“Yeah, and I have my gym bag in the car.Hurry.”He waves at Mara and Mila like he’s leaving brunch instead of stepping out of an emotional minefield, and we head out.
It doesn’t take me long to change.When I’m back in the living room, pulling on my hoodie, exhaustion circling my mind like a restless wasp, the question slips out: “What did you find out?”
Eddie watches me tie the lace on my boot.“Her husband died five years ago.Freak accident.She’s been moving around the world since then.”He pauses.“I guess we all handle grief differently.”
“And?”I press.
He grabs his keys.“Ready to go?”
“Eddie,” I warn, “don’t avoid the conversation.”
“Fine.”He exhales, rubbing his jaw.“Like every family, there are secrets that usually come out when someone has an accident or dies.Remember the Wilders’ secret?”
Fuck if I remember it.Julian’s accident.The blood tests.Cleo not matching her brothers.Then everything blew up.She’s not Caleb Wilder’s daughter.Her grief, her confusion, the spiral.She almost didn’t survive learning her entire life had been built on a lie.
Eddie pinches the bridge of his nose like the memory is lodged there.
I tap his hand.“It’s okay.”
“Now, yeah,” he murmurs.“But we almost lost her.We almost lost our light.”
And that’s when the words hit something inside me I pretend isn’t there.I don’t understand that.How one person becomes your center.Your gravity.
For Eddie, love looks like two people—Barret and Cleo.
I don’t understand that.
I’ve never understood that.
Probably because I grew up without anyone caring enough to show me what loving someone actually looks like.Every time I tried to attach to a foster home, someone packed my things in a bag or signed a form, and I was back at square one.I learned early how to keep my distance.How to make sure no one got close enough to hurt me when they left.
So yeah—emotionally stunted fits while describing me.
And yet ...
There’s a part of me that wonders what it would be like to feel something close to that once in my life.Even if the rest of me keeps insisting I’m fine as I am.Even if another part is relieved, I don’t depend on anyone.
“If you want to go home, you should.”I offer because I know how much it hits him when he remembers those months without her.“I’m fine.Just trying to figure out an escape route that doesn’t involve Los Angeles or New York, where too many people recognize me, and I lose my shit.”
“Nah, I’m good.”He presses the elevator button.“You need to tell me what’s happening, though.I can see why you’re startled.”
“I wouldn’t say startled.”I step in beside him, already regretting the SOS text I sent him earlier.
“That’s exactly how Barrett put it,” he says.“‘He’s losing his shit for a woman who happens to have a child.’”
“I’m not losing anything,” I growl.
“You’ve been in the studio banging drums for three days in a row,” he counters.“Have you hit any meetings lately?”
“Daily.”
“Good.”He nods.“So how do you need me to help in this ‘emergency?’”He lifts his fingers in air quotes.
“I don’t know.”The confession leaves me sighing.“She knows who I am, so that’s probably good.No one wants to be close to a monster.”
“You’re not a monster, Alec.”
“She clearly said I rearranged my hotel furniture?—”
