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I bit my lip, concerned. This was worse than I’d thought. The last we’d spoken about her injury—which admittedly hadn’t been for several months—I got the impression that Joni was on the road to recovering her once-burgeoning dance career.
Now she’d given up completely on the one thing she’d ever been proud of.
“Wow, Jo. Gosh, I’m so sorry.”
She slumped against the window. “It’s fine. I’m dealing with it.” Then she tossed back the rest of her drink and stared at the empty cup. “Looks like I’m due for a refill.” She turned around, clearly looking for the bar full of drinks. “Looks like Johnny Ramirez is still pouring cocktails. Maybe if I flirt with him enough, he’ll convince his parents to give me the spare room in their attic.”
It was a joke. Or I thought. But something in her voice truly broke my heart. My little sister was in the process of losing, well, if not her innocence, then some kind of faith in the world. The belief that no matter what happens, everything will turn out all right in the end.
It’s a sad realization that everyone has to have when they truly grow up.
Happy endings come to those who make them, not those who wait for them.
“Joni,” I said again, reaching out to keep her from doing something stupid.
But she shook me off.
“Don’t,” Joni replied too sharply to be a product of alcohol. “Don’t pity me like that unless you’re willing to help, Frankie.”
Without waiting for a reaction, she weaved her way through the party to where the Ramirez brothers were waiting, both eager as always to bask in the attention of Belmont’s biggest flirt.
I sighed. There wasn’t much I could do. Some things Joni was just going to have to learn on her own.
“All right?”
The screen door opened behind me, and Xavier wrapped his arms around my shoulders and pulled me against his chest.
I nuzzled into his forearm and sighed with contentment. “I’m fine. Joni, though…”
I told him about our conversation. By the end, Xavier was frowning compassionately.
“Poor girl,” he said. “It’s rough, being tossed out on your own for the first time. I don’t care what the circumstances are.” Then his eyes blinked open a bit wider. “She’s not going to ask to live with us, is she? Seriously, we don’t have that much room with the construction.”
I’d personally thought the new house was fine as-is, but Xavier had insisted on opening up two full floors to accommodate the needs of a world-class kitchen and a primary suite on the floor below the kids for our…privacy. When I asked why, Xavier only said it was his right as my husband to make me scream as loud as he liked.
I wasn’t about to argue with that.
Right now, however, we were confined to a kitchenette in the attic and three small bedrooms.
As if in answer to new uncle’s question, Lea’s youngest opened her mouth and delivered a world-class shriek. Across the room, Joni visibly shuddered.
“I doubt it,” I told him. “There’s a reason she never wanted to live with Lea’s family either, even after they inherited Mike’s parents’ place and had five bedrooms. If anything, she’ll try to bum off Kate.”
Xavier thought for a moment. “Should we offer the Red Hook house? It’s not too late to back out of the lease. We could talk to your brother.”
Matthew, ever the protective eldest Zola kid, still insisted my name remain on the deed of the house, even after Xavier and I had gotten married. I really didn’t need it anymore, but we were now co-owners of yet another safety net.
“Just in case,” he’d said with a cryptic look at my husband, whom I had a feeling Matthew would always want to punch a little. And judging from Xavier’s glare in return, it was a feeling that went both ways.
I also had a feeling I knew what Matthew would say to that proposition—exactly what I was thinking when it came to Joni.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I think maybe Joni needs to figure this one out on her own first. Or at least try.”
“I’m surprised,” Xavier said. “You and I both know how hard it can be out there on your own. Why make it worse for her than it has to be?”
I thought about that for a moment. “I mean, I’d never leave her homeless or anything. And part of me wants to help more. But it’s not like Joni has a baby to support or is incapable or anything. She’s just a twenty-four-year-old who needs to learn to be on her own.”
I turned in his arms to look at him. Even with my belly putting a bit more space between us than we liked, Xavier was big enough that his hands still caught my waist with ease.
