Page 103 of Sweet Escape
“I’m fine. Just tired. What do you need?”
“Emmy’s asking for you, but I can just tell her you’re asleep.”
She sniffles, wiping her nose with a tissue tucked in her fist. “No. No, it's fine. Just give me a minute to clean myself up.”
Minutes pass before she joins me in Emmy’s room, and all evidence of her tears has vanished, a mask of false contentment taking its place. “Hey, little cowgirl. Your daddy said you wanted to see me?”
“Livie, will you snuggle with me?”
“You want me to snuggle?” she asks.
“Uh-huh. You, here,” she says, pointing to the spot on her right. Olivia gently lifts the covers and slides in beside her, and Emmy shifts her body so she’s flush against her side.
“Daddy, you here,” she says, pointing to the opposite side of the bed where there’s a small gap.
“That’s an awfully tight squeeze, Emmy girl. Why don’t I just let you and Livie have the bed, and I’ll sit beside y’all in the chair?”
She pouts, and I have no choice but to give in to her demands, slippingin beside her. For all of us to fit, I have to drape Emmy over half my body and rest my arm above Olivia’s head. The urge to wrap her in my arms is overwhelming.
Unable to resist the pull, I slide my hand into Olivia’s hair. The delicate strands slip through my fingers. We lock eyes over Emmy’s head, and her chin quivers before she looks away. Guilt clawing at my chest at the evidence of the pain I’ve caused.
Emmy looks up at Olivia, a sleepy smile spreading across her face. “Love you,” she says.
“Love you, too, sweet girl. To the moon and back.”
The easy exchange kicks my heart into overdrive, triggering my fight or flight instincts, but Emmy brings me back from the brink of madness with three simple words. “Love you, Daddy.”
“Love you, Emmy Lou.”
Once the girls are asleep, I carefully slip out of bed and reposition Emmy against Liv’s side. With one last glance over my shoulder, I head into the kitchen and grab a bottle of Blanton’s and a chilled glass from the freezer before heading out back near the dilapidated treehouse. That’s where Ruby finds me two—or maybe three—drinks deep as I attempt to climb the old rope ladder.
“We should really fix this place up,” says a blurry shape that sounds vaguely like my world-famous sister. “Could be a fun place for Emmy to play.”
“Little sister!”
“That bad, huh?” Jax says, coming into view beside her.
“It’s worse than I thought,” she replies.
“The band’s all here. Come on down before you hurt yourself,” Griff says, his acoustic guitar strapped to his back and a beer in his hand. “Jaxy, go light the fire.”
I hop off the ladder, having only made it a third of the way up before encountering the first in a line of missing steps.
“Come on, Wild Man,” Jax calls from somewhere in the shadows. “Time for a sibling heart-to-heart.”
I snort. “I’d rather take a needle through my dick.”
“Been there,” he says. “Not as bad as you’d think. Livie might like it.”
“Not something I needed to know about my brother,” Ruby quips. “Please keep your dick piercings and whatever else you might have going on to yourself.”
We each take a seat in one of the Adirondack chairs surrounding the stone fire pit as Jax piles on a few new logs and lights the starter. Nobody says anything for a while, watching the fire build until the flames are dancing into the night sky. Griffin strums a few chords on his old guitar, and Ruby sings a stripped-down version of My Girl by the Temptations.
I listen to each word as memories come flooding back, sobering me faster than anything ever could. When the song ends, Griffin leans his guitar against his chair and picks up his beer. It’s Ruby who speaks first.
“Do y’all remember the time Jess caught Griffin smoking weed in the treehouse?”
“I must’ve been like sixteen at the time,” Griff says. “I forgot about that. I thought she was gonna tell mom and dad, but she just asked me to pass it to her.”
