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“June, honey, it’s okay.” Bryce reached for June, but her niece pulled away.
“Don’t touch me. Ms. Lewis tried to call, but you didn’t answer. You always say we’re a priority, but when we need you, you’re not there.” June glanced down at the mess of paper towels between her legs, her chin quivering. She snatched the towel away from Bryce’s hands, winding the fabric around her waist. Then she shook her head, glaring up at her aunt. “Why couldn’t you be dead, and not my mom? I—I hate you.”
Bryce swallowed a hot lump of shame, anger, and hurt big enough to choke her into momentary silence. She gathered the soiled paper towels and shoved them deep into the bathroom’s garbage, burying the mess. By the time she’d washed her hands and turned back to June, Bryce had composed herself enough to speak.
“I know you hate me. I hate me right now, too, because I forgot my phone and I let you down. I’m sorry, June. And you’re right. There’s no good reason why your mom and dad are dead and I’m…what’s left.” Bryce stumbled over the last of it, hating how those words hit like a gut punch but knowing that however much she hurt, her nieces hurt more. Their whole world was gone, leaving Bryce as a weak substitution. “But that’s life. Sometimes it’s sweet and sugary, like cotton candy, and living is so wonderful it melts in your mouth. But being alive can also have those bitter times—times when you think you’ll never enjoy anything again. You’ve got to get through the bitter bites in order to appreciate the sweet.”
“Whatever. Just take me to the apartment.” June was always careful not to use the word “home” and chastised her sisters if they ever slipped, reminding them their home was gone along with the rest of their parents’ things to settle the estate. “You do have…things there I can use? Or are you not even prepared for this?” June swept her hand in a circling arc around her midsection, her bloodshot green eyes an accusatory laser.
“Of course I’m prepared.” Bryce prayed she had pads in the house. She couldn’t give her niece a tampon, after all—it was her first period and that was curveball enough. No need to instruct her on how to shove a wad of cotton up there to add insult to injury. Thinking back to her own first period and her mom’s advice, she added, “We’ll get you some Tylenol and a heating pad, too. It’ll be fine. My friend opened the rear door, so you don’t have to walk in front of the class on the way out to the car, okay?”
June nodded, crossing her arms in front of herself, holding her towel close and hunkering behind Bryce when she opened the door to the studio.
Ryker was standing by the back exit like a Marine sentry, his athletic form all muscles and tense readiness. Bryce vowed to make him a soup so good he’d understand the level of her gratitude as she shoved her feet into her sneakers and ushered June outside, sensing Ryker behind them as they left the studio.
Cold wind gusted as she dug the key fob from her leggings pocket. Bryce unlocked the passenger door and whisked away her purse and clothes so June could sit, then quickly shut the door, promising to return in a minute with her sisters. Ryker had kept a ten-foot distance, allowing them privacy, but approached as Bryce jogged to the front of the dance studio.
“She okay? Can I run to the store and get anything for you?” he asked, keeping pace as they ran to the studio’s entrance.
She snorted a laugh that felt closer to a sob.
“Please. We barely know each other.” She shook her head as he stood there in military mode, his blue eyes a shadowed gray in the early evening light. “I’m not going to ask you to get sanitary napkins for my niece. I’m pretty sure I have stuff at home. Maybe. But thank you for running interference in there for us. Swing by PattyCakes for lunch and I’ll make sure you go home so full you’ll burst. My treat—”
“I hate to break up your…whatever this is.” Adele Payne stalked out of the studio with Harvey and their two grandchildren in tow. Addison and Cecily appeared content—like the drama from ten minutes ago was ten years ago—and their mouths wore dark remnants of something that looked suspiciously like chocolate. “But these girls are exhausted, and I’m sure June needs some care right now, not to mention it’s a school night. I wonder how you think dating is a priority with everything going on—”
“It wasn’t a date.” Bryce stepped away from Ryker.
He took the hint, his eyebrows drawing together before giving a quick nod and disappearing around the building. Bryce stifled the urge to jog after him, anticipating the lecture Harvey was about to deliver.
“It’s ten past seven,” he scolded. “Luckily, Adele always carries those miniature candy bars. We gave the girls some because the poor things were starving.”
Bryce felt her blood pressure rise five hundred notches above normal.
“They weren’t starving. These girls had French toast, scrambled eggs, and fruit for breakfast, soup and sandwiches for lunch, and I fed them apples and peanut butter before dance.” Feeding people was the one thing she did well—even if she felt like she failed at everything else. But the word “starving” brought back the times of volunteering with her mom in soup kitchens growing up. She knew what starving looked like. “They were hungry for dinner. A dinner I have waiting for them at home. And you just filled them up with chocolate.”
Adele’s genial face—all pink cheeks and gray-blond, helmet-shaped hair—fell in a shocked expression. “We were just trying to help. Ms. Lewis called, and we came right away. You know these girls mean everything to us.” The older woman misted up, making Bryce feel simultaneously like hugging her and like running away to avoid the sight of her sorrow. “They’re all we have left of Heather…”
Then it was as if a really shitty fairy had come and sprinkled sob-dust on them all.
Adele began to cry; first one tear, then twenty rushed down her face. The girls gawked up at their grandmother, and then Addison started, mustering more tears from what had to be a well practically dry of them. Finally, Cecily started to sob, a face-contorting, howl-at-the-moon type of all-body crying that made her boneless, causing her to sag against her grandfather’s leg. Harvey staggered at the onslaught, looking on helplessly.
Bryce closed her eyes, wishing she was somewhere—anywhere—but here. She’d give anything to be standing at her ten-burner Vulcan stove in Tampa, master of her domain and third in rank in the most prestigious restaurant in the area. Or going on a solo road trip in her BMW, the windows down, pop tunes playing without a single thought to bleeping out the curse words on the Cardi B songs. Hell, even a trip to the dentist would beat this scene.
But she was stuck in the present.
Mustering kind words, like squeezing a lemon for juice after it had already been in the press, she made herself say the right thing.
“Thank you for coming when Imani called. Although it wasn’t an emergency on my end—I forgot my phone in the car—I’m glad you came so quickly for the girls.”
Bryce gathered her sobbing nieces to her, one on each side, shuffle-walking them to the BMW, where she made sure they were buckled, then got in herself. June’s face was covered in new tear tracks, and as Bryce started the car and put it in drive, her headlights picked out the figure of Ryker standing by the side exit of the dance studio. He looked on, the parking lot light above cutting him right down the middle, casting half of his body in shadow.
He waved once.
Bryce stared straight ahead, refusing to blink, refusing to wave back.
As she pulled out and turned toward Main Street, her car full of crying girls, she reminded herself that this,thiswas why she couldn’t date right now. She didn’t have time for the load she was already carrying, let alone the energy it would take for a relationship.
For once, the Paynes were right. Dating was not a priority.
