“Royal?” calls a voice from somewhere in the back of the garage.
Harper goes to talk to my brother, though I can’t tell which one from here, with the echo of the garage and the fussing in the van. I take a second to breathe, trying to steady myself. Royal used to do that, to be my anchor.
Now, I have Devlin and our kids. It’s not the same, but I’ve learned to fill the gaps, to be my own anchor when I have to.
I set our daughter in his arms, and he holds her up on his shoulder, pulling me in. “You okay?”
“As okay as I can be,” I say, taking a shaky breath. “Was this a terrible idea?”
“No,” he says firmly. “You heard what Preston said back home. We had to do something.”
“You’re right,” I say, reassured by his certainty.
It’s too late now, anyway. It was too late from the moment Harper knocked on our door. Even if we disappeared again, they’d never stop looking this time. They know we’re alive.
I turn and find myself facing my oldest brother across a stretch of white gravel in the drive.
“It’s really you,” he says, not moving toward me.
I swallow, gripping the baby in my arms. A woman emerges from the garage, struggling to push a stroller over the gravel. King takes it and they move forward until they’re only a few paces from us. I look back and forth between this stranger and my brother, my protector, who said love wasn’t for people like us.
“You had a kid,” King says, staring at me.
“You fell in love,” I say.
“Yeah, I did,” he says, his face serious as he pulls the dark-haired girl against his side. “This is Eliza. My wife.”
“Nice to meet you,” she says, a heavy New York accent coloring her words. “We’ve got a kid, too. How old’s yours? I bet they’d like to meet their cousin.”
A sister-in-law. Cousins. It’s more than I could have dreamed of. A family—a whole huge family again, not just the one Devlin and I are making for ourselves, but the Dolces and the Darlings. They’re all family now.
My eyes mist over as I stare at King, my brother who brought me ice cream and tried so hard to keep everyone happy, sometimes at the expense of his own happiness.
He’s found his happiness, just as I’ve found mine. I missed his wedding, just as he missed mine.
I’ve missed so much.
Eliza bends to undo the straps in the stroller before lifting a perfect little black-haired boy from the seat.
“This is our son,” King says, his chest swelling with pride as he takes the baby into his arms. “Bishop.”
“Knight,” I say, pulling my oldest son forward from where he’s hiding behind my legs.
My eyes meet King’s, and a smile of understanding spreads across both our faces. He hands his baby to Eliza, and I hand mine to Devlin. Then King steps forward and grabs me up in a bear hug, squeezing me so hard it hurts. It’s the kind of hurt that heals, though, and when tears start flowing down my cheeks, they feel cleansing for once, as if they’re purging me of the pain of being away for so long, the pain of my family’s rejection.
“You didn’t have to leave,” King says, his voice choked, his hand cradling the back of my head and pressing my face into his chest. He buries his face in my hair and holds me, and neither of us move for a long time.
“I did,” I say, my voice muffled in his shirt. “I had to leave, or Daddy would have killed the father of my children.”
“Holy fucking shit,” says a voice behind King.
He releases me at last, and I step back to see my two little brothers standing with Harper. They’re not so little anymore, though they never really were.
“You’re blonde,” Duke says, gaping at me. “And you have kids. You’re like, a whole adult now.”
“And your penis is on the internet,” I say, laughing through my tears. I can’t say much about how he looks—he’s the same guy but bigger, and his hair is hidden under a black beanie, so I can’t even comment on the length.
“Who’s this little dude?” he asks, stepping around King and crouching in front of Knight.