Page 254 of What We Burn

“Milo,” Holden says.

“I’m accepting. I’m just accepting loudly. It’s how I process big emotions.” He squeezes me tighter. “Kitten? Thoughts?”

I look at Holden. At the red ears and the coffee mug and the man who shows love by hanging doors and scrubbing blood and making eggs at dawn. And always, always being there. The man who asked five people to make his house their home—to be his family—and couldn’t look any of them in the eye while he did it.

“I’d like that,” I say. “A lot.”

“Same,” Micah says.

“Obviously I’m in,” Milo says.

Knox nods.

Eli picks up his toast. Takes a bite. Chews. Swallows. “Can we work on the room assignments and clear out the guestroom?” he asks. “It’s ridiculous you sleep in the den of your own house.”

Holden blinks rapidly and clears his throat twice while nodding. “Yeah. Of course. We’ll, ah . . . have a family meeting.”

We’re a family.

An actual, permanent, mortgage-paying, chore-chart-having, five-boyfriends-and-one-woman-under-one-roof family.

Milo raises his fork. “To home,” he says.

We clink utensils and coffee cups.

“To home,” I say, locking eyes with Holden and mouthing, “I love you so much.”

He smiles and mouths, Show me later.

Oh. I will.

My cell rings, and I glance down, frowning when I see Amy’s number.

“Amy? You okay?”

I hear a wet, hiccupping nothingness—the sound left after crying has used up everything it needs to function.

“I can’t do this,” she whispers.

The line goes dead.

SIXTY-FOUR

SAGE

Eli drives me to Amy because I can’t stop shaking.

“She wouldn’t talk to me,” I tell Eli from the passenger seat.

Eli doesn’t speed up, but his hands shift on the wheel. “She called you. That’s the important part.”

“She sounded⁠—”

“I know the sound.” His voice is quiet but steady. “I’ve heard it before. In kids. In parents. In people who’ve had the floor pulled out from under them.”

“What do I do?”

“You show up. You don’t try to fix it. You just stay.”