The three of them are a heap on the floor, all tangled limbs and gasping sobs, and my heart cracks right down the middle.
Confusion washes over me when Salem pulls away from their pile, sitting back on his heels and wiping furiously at his face. Arlo reaches for him. My baby boy is a caretaker at heart, and I’m not sure how much I really noticed that until this very moment.
All it takes is one outstretched hand to a broken-hearted kid, and it’s plain as day.
But Salem steps away, and, given the slump of Arlo’s shoulders, that hurts him. To my surprise, Salem’s eyes find mine. We stare at each other for a couple of seconds, then Salem’s shoulders rise and fall quickly, his head cocking to the side. “You’re Jasper, right?”
I nod, too dumbstruck to do anything else.
Salem pushes to his feet, nearly stumbling over himself, like someone whose limbs grew too fast for their brain to catch up, and then he’s launching himself across the room and wrapping his arms around me.
His chest shudders, his arms squeezing almost impossibly tight.
I hug him back for all I’m worth, rubbing his back when he starts breaking down again.
“Thank you,” he whispers.
My throat is clogged with tears, growing thicker by the second, but I just squeeze him harder. “I don’t know what you’re thanking me for,” I whisper back.
“Everything. For saving Arlo. For saving me and Nor. For everything.”
I shake my head. “I didn’t save you and Nor, kiddo. Arlo did that.”
Salem nods, his tears soaking my shirt. “You did, though. You saved Arlo. My brother could have died.”
He did die technically, but when my heart lurches, I shake my head to stop that line of thought. Nothing good will come from thinking about what could have been. The reality is that Arlo is alive. And Salem is hugging the fuck out of me, and I need to be focusing on them.
“You’re welcome.”
The hug goes on for much longer than I figured it would, but after a few seconds, he breaks away, swiping at his face again. He blinks up at me with watery brown eyes.
“Are you about to ask me why my hair is so gray? Or how old I am?”
“What?” He laughs. It’s wet and throaty, but it’s real, and that makes pride swell in my chest. Salem Montgomery’s first real laugh after all he’s been through came from me. “Why would I do that?”
“Ask your baby sister,” I say, quirking an eyebrow at her.
She’s sitting on the floor beside Arlo. My baby boy. He’s staring at me in a way he never has before. I thought I’d seen all of Arlo’s looks, but apparently there’s one I’ve missed somehow. I wish I knew what it meant.
“What did you do, Nor?”
She shrugs. “I didn’t do nothing. He said he was born in the 1900s.”
“Nora,” Arlo hisses for the second time.
I couldn’t fight my smile if I tried. “It’s okay. I really was.”
Salem glances around. “This isn’t a joke, right?” he asks, voice soft. “Y’all are really taking us home with you?”
My throat aches, so I nod at Arlo, too afraid that if I speak, I’m gonna lose my shit. Not a great first impression to make.
“We are,” Arlo says. “We can go now. We’ve got a long drive back. Do you want to say goodbye to Maryanne and William?”
Nora jumps up, rushing off toward the office, and Salem follows at a much more sedate pace.
As soon as they’ve cleared the hallway, Arlo is on his feet and making his way across the room to me. He presses his face into my chest, his back shuddering with each breath he inhales.
“You alright, baby boy?” I whisper, running my fingertips up and down his spine.
