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“They’re my sisters. Even if we don’t talk for a month, they know all they have to do is pick up the phone and I’m there.” She scratched her arm above the ever-present leather wrap bracelet.
“It’s nice you didn’t forget about us little guys and let all that fame go to your head,” he joked.
“I’m not a total shallow bitch,” she snapped.
Whoa. “I didn’t mean to imply you were.”
She sighed, tucking her knees closer to herself, leaning against the door, and gazing out the window. “Sometimes it feels like no one knows the real me. All they see is Emma, lead singer of The Sirens. The woman with no filter and a string of failed relationships. And in Shattered Cove, they still see me as . . .”
As the white daughter of Solomon Owusu? “As what?”
She licked her lips and faced him.
He took one look at those blue, soulful eyes and fixed his gaze back on the white lines, chest tight. In that brief glance, it was as if he could see all of her for the first time. Overwhelming grief, vulnerability, and fear darkened her cerulean spheres. That image imprinted in his mind. The pleading in her eyes that screamed, see me! But what could a woman like her possibly need from a man like him? Nothing. Emma was always happy, the life of the party. She was the one solving problems for her friends, not needing help.
Ask her. He shook his head. No. He was reading way too much into this. If there was grief, it was because their father had passed and the knowledge she had that like him, she was an orphan now.
“As the small-town girl who made it big? They’re just jealous.” He reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze.
Her eyes shuttered for a moment, and then, as if it had been a figment of his imagination, the overwhelming sadness in her gaze was gone. She gave him a smile, nothing like the ones he’d seen the rest of the trip. This one wasn’t flirty or genuine but forced. “Right.”
His gut pitched and twisted uncomfortably at the sudden change. He didn’t like the pretending, or Emma walling herself off from him. But isn’t that exactly how this has to go? This wasn’t a relationship. This was . . . this was fucking. He cringed. It was, but it wasn’t. Because at the end of the day, she was still his family. He cared about her and wanted the best for her.
“Check the glove box.” He dropped Emma’s hand to motion in front of her.
The handle clicked open before the crinkle of plastic and Emma’s chuckle became music to his ears. He took his eyes off the road one more time just to capture the image of her lips splitting into an authentic smile of glee. “You got me more gummy worms?” She tore open the package and popped three into her mouth.
“Gotta keep my little bird happy.”
“Why do you call me that?” she asked around a mouthful of candy.
Because you were always meant to fly. To climb to heights most of us mortals only dream of. He shrugged, not wanting to dig too deep into the motivation behind the endearment. “Because you like gummy worms, duh.”
“Oh my God. Did you just say ‘duh’? What, are you a twelve-year-old boy all over again?” She laughed, and that sound split through his defenses, digging into his chest, taking root.
His heart warmed with the tinkling sound. “I never said duh. That was you,” he argued with a laugh of his own.
“Where do you think I got it? I learned everything from you. Don’t you remember how I’d follow you around?”
Like the lost bird in the book his father used to read him. The little thing kept going to creatures and inanimate objects asking, “Are you my mother?” Until finally at the end, it was reunited with the mother bird. Of course, that wasn’t why he called her that. No, that was coincidence. Her mother was long gone, just like his.
“That must have bothered you so much. You never showed it though. Having a kid follow you and your teenage friends around couldn’t have been easy,” she mused, stuffing another worm into her waiting mouth.
Link switched into the left lane, quickly passing a slower-moving car. “It wasn’t always easy. Remember that time you came into my room when Finn was over? We were so busy with the dirty magazine we didn’t even hear you until it was too late.”
“That’s the moment I realized I liked women, actually.”
He whipped around to look at her before returning his gaze to the gas station ahead of him. “Seriously?”
She burst out laughing. “No, but you should have seen your face!”
He shook his head, grumbling under his breath. “At least you never told Dad about it.”
“Your secrets have always been safe with me.” She sighed.
There were many times she’d caught him sneaking out or getting into things he probably shouldn’t have been. When she’d gotten older, she’d begged him to take her with him. They’d been thick as thieves at one point. And not once had she ever told his papa on him. “I don’t think I ever said thank you.”
“For not snitching?” she clarified.
