“Me hungwy,” Etta replied, not bothering to lift her gaze from the coloring book.
“You’re always hungry,” Trevor teased. “Anyone else?”
“Actual food?” Abraham asked. “You’re not going mad scientist again, are you?”
“Fridge is fully stocked,” Trevor replied flatly.
“I’m hungry,” Ani said, shrugging.
“Same,” my sister chimed in.
“Sure,” I mumbled, when everyone’s eyes focused on me.
An hour later, I knew so much more about Trevor than I’d thought possible. There was something so different about watching someone in their natural habitat. I’d known he was funny and quick witted, but I hadn’t realized how dry his sense of humor could be. That side of him came out when he was around his cousins, bantering back and forth. He was more sarcastic with them, his quips coming easily.
I’d known that he was good with Etta, but his affinity for kids was even more apparent when Arielle woke up and he was the first one to grab her out of her car seat. He held her while he moved around the kitchen, and only reluctantly gave her up when it was time for him to pull the taco casserole out of the oven.
His skill in the kitchen was something I remembered in vivid detail, but he was also a really good cook, which I hadn’t even thought about. I’d watched quietly while he and Ani had moved around each other, cutting and browning and generally throwing things together like they’d been doing it for years—which they clearly had—but Trevor was the one who was in charge. Ani deferred to him, asking questions and looking for his approval. In the end, the dinner they’d thrown together was phenomenal, and even my sister had eaten a large helping.
I caught Miranda’s eyes more than once, and while I couldn’t overlook the dullness in her expression as she tried to contribute a little to the conversation, I also noticed that she was intrigued by the dynamics, too. When Trevor had introduced his cousins, he’d made it seem like he hadn’t had any choice about letting them inside the house, but dinner that night made it clear that wasn’t the case. It hadn’t been out of his hands; he’d just been unwilling to turn them away. I couldn’t decide how I felt about that.
On one hand, I liked that he cared about their feelings. On the other, it really bothered me that he’d put their wishes before mine. It was silly. I knew that. They were his family. But somewhere, deep in my subconscious, I’d expected him to put me first and the fact that he hadn’t hit me harder than I’d expected.
“You do piercings?” Ani asked, yanking me out of my silent contemplation.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “For about four years now.”
“Cool,” she replied, grinning. “I’ve been thinking about getting another one. I always get bored and let them close up, and then a year later miss them and have to have them repierced again.”
“A lot of people do that,” I said. “Or they start working somewhere they aren’t allowed to have them, and then come back to be repierced when they switch jobs.”
“I’m a stay-at-home mom, now,” she said, shrugging. “So that’s not really a deal breaker for me anymore.”
“That sounds nice,” I replied, unsure what the common response was. I couldn’t imagine being able to stay home with Etta. Would I like to? Maybe. I’d just never been in a position where money came without a shit-load of hard work.
“It’s been an adjustment,” Ani said conspiratorially. “But honestly, I love it. It was really hard leaving her all day.”
“Yeah, I know that feeling,” I agreed.
“At some point, I may want to go back—”
“No you won’t,” Abraham cut in with a smile, clearly teasing. “You’ll just want to add a couple more.”
“He’s probably right,” Ani grumbled. “I can’t help it. Give me all the babies.”
The entire group laughed.
“I’d like to have more at some point,” I said, once it was relatively quiet again. “But Etta’s a handful as it is.”
“Me no handful,” Etta said absentmindedly, stuffing ground-beef pieces into her mouth. “Me Etta.”
“Right,” I agreed drily.
“I’m just going to watch everyone else have them, enjoy them while I’m around, and go home to my quiet house when I’m done,” my sister chimed in, lifting her drink into the air like she was saluting us.
“I was pretty sure that would be my future, too,” Ani said quietly, looking at Abraham in a way that made me feel like I was intruding by witnessing it. “But life takes some crazy turns.”
“Amen to that,” Trevor said, speaking up for the first time in a while.
“I can’t have kids,” Ani said matter-of-factly. “Arielle’s adopted.”
“No, really?” my sister said in mock surprise, making me nearly choke on my drink. I glanced at the happy baby on her dad’s lap. She had much darker skin than both her parents, but I never would have even thought about it until Ani threw the fact into our conversation.
“I know, right?” Ani said, laughing a little. “She’s way too pretty to come from us.”
“You’re gorgeous,” Abraham said, leaning back in his chair. “Shut up.”
“I know, but you’re practically a gargoyle,” Ani shot back, making a face at him.
I smiled behind my glass. Abraham was many things, but he was about as far from one of those ugly statues as any man I’d ever seen. The guy could be a model.
“Good thing I’m fantastic in bed.”
“And that’s where I stop this conversation,” Trevor said, setting his napkin on top of his plate. “I don’t want to hear about any of that.”
“I’d be willing to listen,” my sister joked.
The smile on her face was worth every moment I’d spent with the unwelcome visitors. It was worth the disappointment I’d felt when I realized Trevor had introduced my daughter to people I didn’t know. That small smile was a glimpse at the sister I knew, the one who breezed through life. My breath caught in my throat and I tried really hard not to let myself show any reaction.
