Page 61 of Just a Distraction

After I knock, I hear her voice through the door. “Passcode please,” she says in a businesslike way. Before I can give it to her, she giggles and then yells away from the door. It’s muffled but I can hear her. “Be quiet, would you? I’m trying to hear a passcode!”

I stifle a laugh.

“Yes?” she says against the door. “Only those who know the passcode may enter.”

I sigh. I kind of hate having to say it. “Baby swing.”

The door opens and she’s standing there in her pink and white polka-dot pajamas, a radiant smile on her face, her hair in a big, wild bun on top of her head. Callum’s nowhere to be found. Instead, she’s got a smaller baby on one hip and an older toddler near her other leg.

“Come on in and join our circus.” She rolls her eyes as she opens the door wider to let me in.

“Sorry to crash your party.” I’m guessing these are family members, but I wasn’t prepared to meet them. She’s implied she wasn’t ready for that.

“You’re getting a crash course on all things Hawkins,” she says happily, although I feel like I know her enough to see her inner anguish at the chaos. She introduces me to both of her sisters, Eden and Leila, and their eight total children.

They seem cautious about me, like they had no idea I was coming and know nothing about me. To be fair, my family doesn’t know much about Rose, either.

The voices are loud. The music is loud. And a lot of kids need things at the same time. I catch a glimpse of Callum amongst some of his cousins and when he sees me, he grins from ear to ear and toddles over to me, his arms wide.

Basically, I could die happy right now.

I pick him up and spin him around as he starts speaking excitedly in baby gibberish. How was it only two nights ago that I saw him? It feels like a week.

Amidst the noise, Rose meets my gaze. She looks at Callum in my arms and there’s a flash between us—like when you’re balancing two sides of a scale and things finally reconcile. It’s crazy, but it almost feels like we’re a family sliding into place. Balancing itself out.

We settle in the living room, kids and sisters everywhere you look.

“So, tell us about yourself,” Leila asks. She has dark-red hair, and her hazel eyes remind me of Rose’s.

Before I can answer, Eden interrupts. “And what are your intentions with our sister?” She scowls before softening in a smile. “Kidding! We’re just glad she’s getting back out there after that pus-filled cyst named Blaine.” Her face is triumphant, and she flicks back her dark hair. She looks a little older than Rose.

“Hey, that’s Callum’s father you’re talking about,” Leila says. “We need to be careful about little ears.”

“Oh, my kids know I hate him after the way he treated Rose,” Eden retorts. “And Callum’s too young to understand.”

Leila’s eyes are wide as she takes her baby from Rose’s arms. “I’m just saying,” she whispers. “Maybe don’t go all crazy within five minutes of Milo Tate being here.”

Eden scowls. “I’m not! If anything, I’m letting him know the expectations.” She appraises me. “If you hurt our Rosie, be prepared to be called a pus-fill cyst, that’s all.” She shrugs, her smile shrewd.

“You guys. Can you please just not?” Rose says, squeezing in between the armrest and me. Her side is pressed up against me, her intoxicating softness under the pink polka-dot flannel nearly rendering me mute.

“Eden is fiercely loyal,” Rose tells me. “Love it, but she has a reputation for revenge.”

“You don’t even want to know what I bribed someone to slip into her—” Eden points to Leila. “Baby daddy’s coffee one time.”

Leila smiles for the first time since I got here. “Wish it would have been cyanide, but . . .”

The two sisters cackle with laughter and continue with one extreme statement after another. Rose has her arm around my shoulders, sinking even closer to me. Between that and Callum’s solid perch on my lap, his weight growing heavy against mychest the sleepier he gets, I’m having a hard time keeping up with the threads of conversations amongst them all.

After a while, Thorin trots in, his mouth open in a smile. He wiggles his butt before settling in front of me, politely pawing my knees until I pull him closer to me and start to pet him. He keeps scooting closer until his paws are on my thighs and his warm body is flush with my shins. Callum leans over to rub his neck and droopy ears.

“I had no idea they were coming,” Rose whispers to me as her sisters attend to the kids.

“They’re great.”

Rose eyes me, searching my expression. Finally she says, “They are. They’re just a lot to take in all at once. I wish you could have met them one at a time.”

“Wish Mom could have been here.” Eden pauses to referee a mild disagreement between two of the kids. I’m not sure if they’re cousins or siblings. “She’s working a double at the grocery store today.”

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