She’d finally gotten Elliott a phone, but he never had it on him, not even at night when we called it. He’d said he wasn’t used to having one, but I thought he was careless with it on purpose.

I let her into the foyer, saying hello. Quentin had taken a protective stance near Elliott, his larger body angled slightly in front of him. He skipped the polite “hi, nice to meet you” part. Amelia didn’t seem to care. She hadn’t even returned my greeting.

Her heels clicked against the marble as she approached where Quentin and Elliott waited by the stairs. She didn’t even glance at Quentin. Everyone glanced at him; he was too large to miss.

“Nephew.” The word was loaded with ice. “Duncan told me I might find you here.”

“I didn’t know you were coming back today,” Elliott said in that low, defeated voice he used when we first met. I hated her immediately for it.

“Surprise,” she said, her smile just as cold as her words. Elliott shared her sparkly blue eyes, but that was where the similarities ended. “I had to cut my trip short after unsuccessfully trying to reach you for days.”

“Maybe if you didn’t leave him alone for days, that wouldn’t have been a problem,” Quentin bit out, unafraid of a little confrontation—especially not when defending someone he cared about.

He was like that with me and had been the same way with my mother too.

He was too small and too young to put into action his defense of us then. Not anymore.

For the first time since arriving, Amelia looked Quentin up and down, unfazed by his size or lethal tone. She turned her attention back to Elliott, dismissing Quentin without a word.

“I was told you missed three appointments with Dr. Adler. Duncan said he came by to pick you up as scheduled each time, but you weren’t home.” She looked around the house then, taking in what she could from the foyer. “So, this is where you’ve been wasting your time.”

“The only one wasting their time is you if you think you’re gonna force him to leave,” Quentin said.

I frowned at Elliott, confused. He’d made sure to schedule his appointments during Quentin’s off-season training practices. He’d been going to therapy during that time. Or at least that was what he told us.

“I don’t want to go.” Elliott sounded steadier.

Amelia sighed, as if she didn’t care about what Elliott did and didn’t want. “You know our terms.”

“I never talk when I’m there anyway.”

“Therapy was part of the agree—”

“You just want to torture me!” he yelled.

Quentin and I both tensed. We’d never heard Elliott raise his voice before. Most of the time he didn’t speak above a whisper.

“How ironic,” she said in a cryptic tone before moving on. “Therapy is non-negotiable. Sometimes breakthroughs take time.”

Breakthroughs?

“He can stay with us.” Quentin stepped forward. “If forcing him to go is the only way he can live with you, then he can stay here with us.”

“And what will your parents think of that, young man?” she asked, speaking her first words to him.

“We live here with my stepdad,” I answered. “And he wouldn’t care.” I didn’t know if that was true, but if he cared, he’d know better than to say it out loud. Elliott looked over with both gratitude and sadness in his gaze.

“Say goodbye to your little friends, Elliott. I’ll be waiting in the car.” Without another word, she left, leaving the sickly sweet fragrance of her perfume behind.

“You don’t have to go with her.” Quentin clasped Elliott’s biceps as he moved toward the door. Elliott tensed.

“Quentin,” I warned, resting my hand on his forearm.

“Sorry.” He let Elliott go. “I’m just pissed.”

And afraid . The last time Quentin didn’t act, our lives changed forever.

“It’s okay,” Elliott said softly to Quentin. “I’ll go to the next practice.”

Elliott left, and I blocked Quentin’s path when he went to go after him. Or maybe Amelia was his target. He let out a roar of frustration when the front door closed, taking the steps upstairs two at a time. It was the first time he’d ever skipped practice.

We grabbed flashlights and sneaked through the woods to Elliott’s house that night. “Wait.” I grabbed Quentin’s arm before he could step through the tree line onto Amelia’s lawn. “What if she has motion sensor lights or a security system or something?”

“I don’t give a shit. We need to make sure he’s okay.”

“We don’t want to be arrested while doing it,” I reasoned. “What good will that do if we aren’t home for him tomorrow?” But the truth was, Quentin had always been braver than I was.

“Look.” I pointed to the large windows atop the stone staircase in the backyard. The lights were on in the house, and Amelia and Elliott were at the dinner table. I squinted, shoving my glasses up as if that would help me see better from here.

“We should have brought binoculars,” Quentin complained.

“Maybe we can zoom in using my phone.” It helped a little, and we watched as the two of them sat on opposite sides of the long table, not talking to each other. Elliott wasn’t even eating. He just sat there staring at his plate while Amelia sipped from her wineglass.

Quentin looked down at me, his eyes just as sad as mine. We reached for each other’s hands.

“We’ll talk to him tomorrow. See what we can do.”

“She has control of him until he turns eighteen,” Quentin reminded me. We didn’t even know his birthday.

“Maybe we can prove she’s unfit, and then your dad can temporarily adopt him or something.” It was a stretch, but seeing Elliott’s pain made me desperate.

“Yeah, maybe.” Quentin didn’t sound optimistic.

“I’ll tell him to do the therapy. Just to get her off his back. She’s never home anyway. If he does it, he won’t have to deal with her.”