Half an hour later the kitchen was clean, my sister was back in her room with a sleepy Etta, and Anita, Bram, and Arielle had left after a friendly round of hugs. The visit hadn’t been as bad as I’d expected, but I was still worn out. It had been such a long day.
I was on the front porch sitting in a lawn chair when Trevor found me.
“How you holding up?” he asked as he carried Koda onto the porch and set him down to investigate the area.
“Fine,” I murmured, staring out at the trees. His driveway was long and winding, and even when I tried I couldn’t see the main road from the house. I couldn’t see any other houses, either, which was kind of surprising since I knew both his parents’ house and his uncle and aunt’s house weren’t very far away. The place was totally secluded.
“You mad?” He sat down on the top step and leaned against the railing, his long legs stretched out in front of him.
“Should I be?”
“Come on, Morgan,” he said quietly. “Let’s not play that game, all right?”
“What game?” My shoulders grew tense as I continued to look into the woods.
“The game where you shut me out and refuse to talk about anything? That one? You remember it?”
“Please,” I scoffed, crossing my arms over my chest.
I really didn’t want to have the conversation we were having. I didn’t want to talk anything out or even acknowledge that there was a problem. I wanted to stew. I wanted to sit there in the quiet and decide for myself how I felt about everything that had happened. I fucking hated confrontation of any kind. It made my skin crawl and my heart race.
“I forgot to call them,” he said, getting more comfortable in his spot. “I couldn’t just make them leave after they’d driven out here to help me out.”
“That’s exactly what you could have done,” I said so quietly I wasn’t sure at first that he’d heard me.
“You are mad,” he replied.
> “It’s fine.”
“Clearly, it’s not, or you wouldn’t be having an attitude.”
“I’m not having an attitude,” I said, my face devoid of emotion when I met his gaze.
“Is this going to happen every time you’re pissed?” he snapped. “You’re acting like a—”
He didn’t finish his sentence and I immediately sat forward in my chair.
“A what?” I asked, cocking my head to the side. “A bitch?”
“No.”
“Oh, come on, Trevor,” I wheedled. “Say what you were going to say.”
“I wasn’t going to call you a bitch,” he said softly.
“Sure you were.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“Right,” I said sarcastically. I pushed myself to my feet, ready to leave him there on the porch, but before I could take a single step he was standing as well.
“I was going to call you a child,” he said with a sigh, standing between me and the door. “I was going to say that you were acting like a child.”
“Then why didn’t you just say it?” I snapped back.
“Because,” he said, standing straighter, “I don’t use words to hurt people.”
My head jerked back in surprise. The words were so simple, but as he stood there, his gaze never leaving mine, I knew that the meaning behind them wasn’t. I had no idea how to respond.
“I’m sorry about how that all played out,” he said softly. “I know you wanted to be in control of how Etta met my family.”
“It’s not just that,” I ground out. I wanted to yell in frustration, but his previous comment had taken the wind out of my sails. “My sister,” I choked out. “We came here so she could feel safe. How do you think she felt, having to deal with strangers after the last couple of days? How do you think I felt?”
“I know.” He nodded somberly. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“I’m—” I shook my head, refusing to finish my thought as all the emotions of the past couple of days made my throat feel like it was closing up. This was why I didn’t want to discuss anything. This was why I preferred to stew on my anger until it eventually faded away. And I knew it would fade; it always did. Even if it never went away completely, it became manageable.
“What?” Trevor asked, reaching for me. “You’re what?”
“I’m angry,” I gritted out through my teeth, unable to keep the tears from filling my eyes. “I’m so angry.”
He wrapped his arms around me, but I was too busy trying to hold myself together to reciprocate the embrace. I was shaking as his hand started to rub my back soothingly, up and down in long sweeps.
“They bit her,” I said, unable to keep the disbelief from my voice. “They burned her and they bit her and then they put her in her bed like it was nothing.”
Trevor made a pained sound in his throat, but didn’t speak.
“How does someone do that to another human being? How do you leave marks on someone with no remorse?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“The doctor said she was lucky that there was no sign of a rape,” I whispered. “Lucky. Can you believe that?”
Trevor didn’t respond. He just continued to hold me while I shook with suppressed rage. It was too much. All of it was too fucking much. My sister and I had lived through so much crap when we were kids, first when we’d lived with our train wreck of a mother and later with a series of foster families, that it was time for us to have it easy. Wasn’t it? I mean, was that too much to ask?
Why in the hell did certain people have such easy lives when the rest of us had to fight for every piece of happiness we could grasp? And then, when life was ready to give us something good, why was it so hard for the have-nots just to accept it?
Why was I standing in the arms of a man I cared about, one who’d forgiven me for treating him like crap, and I couldn’t even hug him back? I couldn’t force myself to do it. I just stood there, letting him attempt to soothe me, and the entire time I berated myself and my life and every person who’d let me down.
