CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Fallon
“I’VE GOT YOU, LITTLE G,” HAYDEN SAID, PULLING GRACIE’S PLATE toward her and cutting up some of the chicken stir-fry. “But you gotta promise ten bites of veggies.”
Gracie’s face screwed up. “I don’t like the string beans.”
“I know, but they make you grow big and strong, right?” Hayden encouraged.
Kye’s hand wrapped around mine under the table, squeezing it so hard I was pretty sure he stopped the blood flow. But I knew why. It had only been a matter of hours since the girls had arrived for their official move-in, and it was clear that Hayden was Clem and Gracie’s only parent.
Cope shuddered. “I don’t like ’em either. Especially when they’re all shriveled like that. But I can seriously get down with some snap peas.”
Since Gracie and Hayden knew each family, we’d invited Trace, Ellie, Keely, Cope, Sutton, and Luca over for the girls’ first dinner in our new house. We thought familiar faces and some Chinese food might be the way to go.
Sutton shook her head. “These green beans are delicious.” She popped one into her mouth to prove her point.
Cope leaned forward across the table, sending a stage whisper to Gracie. “Quick, sneak ’em onto her plate, and I’ll give you some snap peas.”
Gracie giggled. “I dunno if I’ve had snap peas.”
Kye and I shared a look. Snap peas weren’t exactly exotic, but I was sure green beans, carrots, and shelled peas were much cheaper and easier to come by.
Cope lifted one of the platters in the center of the table and dished some out to her. “I need a full report.”
“Careful,” Luca warned. “My dad tricked me into eating all sorts of green stuff.”
My heart squeezed at Luca calling Cope Dad. Even though it was the norm now, it reminded me that a kid could get what they deserved after missing out on it for so long.
Cope sent Luca an affronted look. “Tricked you? You love my pesto and my broccoli rabe.”
Luca wrinkled his nose. “Just no regular broccoli. That’s the worst.”
“I swear the whole Colson fam has waged war against vegetables,” Ellie said with a sigh.
Keely giggled. “You’re just the veggie queen.”
Ellie tickled Keely’s side. “I think I might go as a bunch of kale for Halloween next year.”
“A unicorn would be way more fun,” Keely argued.
“True enough,” Ellie agreed.
Clementine finished the last of her milk. “Could I—?”
But Hayden was already up. “Do you want more milk or water?”
Clem eyed the few sodas on the table. “Can I have a Coke?”
Hayden shook her head. “It’s way too close to bedtime.”
Kye slid his chair back and rose to head into the kitchen. “We’ve got some flavored sparkling water with no caffeine. Strawberry, blackberry, and lime.”
Hayden’s mouth thinned. “She can’t have that this late either. It can upset her stomach at night.”
He slowed, seeming unsure of what to do.
Clem’s gaze ping-ponged between the two of them. “I can just have water.”
Hayden grabbed her glass, rinsed out the milk remnants, then filled it with water.
“We’ve got filtered on the fridge,” Kye offered.
“This is fine.” Hayden moved back to the table and a conversation about the volcano science project Keely and Gracie’s class had been working on.
I stood, crossing to Kye and hooking my pinky with his. I led him out of the kitchen and toward the still-empty library. “You okay?” I whispered.
He looked over my head and out the door as if he could see his sisters through the wall. “She does everything for them.”
I gripped his pinky harder, trying to bring his gaze back to me. “She does, and you have to let her for now.”
Kye scowled, his eyes finding mine. “I know she needs to feel in control, but she has help now. She has you and me.”
I simply stood in the silence with him, waiting for him to see. He didn’t need me to lecture him, but he did need to understand that the girls were used to operating a certain way.
“Fuck,” Kye muttered. “They don’t trust me to help yet.”
“They’re not used to you as an option,” I said, reframing the situation. “With time, especially one-on-one time, that’ll shift. But they’ll lock you out if you try to force it.”
Pain washed through Kye’s eyes, swirling in shadowy arcs, and I couldn’t stop myself from moving closer. I wrapped my arms around his waist and pressed my face to his chest. His heartbeat thumped against my ear in a steady rhythm.
I’d done the same thing when he’d ended up in the hospital after a bad fight. I hadn’t trusted the heart monitors to tell me the truth. I’d needed to feel it. I’d lain with my ear pressed to his chest, just waiting for him to wake up.
Kye rested his chin atop my head, arms encircling me. “I just want to magically make it better. Erase all their pain.”
“But you know that’s not how life works.”
“No, it fucking isn’t.”
My fingers fisted in the soft flannel of his shirt. “But it means those moments of joy are even deeper. We feel them that much more because of the pain we’ve experienced. You just have to hold on until those moments start to break through.”
