Her silence had sent a message. It had broken my heart.
If not for Nan, I might have hated Mom. But Nan, she’d had this way of bridging the gap. She’d never taken a side. She’d never spoken of the fight and the day I’d left. She’d simply asked about me and how I was settling into school. She’d made sure I had everything I’d needed and cash if I’d been running short. Later, when I’d realized that college wasn’t the right fit and found a job at a bar, she’d laugh at my stories of drunk patrons. She’d been overjoyed when Jonas, Nixon and I had started our band.
Year after year, Nan’s Monday phone calls had made the anger and hurt I’d held against my family slowly fade.
Now she was gone. She wasn’t there to hold us together.
When I left this time, there was a real chance we’d all drift apart for good.
An awkward air hovered over the table and stifled any other attempt at conversation. I sipped my coffee as Mom sat across from me, watching but attempting not to stare. The tick of the wall clock grew louder and louder as the moments stretched, until the front door burst open and little feet pounded down the hallway.
Praise Jesus, the kids were here to rescue me.
“Nana!”
Nana. They called her Nana. It was so close to Nan that my heart squeezed. Nan had used her first name as her grandmotherly title. Even Dad called his mother Nan, per her insistence.
The kids came running but slowed when they spotted me at the table. They herded toward Mom, cautious of the stranger beside their cereal bowls.
I stood and smiled. “Good morning.”
They didn’t smile back.
“Hey, Mom.” Walker came into the kitchen, carrying backpacks on each arm, one decorated with pink princesses and another with red and blue puppy cartoons. “Quinn.”
“Hi, Walker.” I smiled.
He didn’t smile back. “Their swimming suits are in here for lessons at two. Mindy has a meeting that might run late, is that okay?”
“Fine.” Mom took the backpacks, setting them against the wall. “We’ll be here.”
“Thanks.” Walker dropped a kiss to her cheek, then helped his children into their seats, kissing them as Mom poured milk into their bowls.
Evan and Maya.
They looked so much like Walker with his gray-blue eyes. They both had blond hair a few shades lighter than his sandy curls. Walker was the only one who had curly hair in our family. None of us knew where he’d gotten it from, but as teenage girls, Brooklyn and I had both coveted his curls, teasing him that they’d been wasted on a boy.
He’d made them useful. Walker had caught the eye of every girl in our high school, especially when he’d stood beside Graham. Even two years apart, they’d been best friends and fodder for teen fantasies.
My fantasy had become reality the day Graham had asked me on a date, despite Walker’s disapproval that his best friend had the hots for his sister. But he’d gotten over it eventually. Walker had been the only one in this house who hadn’t once told Graham and me that we were too young to know love.
While Graham and I had been exclusive for years, Walker had been the playboy, stringing along girlfriend after girlfriend. But then he’d gone to college and met Mindy his junior year. Head over heels, that was how Nan had described it to me on one of our calls.
And now his children had his beautiful hair.
My fingers itched to touch the soft strands, but Evan and Maya would probably run away screaming stranger danger if I got too close.
“What?” Walker asked, his gaze darting between me and his children.
“They have your hair.”
“Yep,” he clipped. “Have their whole life.”
Which I’d missed. The unspoken reminder clung to the air.
“I’d better get to work,” he said. “Be good for Nana, guys. Love you.”
“Bye, Daddy.” Maya waved brightly as her older brother inhaled his cereal, saying goodbye with milk dripping down his chin.
I took a seat at the island, watching as the kids ate breakfast and Mom fussed over them, until Brooklyn arrived.
“Hi, Brookie, uh . . . Brooklyn,” I said as she handed baby Bradley to Mom.
She didn’t return my greeting, speaking and looking only at Mom. “He already ate, but he’s been up since five thirty. He’ll probably need a longer morning nap.”
“No problem.” Mom kissed his chubby cheek.
“See you tonight.” Brooklyn kissed her son goodbye, then spun for the door.
“Have a good day,” I said to her back.
She kept walking.
Nice. I was the bad guy, right? I clapped my lips shut so I wouldn’t remind her that I’d reached out plenty of times to say hello and all my voicemails had gone unreturned.
Mom cooed at the baby, bouncing him on her hip. Did six-month-old babies eat cornflakes? That seemed young, but there was that third bowl at the table.
“When is Colin getting here?” Evan asked Mom.
As if Evan had conjured him with his question, the door burst open once again and running feet came our way.
My stomach dropped when a familiar mop of brown hair came into view. It was going to be hard avoiding Graham if Mom was babysitting his son every day this week.
“Hey, Evan.” Colin dropped his backpack on the floor beside the others before his eyes caught on me. “Quinn!”
I gulped and waved. “H-hey.”
My God, he looked like Graham. He looked so much like the boy I’d been friends with at seven. Then crushed on at twelve. Then loved at sixteen.
Graham came down the hallway and my racing heart jumped into my throat. Why did he have to look so good? Why couldn’t he have grown a beer belly or a big nose over the past nine years? His white T-shirt stretched across his broad shoulders, and the sleeves fit tight around his corded biceps. His faded jeans hugged his strong thighs as they draped to his scuffed work boots.
His jaw hardened when he spotted me, and those warm eyes turned to ice.
What the fuck? What gave him the right to be so goddamn angry? He’d made his position clear all those years ago. He’d stood beside my parents after the fight.
He hadn’t believed in me.
If anyone got to be mad, it was me.
Because I might have been the one to leave, but he’d abandoned me when I’d needed him most.
“Thanks for watching Colin this week, Ruby,” he said, his voice gravelly and low and so frustratingly sexy.
Damn him and his appeal.
Mom ruffled Colin’s hair as he sat to eat his cereal. “My pleasure. He actually makes it easier. He and Evan will entertain themselves for the most part.”
“Call me if there’s any trouble. I’ll be here around four.”
“We’ll be here.” Mom nodded.
“See ya, bud.” Graham bent to kiss Colin’s head.
“Bye, Dad.”
Then Graham was gone, not sparing me another glance, like I wasn’t even in the room.
He only had to wait a week and I wouldn’t be.
Avoid. Seven days and counting. Now that I knew Colin would be coming over each morning, I’d sleep late or find somewhere else to be. There had to be a coffee shop within a ten-block radius of the house.
The kids seemed to inhale their cereal and were out of their chairs minutes later, begging to play outside.