“What do you need?” he asked, holding me tighter. “Tell me what you need from me.”
His words only made me angrier. I didn’t know what I needed. Couldn’t he see that? Couldn’t he see that I had no idea what to fucking do?
“I don’t need anything,” I said dully after a few moments of silence.
“Yes, you do.”
“No. I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I am.”
“Morgan,” he said stubbornly. “Tell me what you need from me.”
“I don’t need anything from you,” I replied, my own stubbornness more than a match for his. I pulled away but refused to meet his gaze.
“I can see it on your face, baby,” he said. “You called me for a reason.”
“You’re the only person I know who lives close.”
“Bullshit,” he replied before I’d even finished my sentence.
“What do you want me to say?” I practically shouted, throwing my hands into the air in frustration.
“Tell me what you need!” he replied. His tone was just as frustrated, but he never raised his voice.
I stared at him silently.
Trevor sighed and used one hand to rub his eyes like he was tired. He took one step back, but before either of us could leave the porch, we were distracted by the sound of a car coming down his gravel driveway.
Chapter 15
Trevor
It had felt like we were almost there, like we were almost to the point where she could force herself to go beyond the superficial and tell me something real. I was beginning to realize that it was easier for Morgan to ask for help when she wasn’t the one in need, but the minute her needs came into the equation, she completely shut down.
Now, though, any type of breakthrough was completely off the table. Morgan was motionless beside me as my mom pulled to a stop and climbed out of her car.
“Morgan?” Mom said in surprise, her eyebrows nearly reaching her hairline as she stopped short of the porch. “What are you doing here?”
It wasn’t the tone of her voice that got to me, and it wasn’t her body language or the fact that someone must have told her I had guests before she’d arrived. It was the words she’d used. She didn’t say, “I didn’t know you were visiting,” or “When did you get here?” She specifically asked why Morgan was at my house, and that didn’t set well with me at all.
“What are you doing here, Mom?” I asked easily, turning the question back on her.
“Oh, I was out and about,” she replied lamely, making some weird motion with her hands. “I wanted to meet that new puppy of yours.”
I turned to look for Koda, who I’d been completely ignoring during my talk with Morgan, and found him passed out on the welcome mat.
“He’s right here,” I said, lifting him into my arms.
I walked down the steps before my mom could come any closer and handed her the sleepy puppy.
“Oh, he’s cute,” she said, pulling him against her chest. “Did you get him from the Mallorys?”
“Yeah, the last litter,” I replied. I didn’t understand why we were making small talk when we both know Koda wasn’t why she’d come, but I let it slide. The longer I watched her the more I could sense her nervousness, and I didn’t want to make it worse.
When the screen door creaked behind me, Mom’s head shot up to look over my shoulder. “Is Etta here, too?” she asked Morgan, halting her escape.
“Yeah,” Morgan replied. Her voice was hoarse, but any emotional remnants of our previous conversation were gone.
“Can she come out for a few minutes?” Mom asked hopefully, giving Morgan a small smile.
“She’s asleep,” Morgan replied quickly.
As irritating as my mother was, the disappointment on her face was still hard for me to see. Before I thought it through, I turned to Morgan.
“Maybe she hasn’t crashed yet,” I said.
/>
I immediately knew I’d fucked up, but I didn’t fix my mistake. I’d never been able to watch something upset my mom without trying to fix it. So, like an idiot, I met Morgan’s gaze and waited for a response.
“I can check,” she replied.
She turned and walked into the house without another word.
“Why’s she here, Trevor?” my mom asked as soon as Morgan had disappeared. “You didn’t tell me she was coming to Oregon.”
“She’s not here for a visit, Mom.”
“Well, she’s visiting you,” she replied, annoyed. “You could have at least let me know.”
“She didn’t want you to know,” I said, instantly regretting my words when I realized how they’d come across. “I just mean that she’s headed home soon, Ma. She came up to get her sister—”
“Why? Isn’t it the middle of the semester?” she cut in.
I hadn’t had a chance to climb out of the pit I’d dug for myself when Morgan came back outside without Etta.
“Sorry,” she said uncomfortably. “She’s asleep.”
My mom sniffed only loud enough for me to hear but nodded in understanding. “Well, okay then,” she said.
I hated that she was upset. I knew it must be killing her to be so close to her granddaughter without being able to see her, and, honestly, I didn’t understand why Morgan didn’t just wake the baby up. It wasn’t like my family had many chances to see Etta. Waking her up once so that she could have a little visit wasn’t going to do any kind of damage to her schedule. Hell, I wasn’t even sure Etta had a schedule.
“Maybe next time,” Morgan said kindly.
“Sure,” my mom replied, her lips wobbling a little as she smiled back. “I’ll call tomorrow and see if we can work something out then.”
She stiffly handed Koda to me, and kissed my cheek when I leaned down to offer it. Then she climbed back into her car and drove away.
“Morgan,” I called, trying to catch her as she went back inside the house.
“I’m going to bed,” she said over her shoulder, not slowing down for a second.
“Let me put the dog in his room and then—”