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Every muscle in my body tightened. No fucking way was she leaving. The tension in the room skyrocketed.
“Sure, we can stay for lunch,” Emilia replied.
“Hey, Rhett,” my baby sister called, striding through the room until she was at Emilia’s shoulder. “You wanna go play outside with me for a while?”
“Outside?” Rhett asked, his voice muffled.
“Yep,” Myla replied. “There’s all sorts of things to do out there.”
“Maybe you guys should stay inside,” I said automatically. I didn’t want him out of my sight, not yet. Embarrassment hit like a brick to the face when I met Emilia’s gaze.
“I’ll watch him really close,” Myla said as Rhett reached for her. “I promise.”
Emilia bit the inside of her cheek.
“She’s been keeping an eye on all the littles for a couple of years,” my mom assured Emilia. “He’ll be safe with her.”
“Okay,” Emilia conceded. She didn’t seem sure, but she allowed it. “Here, baby, put your sunglasses on.”
As soon as they’d left the house, the five adults stood there in silence.
“We have a lot to talk about,” Emilia said softly.
She was talking to me, but I couldn’t even look at her. Now that Rhett was out of earshot and I didn’t have to regulate what I said and did, every emotion was bubbling to the surface. Anger, disbelief, shame, elation and surprisingly, relief, warred with each other until my stomach churned with nausea.
“You’ve got a lot of explainin’ to do,” my dad said, crossing his arms over his chest as he leaned back against the counter.
“I know,” she said.
I still couldn’t look at her.
“I don’t think you do,” Dad replied. He looked at my mom for a moment then sighed. “But before you get into it all, want you to know, you’ve always been welcome in this house and you’ll always be welcome in this house.”
“Thank you.” It sounded like Emilia was crying, but I was so focused on keeping everything leashed that I still didn’t look at her.
“Well, that’s bullshit,” my little brother Otto said from the hallway. “She took off, let her stay gone.”
“Shut the fuck up, Otto,” I barked.
“She took off and stole your kid,” Otto said, staring at me incredulously.
“It’s not that simple, Otto,” Emilia said.
“Don’t talk to me,” he replied flatly.
“Another word and we’re gonna have problems,” my dad said darkly, making Otto spin on his heel and leave the room again.
“It’s okay,” Emilia murmured. “I get why he’s mad.”
“Don’t think mad is an accurate descriptor,” Rumi said in a tone he’d never used with Emilia before.
“I—”
“You can feel however you want, Rumi,” my mom said. “So can Otto. But this is between Mick and Emilia.”
“Because none of the rest of us were worried as hell when she took off?” Rumi barked. “Because none of us went looking for her and calmed Mick down when—”
“Because they share a son and nothing is more important than that,” my mom replied, cutting him off mid sentence. “I’m going to go call in some Chinese food. Does Rhett have any allergies?”