I pulled back a fraction to see if my words had landed. Kye searched my eyes, looking for something there I couldn’t identify. His fingers tangled in my blond strands. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Sparrow.”
My breath caught in my throat. We were so close I could almost taste Kye.
And because I’d gotten a hit of that too many times recently, I was reckless.
I leaned in even closer. Stretched up, my lips hovering just shy of his.
Those strong fingers tightened in my hair, waking up every nerve ending until—
“I’m heeeereeeee!” Lolli called from the entryway.
Kye and I startled apart, his hands dropping from my body as he took a giant step back and muttered a curse. “Did you give her a key?”
I tried to ignore the flare of hurt I felt at the distance Kye had put between us, knowing it was for the best. “Of course not. I’m not risking her bedazzling an angel orgy on our bedroom ceiling.”
He grunted, and then a knowing look overtook his face. “I gave Cope a key so he could bring over some hockey stuff for Hayden. I bet that asshole gave it to her.”
Kye was already moving back out to the living room, and I hurried to follow.
“Lolli,” Ellie called. “I didn’t know you were coming tonight.”
“Well,” she huffed, “I wasn’t invited, so I just decided to invite myself.”
“Because,” Kye said, striding into the kitchen and living area with the massive table large enough to fit the entire Colson crew, “it’s our first night. We don’t want a bunch of new people all at once.”
Lolli flipped her gray hair, which currently had pink streaks, over her shoulder. “But I am the best this family has to offer.”
Trace grunted. “You’re the most inappropriate this family has to offer.”
“Same thing,” Lolli muttered.
Gracie sent her a bashful smile. “I like your sparkles.”
Lolli twirled, making her bright pink tulle skirt with sequins fly around her. She’d also donned cowboy boots with sparkly mushrooms on the sides and a shirt that read, In Mushrooms We Trust with an array of bedazzled fungi.
“Thank you, honey bunches. You must be Gracie.”
The little girl nodded.
“I’m Clementine, but everyone calls me Clem,” the redhead offered. “And I love mushrooms.”
Lolli set two bags on the kitchen island and clapped. “Another fungi aficionado. I love it!”
“Pretty sure she’s not into the ‘shrooms you are, Lolls,” Cope said wryly.
Trace held up a hand. “Please, don’t make me arrest both of you. I’ll make you share a cell.”
Clem and Gracie giggled, but Hayden just kept staring at Lolli in pure shock.
“You must be the hockey star Cope told me about,” Lolli greeted her.
A flush of pink hit Hayden’s cheeks. “I think star’s a stretch.”
“I don’t,” Cope argued. “You’ve got what it takes if you want it.”
A look passed over Hayden’s face, but it was gone too quickly for me to identify it.
“Well, I’m Lolli—”
“Or Supergran,” Keely cut in.
“Or Supergran,” she amended. “And I brought all the fixings for my epic fairy sundaes.”
Wariness entered Trace’s eyes. “These sundaes aren’t special, are they?”
Lolli waved him off. “Of course, they’re special. But they’re not the kind of special that would mean seeing Ellie’s garden gnomes doing the macarena across your front lawn all night.”
“That sounds like it would be fun,” Gracie offered.
Keely nodded. “Ellie taught me the macarena and the dance to ‘Bye Bye Bye’. She said it’s ’portant to know your history, and the nineties is the best we got.”
Trace sent Ellie a droll look. “The nineties? Really? What about the Industrial Revolution, the Civil Rights Movement, and women’s suffrage?”
Ellie folded her napkin. “All vital times, but did they have frosted tips, blue eye shadow, and boy band bops that don’t quit?”
Hayden choked on a laugh. “I do have a thing for ‘Tearin’ Up My Heart’.”
Ellie beamed at her. “I knew I liked you.” She stood and motioned for Hayden to follow her. “Come on. We can set up dessert and pick the playlist.”
Hayden looked uncertain for a moment, glancing at Clem and Gracie as if she wasn’t sure she should leave them. But then she pushed her chair back and followed Ellie into the kitchen.
I shot Kye a look as if to say, See? But I couldn’t help but notice the distance he’d kept between us since our moment in the library.
Lolli pawed through the two massive bags she’d set on the island.
“I brought four kinds of ice cream, hot fudge, caramel sauce, rainbow sprinkles, five different mini candies, and whipped cream.” She pulled out two cans of the whipped stuff and turned to Kye and me.
“I brought you an extra as a honeymoon present. I’m actually working on a cannabis-infused version that will really heighten arousal, but I trust your hormones to do the trick for now. ”
“Lolli!” I shouted, my face flaming.
“What?” she asked innocently. “It’s never too early to start the birds and the bees talk.”
Kye pinched the bridge of his nose. “This is why you weren’t invited.”
Lolli just grinned. “But aren’t you glad I came anyway?”