“It’s not your job to spoil me.”
“Think of it as another way I indulge myself. I’m impulsive, so if you want something, I’ll impulsively get it for you.”
I laugh as I finish buttoning the shirt, then walk over to where he’s sitting on the edge of the bed, stepping between his legs. “I’m not your kept boy.”
“You keep me supplied with cock, and I’ll handle the rest.” He palms me through my pants.
“Don’t get me hard.”
“I’m starving. I need food if I can’t have sex. Fia makes the best homemade waffles. And then maybe later we can—”
“Shh.” I press my fingers to his lips. “I love the way your brain spins sometimes, but right now I need to see my mom, remember?”
“Fuck. I forget you have one of those.”
Again, he makes me chuckle. “Let’s go, Cherry. I probably shouldn’t have left her alone. She might need me.”
He gives me a contemplative look. “You’re not the only one who will take care of her now. Since you’re mine, she’s mine too. She risked her life for you. Now there’s nothing I won’t do for her.”
For the first time in my whole life, I understand what a person means when they say they have butterflies in their belly because I have them now. This giddy, fluttery, happy feeling I never would have known if it wasn’t for Rory. “Family,” I test the word out again.
“Yes. Come on.”
The house is huge, bigger even than theirs in Ashford. I don’t remember which room my mom is in, but Rory leads me there. “I’ll give you a little while alone with her.”
“You just want to eat,” I tease him.
“You fucked my brains out. What do you expect?” He winks, then disappears down the hallway, off to find a way to keep himself busy, the thought making me smile.
I push open the door. The hospital bed that had been brought in for Conan is empty. My mom is awake, the head of her bed up, her hands together in her lap.
“Hey,” I say gently, unsure. I’m pissed at her for calling Jagger, for bringing this danger to our doorstep, for not leaving him sooner, and for not being there for me when I needed her, but mixed with that is my guilt for leaving her alone, abandoning her, pushing her to that place where she would resort to calling him. Bigger than both of those things is the truth, though—when it counted, she was there. When it counted, she has always been there. She took a bullet for me—literally, this time—and I know she’s taken more for me in the past.
“Shai.” She begins to cry. I hurry over, sit on the edge ofthe bed, do my best to hold and comfort her without hurting her. She’s got an IV in, and her arm is bandaged. Her shoulders shake as she cries, hand fisted in my shirt.
“Shh. It’s okay. I’m here. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”
Something about that makes her tense, makes her pull away, eyes red and face wet. “I’ve really messed up with you.”
“What are you talking about? No you haven’t.”
“Yes. I have,” she says softly. “All this is my fault, but you’re apologizing to me. You have no reason to be sorry.” She pushes my hair out of my face the way she did when I was a child. “My little adult. You’ve had to be grown too soon, seen too much, taken care of too much, and somewhere along the way, I stopped growing up and you kept going.”
“It’s not your fault,” I argue. “You had a drug-addicted mom who bailed on you at fourteen. You got pregnant with me atfifteen years old. You were a child who’d never been taught any different.”
“So were you,” she says, the words ringing in my head. She’s right. I wasn’t taught any differently either. I never thought about it that way.
“You did your best.”
“I’ll do better.”
Her words knock the breath out of me. I want to believe them, but history has taught me otherwise.
“I’m serious, Shai. I’ll be better for you…and for me. You and your friends risked your lives for me. They’ve been better to you than me, but not anymore.” She wipes her face as more tears fall. “I want to be better.”
“You will be,” I say, though I don’t know if that’s possible.
“Look at you, still trying to take care of me. You’re allowed to be mad. You’re allowed to doubt me. I deserve all of it, but I… Fia sat with me for hours. She’s a good woman, a good mom. I want to be more like her, and she said she would help.”
