Mom took a sip of the coffee she had bullied the front desk into giving her before the breakfast bar opened. “Your bloodline has eyes, baby. Put on shoes. You’re explaining yourself before we leave this town, or I’m chaining myself to a hotel lamp and making the front desk deal with me.”
Skylar brightened. “Can I film that?”
“No,” I said.
Mom pointed at her with the coffee cup. “Maybe.”
Vivi looked over. “Hotel lamps are not stable enough for chains.”
Mom smiled at her. “Useful information. Thank you.”
I rubbed both hands over my face and tried to drag myself into the version of me my family needed. Brother, son, captain… the guy who hadn’t spent the night after a win walking out of his own party because the girl he loved and hated and loved again had ripped the last decent piece of him open in front of half the team.
“I’m fine,” I said.
Mom’s gaze narrowed. “You keep using that word like I didn’t push you out of my body and raise you through stomach flu, broken bones, and the time you lied about shaving one eyebrow because you wanted to look intimidating for peewee tryouts.”
Skylar dropped her mascara wand. “You shaved an eyebrow?”
“I was nine.”
“You were a menace,” Mom said, grabbing her purse. “And you are stalling.”
“I’m not talking about this before breakfast.”
“That means there is something to talk about after breakfast.”
I opened the hotel room door and held it while Vivi tucked her sugar packets carefully into the tiny front pocket of her hoodie because apparently they had become passengers. “I said we’d get waffles. I didn’t say I’d volunteer for interrogation.”
Mom patted my cheek as she passed. “Baby, mothers don’t ask for volunteers. We draft.”
Waffle House smelled like coffee, butter, bacon, syrup, and the kind of fluorescent lighting that made every bad decision from the night before feel personally accused. The windows were streaked from rain, the parking lot was still damp enough to mirror the gray sky, and Cade stood near the side of the building like he had been waiting for me instead of breakfast.
That was never good.
I glanced toward the door. Through the glass, I could see Briggs already inside, talking with his hands while Rider sat half-asleep in a chair near the front counter. Ryan leaned against the wall beside him in a black Flint Frost cap, his arms folded, looking like he had been dragged there by loyalty and mild threat. Bliss sat in the corner booth, small in Cade’s hoodie, her face turned toward the window.
Even from outside, I could tell she had been crying.
Cade stepped in front of my line of sight before I could look too long. “Don’t mention her eyes.”
My stomach dipped. “What happened?”
“You mean after you and Aura turned Hockey House into a public execution?”
“I’m really not in the mood.”
“Neither is she.” Cade looked toward the window, his jaw tight. “She was up all night. Crying. Yelling at me. Crying more. Then yelling again because she was mad that she cried.”
“Over Aura?”
“Over all of it.” His gaze returned to mine. “The ABCs are fractured. Bliss thinks everyone picked sides last night, and nobody picked Aura.”
I wanted to hate Aura. I had been committed to it, actually. It had structure. It gave me something to do with the hurt besides stand in the middle of it and admit I was still in love with a woman who knew exactly where to cut. But the second Cade said nobody picked Aura, something ugly and ashamed twisted beneath my ribs.
“She had Charm,” I said, but even I heard how weak it sounded.
“Did she?”
