Wild Side (Rose Hill, #3)(10)

“I could—” a deep voice starts.

“Of course! I bet Grandma and Grandpa would love that too. Milo, I packed your bag already.” I cut in before Rhys can say something that would undoubtedly be overstepping. Because I swear I can see it written all over him. I’m aware of the legal ramifications of that will, but if he thinks I will roll over, give him my nephew, and send them on their merry way, he’s got another thing coming. “Why don’t you go grab it from your room?”

Milo’s cheeks go round on a wide grin, and he nods excitedly. “Be right back!” He tears off, running a few strides before turning back to face us. “Don’t go anywhere. Not you or you,” he adds, pointing at both Rhys and me in turn.

Then he blasts happily through the front door, oblivious to the tension and heartbreak surrounding him.

“He has a room here?” Rhys’s brows furrow when he asks the question.

I hate to give him a single thing, but I can’t help but notice he looks genuinely confounded. “Of course. He spends a lot of time with me.”

He swallows heavily before straightening, his expression giving nothing away. “And he likes to spend time with your parents?”

Now it’s my turn to scrunch my features in confusion. “I mean, yeah. They spoil the hell out of him. What three-year-old wouldn’t love that?”

He gives one firm nod. “I thought they weren’t in the picture.”

“Seems like you thought a lot of things without knowing a single one.”

Rhys shifts in place, cheeks burning, and I can’t help but think: Good. You could stand to be taken down a few pegs.

“I thought she was…they were…”

“Cut off? Estranged? Yes.” I wince without meaning to. It has always killed me that I couldn’t help them make peace. And it makes me wonder what other dirty laundry he knows about our family. “Too much water under the bridge, I guess. So I became the bridge to ensure Milo would have grandparents in his life, even if his mother no longer spoke to them. It was a tenuous setup, but it worked. And even when they all agreed on almost nothing, they always agreed on doing what was best for Milo.”

Rhys stays quiet, jaw working, eyes laser focused on my mouth as though he’s skeptical about the stories that spill from it.

“My meeting is a video chat with a therapist, because I need to tell Milo about his mom, and I don’t know how. That’s the situation. Seems like you’re determined to insert yourself, so”—I reach forward and slap his steely bicep like the old friends that we clearly are not—“welcome to the shit show, big fella.”

Before he can respond, Milo comes barreling out the front door wearing his too-big backpack, his slip-on shoes on the wrong feet, and a wide smile on his sweet face.

“This is the best day ever!” he announces joyously as he trundles in our direction.

And boy, I wish I felt the same.





CHAPTER 6


Rhys





I WATCH TABITHA WALK UP TO HER PARENTS’ HOME, HAND IN hand with the little boy I’ve come to love like he’s—I don’t know. Not my own, but something awfully close to it.

He reminds me so much of his mom. It’s his mannerisms. The way he walks. The way his smile hitches up just a little more on the right side than on the left. Everything he does reminds me of her.

Seeing him here, alone, makes her death feel more real. It makes my chest ache. It makes me miss the woman who became something of a sister to me.

Erika had a perpetual weariness about her, like the drudgery of each day weighed on her. And I couldn’t keep myself from offering help while I was off with my recurring injury. It never felt like an inconvenience to lend a hand.

Plus, Milo and I became fast friends, and before long, I looked forward to the stretches she’d be away so that he and I could do all our favorite things together. Read. Build forts. Play-wrestle.

Now he’s walking into the home of two people I’ve been told nothing but negative things about. He eagerly hugs them; they lovingly hug him back. And it feels a bit like I’m living in the twilight zone.

Because those stories Erika told me made me so sure that Milo needed me. Those stories tapped into a place deep inside me that I’m not sure I ever recognized—or I just didn’t want to.

All I know is that I spent my childhood in the system, passed from foster home to foster home, and I won’t be letting the same thing happen to Milo.

Over my dead body.

Tabitha glances over her shoulder at me, and I realize her parents have picked up on the guy sitting in her passenger seat. Three sets of eyes land on me, and I try not to squirm under their attention. It’s too acute, too pressing. I prefer my solitude. I prefer flying under the radar.

But Tabitha’s pursed lips are all radar. Her eyes home in on me with accusation, so I look away, out the window, preparing myself for any pretense of friendliness to fly out her truck window the minute she steps back inside without Milo as a happy, oblivious buffer.

I stare down the curving street. The entire development is just a repeating pattern of the same homes, each in a slightly different color. It’s not what I expected. Wide lots. Sidings in all different shades of brown and beige. Not an apple-green door in sight, but still, a safe suburban sort of neighborhood.