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Then they were gone, and I thought my heart would beat out of my chest as I focused on breathing. I held myself as still as possible, an old trick I used as a child to keep myself from crying. The memory of my dad’s voice asking if I wanted him togive me something to cry aboutringing in my ears.
The room was quiet except for Rhett’s motorcycle noise, and that’s when I realized that Nova and Emilia weren’t as unbothered as I’d originally thought.
“No use running it over and over in your mind,” Heather announced, closing her eyes as she rested her head against the wall. “It doesn’t help. Just makes you crazy.”
“Does it ever get easier?” Emilia asked with a huff.
“No,” Nova and Heather responded at the same time.
“Oh, yeah,” Emilia said, looking at Nova. “You grew up in the club, didn’t you?”
Nova nodded and cleared her throat. “Yeah.”
“Samson was a good man for a lot of years,” Heather said, opening her eyes to smile softly at Nova. She closed them again. “Watched Tommy’s back more than a few times.”
There was a story there, but I’d never ask what it was. I wouldn’t ever be the person that made Nova look like she did then—like she’d swallowed glass.
“So, how about a little family history for Esther,” Heather said, blindly reaching out to run her hand over Rhett’s hair. “Emilia, you go first. Tell her how you and Micky got together.”
Emilia snorted.
“The PG version, please.”
“I think we should start even earlier,” Emilia argued. “How did you and Tommy get together?”
Heather grinned. “That’s easy. I was best friends with his baby brother.”
“The original Micky,” Emilia told me and Nova with a smile.
“The original,” Heather mused. “Let’s just call him the older one, yeah? My baby’s an original, too.”
“That’s how you two got together?” Nova asked, getting comfortable against a bag tucked into the corner of a room. “Because of Uncle Micky?”
“Well, actually,” Heather replied with a chuckle. “Tommy hated me after we lost Micky. It really started years later during a lockdown.”
I couldn’t help but grin as Nova and Emilia oohed and ahhed.
“Hey, No,” Nova’s brother Bird interrupted, skidding to a stop in the doorway with Myla behind him. “Have you seen Titus? We can’t find him anywhere.”
Heather’s eyes popped open, and her head shot forward away from the wall.
“What do you mean?”
“We can’t find him,” Bird repeated.
“Is his car outside?” Heather asked, gently but quickly moving Rhett away so she could stand up.
“No,” Bird replied, looking at each of us. “We thought he rode with you or something.”
“Fuck,” Heather barked, hurrying out of the room as she pulled her phone out of her pocket.
“He was with you guys, right?” Emilia asked as she got to her feet and lifted Rhett into her arms.
“He was at the house,” I confirmed, standing.
“Come on, we’ll find him.” Nova ushered Bird into the hallway.
“He said Noel didn’t show up for school.”
