“You barely talked for months. We couldn’t figure out what was wrong. I remember Mom taking you to a child psychologist.”
“She did?” I ask faintly. I can’t fucking remember any of this.
“Yeah. Turns out it wasn’t anything to worry about. Just a transition period or something.”
“Transition to what? Yogi status?”
She laughs. “I have no idea. You’d have to ask her.”
“She probably doesn’t remember.”
“Of course she remembers. She’s your mom. Moms don’t forget their worry over their kids, or their love for them.”
I give her a long appraising look. “Okay, sis.”
Octavia has changed. Motherhood changed her. She was always acting like a mom to Gigi and me, but now she seems… well, harried, in fact, but also happier. More relaxed and calm. She looks like she’s right where she wants to be, in this chaos of motherhood.
And then she spoils the impression of calmness when she says, “Will you talk to Ross?”
My doorbell rings the next day in the afternoon, as I doze bent over my laptop, waking me up from uneasy dreams.
Uneasy but not terrifying, I think as I get to my feet and stagger to the front door. I think I dreamed of Cos and she was kissing me, soft, kisses, turning into butterflies as they landed on my lips.
So fucking weird.
Nice, though, for a change.
Then I open the door, and she’s right there, as if I conjured her up with my dreams, glossy dark hair caught up in a twist, dark eyes serious and uncertain.
I haul her into my arms before we say a word, relieved to feel her body against mine, smell her light scent and have her here, with me.
“Hi,” she whispers when I finally release her, a little breathlessly. “Miss me?”
“I did.”
Her smile falters, then returns. “Me too,” she confesses, and something in my chest unknots itself, a frozen spot starts to thaw.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I wasn’t sure you’d be here. I thought maybe you spend Saturdays with your family.”
“That’s what I’m doing,” I tell her simply, and slip an arm around her shoulders. “You’re family, remember? Besides, I was trying to catch up on my English lit essay.”
“Any luck?”
I grimace. “I don’t think English lit is my thing.”
“Are you getting a better feeling of what your thing might be?”
“You.” I wag my brows suggestively and she giggles. I love that damn sound. You’d think she was away for a month from the way I missed her. “Also, maybe music, and engines.”
She shrugs, smiles. “Maybe you want to be a DJ?”
“Nah. I dunno, I like to solve riddles, answer questions, put things to rights.”
“A policeman, then? Detective. You can solve crimes, help people, bring justice.”
Justice.