Page 61 of Love Notes & Lifelines
Move, Stella. Go get dressed! I don’t. Instead, I stare, first at Beck, then Tabby and the girls.
“I mean I hadn’t spoken to my sister since the day I left.” Beck’s words draw me back to him. The pull he has over me is alarming. He swallows thickly, and his entire demeanor changes. “That’s what I mean. I have no fucking clue what you’re going on about.”
Emmy stands with a smile on her face and her hand stretched out toward Beck.
His questioning gaze asks me to translate, but all I can offer is a halfhearted shrug.
“It must be a Hayes thing,” Tabby says. This woman lives in her own world and clearly has no clue about the tension floating above her head. “If you curse, you owe Emmy five bucks. Cally made the rule when I started helping out more.”
“When you… Why didn’t she do it before? I’ve said fuck about a thousand times in the past month.”
Emmy steps closer with two hands out.
“Maybe she wasn’t comfortable. This is home to her. You behave differently when you feel safe,” I say.
He glares at me, and I clutch my towel even more tightly, but I don’t back down. His expression morphs into something else—understanding, maybe? Emmy’s secrets are so similar to my own, but there’s no way he knows that.
The muscles in his cheek bounce when he clenches his teeth, but he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a hundred-dollar bill.
“Wait,” I say. “That’s crazy. She’s expecting a dollar or two.” Isn’t she?
He shrugs as if he couldn’t care less. “It’s all I have.”
Emmy continues to hold out her other hand, and her eyes shine as though she’s captured all the stars in the sky.
“Fine,” He hands her another hundred-dollar bill, and she giggles while taking it.
Smart girl.
“Dang, kid. You’re going to be rich before you hit kindergarten,” Tabby singsongs.
“It’s too early for this sh—I need coffee,” Beck mutters.
“Ah…” My head swivels from Tabby to Beck. “I need—clothes. Will one of you help the girls get dressed?”
I slip past Beck in the doorway and shiver when his forearm brushes against my bare skin on the way by.
Stupid, stupid, neglected hormones.
I’m almost to my room when Beck’s voice gives me pause. “What kind of crap is she trying to pull with this house, Tabs?”
“Cally didn’t tell me everything, only that anything connected to Hayes and Delacroix would stay with Delacroix. She thought it was safer that way. Everything she’s done has been for one reason, Beck. She loved you enough to fight. She loved the girlsenough to do whatever it took. As far as Danica? She’s a pissed-off rhino because of what you’ve done to her company?—”
“What I’ve done?” he roars, and the vibrations hit me in the hallway.
“And she’s crazy enough to use the girls in any way she can to make you bend. Danica doesn’t give a shit about any of you. She doesn’t know how. Her father chose Davis over her. Davis chose Cally over her. She’s never known love and kindness, so you can’t expect her to have any of those qualities. Ugh,” Tabby groans. “Give her another hundred, Bear. I don’t have any cash.”
Bear. It causes a smile to ease some of the tension pinching my face even as true fear for the girls’ emotional stability weighs heavily on my shoulders.
But there’s not a damn thing I can do about it standing in Beck’s hallway wearing only a towel. The silence of my room allows my mind to formulate a plan of attack while I roll mindlessly through the routine of getting dressed.
How does Beck feel about teamwork?
I exitthe bathroom to find Emmy sitting in the middle of my bed.
“Emmy? You okay?” She lifts her head from whatever is in her lap, and the tension leaves her little body when she sees me.
She holds up a clear bag full of hair elastics and another damn pink note. It’s truly the house of secrets.