Quentin let go of my hand so he could pull his own phone out to zoom in on the house. Elliott was alone at the table now, his head in his palms. I called his phone, but it went straight to voicemail.

“Hey, Ellie,” I said, making up the nickname on the fly.

“It’s me. Quentin’s here too. We’re watching you from the tree line.

” That probably made us look like stalkers, but wanting him to know he wasn’t alone at this very moment felt more important.

Who knew if he’d even listen to the message, but if he did, he’d think back to being sad and alone at the dinner table, and he’d know we were here with him.

“We wanted to make sure you were okay after what happened earlier. You should eat something,” I said. “Whatever is on your plate looks good.” I couldn’t see his plate, but I didn’t know what else to say.

Quentin took the phone. “You look sad, pretty girl. I don’t like it,” he whispered, then handed the phone back to me.

“Anyway,” I said. “Give us a call if you want to talk. Or come by if you can. In case you forgot, the entry code is fifty-six eighty-three. Okay, see you tomorrow—or tonight. Whenever.”

We couldn’t bring ourselves to leave and ended up staying there until Elliott left the table.

“Guess we should go,” I said, but didn’t move. Quentin took my hand again, squeezing it before leading me back home.

“What do you think she meant by breakthrough?” I asked as we walked, twigs and dried leaves crunching beneath our feet.

“I don’t know. Maybe it has to do with getting his memories back?”

“Yeah, maybe,” I answered, unconvinced.

We skipped dinner and had just showered and gotten into bed when a knock sounded at the door, startling both of us. Elliott , I thought, but then my stepfather entered without being invited in.

We didn’t know he was coming. He hadn’t sought us out the last time he came home and was gone before we even knew he’d been there. What made this time different?

Dylan stood just past the threshold of our room in his fancy business suit. Quentin got his build and all-American good looks from him. It was hard to hate someone when they looked exactly like the person you loved the most.

“Boys,” Dylan greeted, taking in our sleeping arrangement with his usual confusion and barely hidden disgust. He thought our sharing a bed was strange, and didn’t understand why it was necessary. We didn’t give a damn what he thought; he’d helped to make us this way.

Quentin stood, stalking over to his father in just his boxer briefs. I pushed higher against the headboard, preparing for the impending locking of horns.

“We haven’t been boys in a long time—thanks to you. What the fuck are you doing here?” Quentin didn’t stop advancing, forcing his father to take several steps back. It put him just outside our door.

Dylan had picked the wrong time to show up, not that seeing him any other time was ever good.

“I wanted you to know you weren’t alone. The system is offline, so you likely didn’t receive the text alert stating someone had entered.” We kept it offline so he wouldn’t be in our business because he received those same alerts too. But he knew that already.

“Bullshit. It’s always offline. How about the truth for once?”

“I see you still can’t be reasoned with.” Dylan did this every now and then. He’d pop up, as if he were expecting things to be different. Like some time apart was all we needed. “Anyway, I’ll be here for a couple days, then I’m gone again.”

“Business must be booming.” Quentin’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

Dylan came from money and had already inherited McAllen Industries from Quentin’s late grandfather by the time he’d met my mother.

I was eight years old by then. This new, barely there, too-busy-to-be-bothered version of him had only been in existence for the last five years. It started after my mother died.

“Good night,” Dylan said to me. I hated how he saw me as the reasonable one. Hated that he spoke to me at all. I normally ignored him, but he needed to know my silence didn’t mean I despised him any less than Quentin did.

“Just because I’m not the one lashing out right now doesn’t mean I don’t hate you too.”

He opened his mouth to say something, but Quentin slammed the door in his face.

“Oh,” he said, reopening it. Dylan hadn’t had time to move. “A woman bought the old Lenox House. We’re friends with her nephew. In fact, he lives here now. She’s never home, and he hates being in that big house alone. We know how that feels, except we’d love it if you never came back.”

As much as I wanted him to, we both knew Elliott didn’t live here. Quentin would’ve said anything to push his father’s buttons, though.

“I’m only telling you because I don’t want you getting startled if you bump into him in the halls one day. We all know bad things happen when you get scared, right?”

Dylan’s face turned red with the same anger I assumed my mother had to deal with, but otherwise he didn’t take the bait. “What does his aunt have to say about this?”

“That’s none of your business. Stay out of it and stay away from her.” His voice dropped an octave. “Then again, she seems just as cold-blooded as you. Maybe this time you’ll be the one left splattered on the concrete.”

Quentin slammed the door again, leaning against it, anger pouring from every inch of him.

He panted, staring at me, eyes blazing. I removed my glasses, setting them on the nightstand before drying my eyes.

Seeing my stepfather never got easier, but the most painful part about it was being reminded that I was afraid, weak.

My tears made Quentin angrier, and he glanced at the door he leaned against like he was thinking about chasing Dylan down.

“Don’t. Please let’s just go to sleep.” I patted the space next to me.

Quentin came over, but sleep was the last thing on his mind. He was too revved up for it. It had only been a sentiment anyway.

As always, I’d need to get him through this, through his chaotic emotions. But I didn’t mind. We both had our roles, and I took pride in playing mine. I took pride in dealing with the aftermath.