23
Lila
Standing in my bedroom debating whether Sunday dinner deserved mascara, I still couldn’t quite believe Priest had turned one impossible idea into an actual plan.
The freestanding ER was nowhere near construction.
Permits, funding meetings, and enough paperwork to bury a small town still stood between concept and opening day, but it had moved beyond talk.
The Saints and Fallen Angels had already raised an astonishing amount of money, a board of trustees was forming, and a better-paying position waited in my email.
An apartment key sat on my dresser beside it.
Blue was moving into Priest’s house on the Saints’ compound with baby Jackson.
Evan and I had signed leases in the same Bay of Saints complex, close enough to the proposed site for an easy commute and far enough from Wicker Falls that maybe breathing would come easier there too.
Jade’s enrollment paperwork for Bay of Saints High waited on my nightstand, and she was the part that still got me.
When Evan and I sat down with her to talk about moving, I had braced for a teenage hurricane. Instead, she listened and quietly admitted that getting away might be good. Away from school and everyone in town who thought they already knew who she was.
Her calm hurt more than anger would have. My sixteen-year-old had weighed leaving everything familiar with more grace than I had managed, and pride tangled with why she wanted to leave at all.
I left the mascara on the dresser. Sunday dinner at my father’s house deserved armor, not lashes.
Evan and Jade were surrounded by half-packed boxes when I joined them. Jade taped one shut while Evan sat cross-legged beside a roll of bubble wrap he seemed to resent personally.
“I just want it noted that you are incredibly impressive.”
I glanced at the boxes already lining the wall. “Of course I am. We move in a few days.”
His grin widened, because my impending breakdown was apparently part of the compliment. “That’s exactly my point. Organized. Efficient. Emotionally unstable, yes, but productive.”
Jade snorted and kept taping. Evan still had most of his own apartment to pack, which became less surprising when he started complaining about wardrobe boxes and the morally questionable number of jackets he owned. At least he had finally hired movers.
“They’re absurdly expensive,” he said. “Which means I trust them.”
That sounded exactly like him. “That does sound like you.”
“Thank you.” His satisfaction held for all of two seconds.
Watching him fight the bubble wrap brought Ink to mind. “So you haven’t asked Ink to help?”
The shift in Evan was immediate. His attention dropped, and Jade’s tape gun went quiet. “Uh, no.”
That answer carried none of his usual sparkle. “No?”
He gave a careful shrug that tried too hard for indifference. “You guys were right about him.”
My stomach sank before he said anything else. “Turns out I’m a little too much for him.” Evan tried for a smile and missed. “So. No hunky biker for me.”
Anger reached me before sympathy. Evan could make a joke out of almost anything except a wound he was still standing inside. “Did something happen? Do I need to go kick someone’s ass?”
A small laugh escaped him. “No ass-kicking needed. He didn’t do anything awful.” His gaze settled somewhere beyond me. “He’s just got too much emotional baggage to deal with all of me.”
Jade’s face tightened with sympathy. I wrapped my arms around him. He held on hard, his usual performance stripped away.
“The right man is going to want all of you,” I said against his shoulder. “Every loud, ridiculous, fabulous inch.”
His laugh warmed my hair. I eased back enough to see him. “And when you find him, God help the rest of us.”
That finally broke through. Evan laughed properly, pulling Jade in with him. “Oh, Lord help you all. I will sparkle when I find him.”
The heaviness loosened. The heaviness loosened. He wiped beneath his eyes, his usual dramatic flair already beginning to return. “Now. Are we ready to let your father disapprove of your entire future?”
Absolutely not. “No.”
Jade resumed taping. “Same.”
The drive to Dad’s house felt offensively short. Familiar streets passed beneath soft afternoon light while my stomach tightened with every turn.
Evan studied the house when I parked. “If this goes badly, fake food poisoning remains available.”
His emergency plan appeared at nearly every uncomfortable family gathering. “You say that every time.”
“And yet you never let me use it.”
The problem was never the idea. It was Evan. I knew exactly how far he would take it. “Because you get theatrical and overcommit.”
His wounded expression made Jade smile. “That is a gift.”
At least one of us was enjoying herself.
Dad opened the door before we knocked, his gaze sweeping over us and lingering briefly on Evan. “Dinner’s almost ready.”
Roast chicken and rosemary pulled a memory loose. For a heartbeat I was ten again, grass on my knees while Mom moved around the kitchen. Then Matty’s voice brought me back.
Matty was already leaning against the counter with a beer, and his face warmed when Jade came in. “There’s my favorite Morgan.”
She gave him the same look she gave him every Sunday. “You tell Mom that every week.” The exchange was so familiar it softened the knot under my ribs.
“Your mother knows where she stands.”
I hugged him anyway.
Dinner began beneath the usual family camouflage. Evan kept Dad occupied with the Packers while Jade and Matty fought over the rolls, but the announcement sat heavy behind my ribs. Waiting only gave it more weight.
“I have something to tell you.”
Dad’s attention snapped to me. Matty stopped eating, and Jade went still beside me. “What is it?”
