Page 60 of Love Finds Home

I stare at him like he’s lost it before walking away to his chuckle. I’m heading back to Elle’s paintings when I see her coming down the back stairs, and I immediately go on alert. Something is very wrong. Her eyes are glossy, and her hands are twisting and wringing each other. I turn my head and make eye contact with Joker, who starts moving my way.

Elle is looking at the ground, trying to compose herself, when I step up in front of her and grip her hand.

“What’s wrong, Tink?”

“My…my studio,” is all she gets out before she crumples into my arms, quietly sobbing.

I look at Joker and nod my head to the stairs leading up to Elle’s studio and he silently disappears up the stairs—only to return in under a minute, a murderous look on his face.

“Elle? I think we need to call an end to the party,” I gently tell her.

“No!” She pulls from my arms. “We can’t do that!”

“We can, and we need to. It’s almost over, anyway. We need to start suggesting people leave.”

“Oh, God, it’s really that bad, isn’t it?” she whispers, her arm covering up the sob coming from her soul.

“I haven’t seen it, but Joker did, and we think it’s time to clear out and figure out what we need to do.”

Hic. “If—”hic, “you—”sob, “think—”shuddering breath, “so.”

Joker silently nods at me and goes to find Jorge to clear out the crowd, while I pull Elle into an empty studio and hold her in my arms.

“What am I going to do?” she whispers into my chest, still hiccupping tears.

“You’re going to start talking.” When she starts breathing faster I’m quick to add, “When everyone is gone.”

“When everyone is gone.”

Chapter 22

Elle

I should have figured‘when everyone is gone’ meant everyone except my family and all my friends. Joker found us chairs and dragged them into the empty studio and I’m staring at all five of my brothers, my mom and dad, Lottie, Trish, Ginny, Davis, Joker, Ranger, and Jorge looking back at me expectantly. I heard Ginny tell Keith to go back to the hotel with her parents. I thought he was going to fight her on it until her father invited him to a drink at the bar. Keith looked ecstatic. Her dad? Like he was trying not to gag.

Every one of them has been up in my personal studio and seen the damage. I’m sure they all have a million different questions. I wish I had the answers they seek, but I don’t.

“What does ‘it should have been me’mean, sweetheart?” my mom starts the ball rolling.

“I don’t know.”

“I’m going to have to call bullshit, Pixie. That’s personal,” Bash adds, giving me a knowing look. “I think you better spill it all.”

“What do you know?” Tiny turns on him.

“I know it’s her story to tell, and I think it’s time for her to tell it,” Bash replies, giving Tiny the ‘sit down and shut the fuck up’ look.

Sighing, I look at my mom, silently begging for strength. She nods, giving me a reassuring smile since she’s the best mom ever, and I start.

“Remember that semester in college that I moved out of the dorms?” I ask.

“Yeah. It was your sophomore year, right?” she asks.

“That was it. I never told you why I wanted to move out.”

“And you need to tell us now?”

“I moved out because I had a stalker.” Yup, let’s rip that Band-Aid off.

---