The four of us have dinner. I deflect Cal’s questions about my fake calls the best I can, then Mia takes Lily upstairs for a quick shower, teeth brushing, and bedtime stories. I’m washing the dishes when Callie says something that scrambles my brain.
“Oh-oh. Trouble’s calling.”
“No, she isn’t,” I answer without thinking, but close the tap to listen closer. There’s no sound coming from upstairs.
“What are you talking about?” she asks, staring at me funny. “I mean the phone. Look.”
She shows me Mia’s screen, and sure enough, ‘Trouble’ stares back at me on her caller ID.What the actual fuck?
“Who the fuck is Trouble?” Again, I speak my thoughts out loud. I’ve got to tape my mouth shut. Now.
“I don’t know. This is Mia’s phone,” she answers as if I don’t know. “Funny, right?”
Fucking hilarious, Calista.
I need my friend gone. I need this cleared out. Time to understand once and for all why this nickname bothers Mia and who the fuck is calling her with what I can only assume is bad news.
Callie yawns, and I take it as an early Christmas miracle. “Yeah, I’m tired too. I’ll walk you out.”
“Your subtlety always takes me by surprise, Pres.”
“Stop, Calista. We’re family. If I can’t tell you I want to go to sleep…”Or lie to you with a straight face…
“Fine, I’ll take my naked fingers home.”
That pulls a lifeless laugh out of me.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
mia
Preston is waitingfor me when I step out of Lily’s room. I close the door quietly and meet him in the corridor, the door to my room open and inviting, unlike his face.
“Something wrong?”
He hands me my phone. I’d forgotten I left it downstairs. “Trouble called you. Care to explain?”
I grab hold of his arm and bring us inside my bedroom, locking the door for a sense of control that doesn’t really follow me in.
“I’m being a caveman, Mia. I know it. But I can’t help but feel fucking territorial after today. You have no obligation to?—”
“That was Bobby calling.” I pause to swallow. “My brother.” I watch as the new intel softens the rage in his green eyes, but confusion lingers and prompts me into talking. “It’s a bad joke. A sad one, to be honest. He barely calls since I left home, only if he needs saving. So I figured… may as well label him honestly.” I don’t know when Istarted staring at my socked feet, only that I am. “He’s turned into… the problem I can’t fix.”
Preston lifts my chin with two of his fingers, and tears brew instantly. “The brother you raised?” He takes my hand and guides me to my bed. We sit side by side, facing each other.
“Oops. There goes my résumé,” I jest, hoping a little humor will lighten the mood, but judging by Preston’s expression, I’m far from funny. I don’t think my watery eyes are helping. His hands caress my scalp, and he kisses my forehead.
“What happened?”
“He was such a sweet kid. I swear. But our odds just… weren’t the best. Dad was a drunk. Mum left when I was eleven. He was only four. He doesn’t remember her, but he felt every bit of her absence. How much drunker Dad got before he hit rock bottom and turned his life around. Or at least he tried to.” Preston wipes every tear before they can reach my cheeks, and somehow that makes the words come more easily.
“I got lucky. Had a teacher who helped me all the way to college. My way out was through studies. His was through drug dealers when he turned twelve. I was already in London, on a scholarship. Bobby was out of my sight, and I missed what was going on until it was too late.”
“That’s not your fault,” he says, so stern it’s almost believable.
“I’ve been playing that record for years. Still can’t bring myself to buy it. But thanks for saying so, anyway.”
Preston pulls me to sit on his lap, and defying physics, Ifit there. It feels… right. Safe. I wrap my legs and arms around him and let myself collapse into him, words and all.
