Page 34 of The Holiday Fakers
“It’s okay, we’ll make it work,” I say.
“I’m so sorry I’ve dragged you into this.”
“You didn’t drag me into anything. I need you probably more than you need me. And anyway, my room has that pull-out bed Mia used to sleep on when she stayed over. I can use that.”
“No, I’ll sleep on it.”
“Brody,” I begin, in the patient tone of a schoolteacher. “You won’t fit.”
He opens his mouth again, but I hold up my hand. “We can have this argument later. Let’s just get back to my folks and eat.”
“Okay.”
He reverses out of the space, and we drive back to my parents’ house, lost in our thoughts.
No one comes out to greet us, which I see as a good sign. The excitement has worn off and we can all go back to normal.
Leaving our bags in the car for later, we walk up the path together.
The front door is open, but I still knock and call out, “Mom? Dad?”
“In the family room, sweetie! Just come on through.”
I give Brody what I hope is a reassuring smile, and he follows me into the main entertaining room of the house.
“Surprise!” Mom yells.
I stop dead. Along with my parents are my little sister, Harper, my younger brother, Hudson, and my big brother, Ethan, who’s holding his daughter Martha. Ethan’s stony gaze shifts to Brody, and man, he looks pissed.
Oh shit.
CHAPTER 7
BRODY
My mind attempts a reboot, then it short-circuits. It’s like I’ve been woken from a coma after twelve years. Erica and John look a little older, and John’s grown a white beard, but they don’t look that different from when I left Hideaway.
But their kids? Harper was a dorky twelve-year-old with wobbly teeth, which she would twist and tug whenever she had an audience—a kid who would burp the periodic table to make people laugh.
Now she’s an adult. A proper fucking adult.
Hudson? He was a skinny fourteen-year-old who was lifting weights smaller than my biceps.
Now? It looks like he liftsallthe weights.
I thought I was in shape, but he’s built like a tank.
And then there’s Ethan. Taller, broader, older. Still a stupidly handsome bastard, but I can see the lines that life has left. The hardness that’s now directed at me.
I can’t hold his gaze, so I look at the child in his arms. And there it is, the sucker punch. The killer blow that slams the breath from my body.
Martha. With her white-blonde hair and big blue eyes, she’s a little Olivia. It’s like she’s still in the room.
But she isn’t.
She’s dead.
“Surprise!” Piper cries, echoing her mom, the sound cutting through the heavy silence.
