“And here we go,” I muttered.
“See, Naomi doesn’t like to inconvenience anyone by doing anything annoying like talking about what’s wrong. Asking for help. Or standing up for what she needs and wants. She prefers to scurry around like a mouse, making sure everyone else’s needs are met.”
“Well, that’s just fucked up,” Sloane decided.
I winced. “Look, guys. I understand that you’re concerned. I get it. I am too. But right now, my priority is to get custody of my niece. I don’t have the time or the energy to worry about anything else.”
“Your evil twin has been in your house that you share with her daughter,” Sloane interjected.
“She stole from you. She committed a crime disguised as you so once again you’d be the one to pay the consequences. And you didn’t think it was worth mentioning?”
“Thanks a lot, Nash,” I said.
Sloane crossed her arms over her chest. “Don’t blame a man who just took two bullets,” she said.
“Guys, don’t you think you’re overreacting?”
“No. We’re reacting appropriately. You’re the one who is underreacting. Your safety, Waylay’s safety, is on the line. That deserves a reaction,” Stef said.
I looked down at my hands.
“So it would make you all feel better that I am terrified, frozen in the core of my soul, fearful that something is going to happen and Waylay is going to be taken away from me. That some stranger is going to end up raising my niece, or worse, that my sister, the person I’m supposed to be closest to in this world, could come waltzing back into town and take her from me without me knowing. That between trying to prove to a caseworker who keeps seeing me at my worst that I’m the most responsible option she has, holding down two jobs, and reminding a little girl that not everything has to be the way it was for the first eleven years of her life, you want me to pencil in a conversation about how I have to exhaust myself just so I can sleep at night and not stare a
t the ceiling thinking of all the ways this could go horribly wrong.”
“Uh, yeah. That would make me feel better than being intentionally cut out,” Sloane said.
“Thank you,” Stef said. “Nash, you wanna bring this home for us?”
“Naomi, you’ve got a lot of people who care about you. Maybe it’s time you let them take care instead of you doing all the care-taking for once.”
I stuck out my chin. “I’ll take that under advisement,” I said.
“That’s her snooty tone,” Stef said. “There’s no getting through until she calms down.”
“I’m going for a walk,” I said huffily.
I hadn’t made it very far when I heard, “Naomi, hold up.”
I wanted to keep walking, to flip him the middle finger, but because I was me, I stopped in my tracks and waited for Nash to catch up.
“I’m not doing this to piss you off,” he said. His eyes were bluer than Knox’s, but they burned with that same Morgan intensity that had my stomach flipping upside down and inside out. “You need to be on the lookout. Your family needs to too. Keeping shit like this from them is irresponsible, and that’s the kind of thing that doesn’t look good in guardianship cases.”
“You said I had nothing to worry about!”
“I’m speaking to you in a language you understand. Being a guardian, being a parent, it isn’t about getting gold stars from some authority figure. It’s about doing what’s right even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard.”
Easy for him to say, a caseworker hadn’t caught him mostly naked after a one-night stand.
He reached out and gripped my shoulder with one hand. “Do you hear me?” he asked.
“I’d think real hard about removing that hand if I were you.”
My head swiveled, and that’s when I saw him. Knox sauntering our way. But there was nothing casual about the look in his eyes. He looked pissed.
Nash kept his hand where it was even as Knox stepped into our little twosome.
A second later, I found myself hauled up against Knox’s side, his arm draped over my shoulder. Our audience was dividing its attention between the play on the field and the drama off it.