Someday.
Maybe.
She curled herself into a ball on the sofa, and she waited. Her eyes got heavy, her breathing steady. There was that space between being awake and being asleep, not fully conscious but not unconscious, and that’s where Marlee had settled when a knock on the door startled her awake. Her heart did the just-woke-up-not-where-I-should-be race.
Eli still wasn’t home.
Toes in the carpet, she padded to the front door where Lothario currently snuggled with one of Eli’s flip-flops. He gave her a don’t-you-dare-move-me look.
Winning his regard back after they left would take some time and probably an abundance of Pup-Peroni.
She glanced through the peephole.
Her dad.
Along with her mom.
Damn.
Still dressed in their black-tie attire—Dad in a traditional tux and Mom in her version of a little black dress. The LBD was floor length (not so little), but it had a slit up the side, which her mom totally pulled off. Marlee fully expected that they’d be angry after everything. Instead, they just looked worried.
Marlee pressed her forehead against the doorframe.
Her dad knocked louder, right next to her forehead.
Marlee opened the door.
“Hi.” She stepped back to let them through. “You two are out late.” She said this as though they hadn’t witnessed her confession of being pregnant, who the father was, and the fallout in a ballroom filled with their peers
“Marlee.” Her dad’s edges were often sharp—he wore suits to the office, polo shirts to the country club, and he took no shit from anyone. Well, except Marlee, but it could hardly be considered taking her shit when he had essentially cut her off and cut her out. So, yes, his edges were often sharp. Tonight, they weren’t so harsh. “May we come in?”
“Sure.” She gestured to the living room. “Yeah.” She pressed a hand through her hair, doing a finger-comb she hoped would settle her just-awake hair.
Lothario, apparently pissed at her parents, raised his chihuahua nose in the air and marched his furry butt to the bedroom.
“Come sit down. Can I get you something to drink?” she asked.
“Maybe in a bit,” her mom replied, tone soft like cotton candy.
This was new. Usually, when Marlee screwed up, they took a hard line with her.
Marlee might’ve expected a lot of things to happen that night. What she did not expect was her dad to wrap her in a bear hug and not let go.
“We messed up,” he said into her hair.
“What?” She pulled back.
“Is he here?” her mom asked. “Eli?” She took in the apartment, nowhere near the glitz they were used to. “We’d like to apologize to him.”
Marlee’s heart did a little dip. “No. Not yet.”
Her mom nodded. “We’d like to meet him. Officially.”
“I transferred Scotty to Cincinnati. Talked to Jim, got it all settled.” Dad dropped his arm and pulled a key from his pocket. “After everything tonight, we sat down with Scotty and told him. He agreed to sign the house over to you. He’ll be out of there tonight.”
The cool metal of the silver key pressed into Marlee’s palm.
“We also made some calls.” Her mom cleared her throat. “Your cards are turned on. We’d like to start some paperwork to transfer control to you early.”
