Ellen’s giving him a look as if to say she’s doubly convinced of his rudeness for picking up a call moments after her grandchild’s gender reveal, but his attention is focused on that phone. So is mine. I know Jane is with the Labelles today. I know he didn’t want her to go.
Has something happened?
Is she okay?
My heart is tripping in my chest now, worry squeezing it like one of those corsets fancier women sometimes wear. The intensity of it is surprising, but I do love that little ballbuster.
“Fuck,” Cole says, which means it’s really bad. “I’ll be right there. Right there. Don’t you move.”
He hangs up the call and gets to his feet like a wild man, all intensity. “I need to go,” he says. He says it tome, like suddenly we’re the only two people in the room, like this is something between us and us alone and not a dinner party for seven people. “Jane’s at the Labelles. Something happened, and she’s locked herself in the old doll room. They’re trying to get in. I need to get to her.Now.”
I grab a butter knife and leap to my feet too. “Let’s go.”
“Um, Holly, why do you have a butter knife,” Rowan asks. “Are you going to spread them to death?”
But he’s gotten to his feet too, along with Rory and Bryn.
“We need some form of defense,” I tell him.
“You have me,” he says. “And Cole.”
“And me,” Rory says.
“I have no idea what’s happening, but we’re going too,” Ellen says fiercely.
It strikes me that we’ve all lifted off our chairs, and I can see the surprise in Cole’s eyes as he realizes he’s not alone in this. There’s pride in my chest, because growing up, wealwaysfelt alone, like we had to deal with everything by ourselves, but I have a family now.
I have afamily, and I know without asking that part of the reason they’re standing up for Cole is that, despite everything, they know I care deeply for him.
They know that he’s one of us too.
“If only we had a bus,” I mutter.