There was no graceful way into it. “Jade and I are moving to Bay of Saints.”
Dad stared long enough for the objection to assemble itself. “You’re what?”
Repeating myself made the decision feel firmer rather than frightening. “We’re moving to Bay of Saints. I accepted a position with the freestanding ER project. Better pay, better title, better long-term opportunity. Jade will transfer schools.”
Matty’s surprise came without Dad’s edge. “You’re serious.”
He wasn’t judging. That helped. “Yes.”
Dad settled back in his chair, displeasure hardening his face. “Why?”
I had expected the question, but my old reflex to explain until he approved never came. “Because it’s the right move.”
His eyes narrowed. “Right for who?”
There it was. Concern sliding toward authority, the pressure I had spent years mistaking for obligation. “For us.”
Dad turned to Jade. “Is this really what you want?”
The question tightened something in me. This decision belonged to Jade too, but I hated seeing her pulled into the middle as if she needed to prove it.
She swallowed before answering. “Yeah. I think getting away might actually be good for me.”
Dad’s frown deepened. “Away from what, exactly?”
Jade stared at her plate for a moment, then lifted her eyes. “The school. This town. Just... everything.”
Her answer landed harder than mine could. Dad withdrew into silence, and Matty’s concern filled the opening.
“Bay of Saints isn’t around the corner, Lil. I can’t keep an eye on you two from two towns over.”
Before I could answer, Jade did. “With all due respect, Uncle Matty, we are capable women and can keep an eye on ourselves.”
Pride almost beat me to a smile. Evan raised one finger like he was joining an official proceeding. “And Guncle Evan will be living in the same apartment complex, which means surveillance may actually become oppressive in a more decorative way.”
Jade’s snicker broke some of the tension.
Dad muttered, “That’s not the same.”
Of course Evan heard him. “No, sir, it isn’t. For one thing, I moisturize.”
Jade nearly lost the laugh she was swallowing while Matty found his plate fascinating. Dad remained unimpressed; his next words carried everything he believed I should want.
“You’re making a mistake. Your life is here. Jade’s life is here. Your family is here.”
The familiar pressure tightened around my ribs, but it didn’t bend me this time. “The job is a promotion. Better pay, better benefits, better hours eventually. Bay of Saints offers more for Jade too.”
“Wicker Falls has been good enough.”
Good enough. I looked at Jade, and she caught the invitation immediately.
“Actually, I looked up Bay of Saints High.” Her voice held that sweet, dangerous calm she used whenever somebody underestimated her. “Their art program is better, and academically it ranks higher than Wicker Falls High. So it actually is a better move for me too.”
Matty’s eyebrows climbed. “You already researched it?”
She gave him a flat look. “I’m not dumb.”
Nobody was foolish enough to argue.
“Lila.”
Dad packed years of expectation into my name. He had always loved us through protection and an unwavering belief that he knew best. Somewhere along the way, I had let concern become permission. I was done asking for it.
“I’m a grown woman. I’m not asking permission to accept a new job and move, Dad. I’m telling you what’s happening.”
His jaw tightened. Saying the words felt better than swallowing them.
“We’ll still have Sunday dinners. We aren’t disappearing. You don’t have to like the move, but you do have to accept it.”
Dad held my gaze, irritated but short on arguments. Matty shifted the conversation somewhere practical. “When?”
My shoulders eased. “A few days. I need Jade’s records transferred and her enrollment finished. Evan and I have two days left at Wicker Falls Memorial.”
“That soon?”
The speed probably sounded reckless from his side of the table. From mine, every delay felt like another chance to stay stuck. “Yeah.”
Matty absorbed that before nodding. “Then I’ll help you move.”
The offer loosened something in my chest. Dad’s sigh carried plenty of complaint, but his next words mattered more. “I’ll help too.”
Jade glanced at me, surprise and amusement fighting for space in her expression. I was still getting used to Dad giving ground. “I’d appreciate it.”
That ended the fight, at least for dinner.
Conversation found its footing under Evan’s supervision. By dessert, Jade had another slice of pie, and Matty asked about the art program as if catching up emotionally to a decision already in motion.
Dad stayed quieter. Unhappy, certainly. I could live with unhappy.
I left feeling more wrung out by family than I ever did after a hospital shift.
Back in the car, Evan let the silence hold just long enough to become suspicious. “Well. That was intimate, tense, and full of hidden rage. I assume this is what Southern Gothic families do instead of recreational sports.”
Jade laughed first. Mine followed before I could stop it.
Apparently satisfied, Evan settled back. “Good. Because if either of you started crying, I was prepared to make your father deeply uncomfortable on purpose.”
Jade turned toward him. “You didn’t already?”
He considered that with appropriate seriousness. “Excellent point. I would have escalated.”
Our laughter followed us down the street, tired but genuine, and the strain finally eased.
The move still carried complications. So did the new job, Jade’s new school, and the strange way Bay of Saints had shifted from the edge of my life into whatever came next. But the decision was mine.
I had said it aloud at my father’s table, held my ground, and left without surrendering a single piece of myself.