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Artie grabbed Russell’s hand and started pulling him toward the kitchen. Russell met my eyes, and I could tell that this was the last place he wanted to be—anywhere in proximity to me. “Can we go swimming?” he practically yelled.
“Take it down a notch, bud,” Wylie said.
“Yeah,” Chloe agreed, glancing upstairs. “Your nephew is sleeping.”
I bumped on nephew before I remembered how this worked. Presumably, one of Wylie’s older children—like Connor—must have kids of their own. Which would mean that this three-year-old was someone’s uncle.
“Want some pasta, kid?” Priya asked, taking her pot off the stove. Artie’s eyes lit up.
“Yes, please,” he said. “I like the bow kind. With a little butter and the cheese from the green can.”
“I have this great sauce!”
“No thank you.”
“At least try it?”
“Hey, buddy,” Montana said, walking over to the kitchen. She tickle-lunged at Artie, who shrieked in delight and ran a few feet away. “Dinner almost ready, P?”
“Fishbowl is ready,” Wallace called, sounding irritated. “Are we not playing?”
“After dinner,” Sydney said, clapping her hands together. “I need to eat something or I’ll get grumpy.”
“Get grumpy?” Connor asked. She whacked him on the arm.
“Before we eat…,” Wylie Sanders said. He clapped his hand on Russell’s shoulder. “We need to have a chat.”
Russell sighed. “Yeah.”
“What’s happening?” Montana asked.
“Russ is in trouble,” Chloe said in a low voice.
“Not trouble, exactly,” Wylie said, then paused. “Well—actually, yeah. Trouble.”
“Yikes,” Priya said as she started pulling down bowls from a cabinet.
“And no offense,” Doug said, hustling into the kitchen, “but we might not wait.”
“Good luck,” Montana said. She cleared her throat and rested her hand on her heart. “ ‘It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done. It is a far, far better rest that I go to—’ ”
“Okay,” Russell said, shaking his head. “We don’t need to make this worse.” He headed out of the room, following his dad, but then stopped and turned back to me. “So you’re going to go?” His voice was icy, but not believably so—like a lake that looked frozen but would crack with the first step.
“Yep.” I made sure to keep my tone clipped. If I’d needed another reason to keep being mad at him, all I had to do was look around me. This whole life Russell had that he’d kept from me, spinning an entirely new picture just for kicks.
“So I guess this is it?”
“Guess it is.”
“Don’t go on my account.”
“I wasn’t ever going to stay. I’m leaving as soon as I get my stuff back. I’m not sure where it went.”
“I’ll find Kendrick,” Bronwyn said, setting down her iPad and striding out of the kitchen. Her response made me all too aware that everyone around us could hear our conversation, and that nobody was making any effort to disguise the fact that they were listening.
“Well—bye.”
I folded my arms. “Bye.”
