Page 26 of Rockstars, Babies & Happily Ever Afters: Vol. 1

Now they were all they had left. Just each other. Their mother had gone away years ago. She wasn’t dead, but she might as well have been for all the contact she had with her children. And now their father…

“Where are you?” He was already toeing on his sneakers. “I’ll come to you.”

“I’m at home. At our house. They took him away in the ambulance, and I followed in my car. His heart—” She let out a hiccupping sob. “I’m not sure I can do this, Nicky.”

He knew exactly what she wasn’t sure she could do, and he wasn’t about to let her make that decision alone. If she had to get high—fuck, if she couldn’t stop herself—well, then he’d be with her. He’d hold her goddamned hand if he had to. Whatever it took.

He was never going to leave her to handle things on her own again.

“I’m on my way. Don’t move until I get there. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Promise me, Ricki.”

She hesitated for barely an instant. Still, lifetimes passed for him in those few seconds. “I promise. I’ll wait for you.”

Swallowing hard, he whispered, “I love you,” and hung up before his own jagged emotions had a chance to tear through the break wall of his grief.

The worst part was that he wasn’t grieving over his father. Not yet. That would come later, or hell, maybe it wouldn’t come at all.

Who he was grieving most for was his sister, and the last fragment of innocence she’d lost with their father’s passing.

Nick snatched his keys off the counter and took a quick glance at Spot’s food dish. There was some left, though the little ingrate had been hiding in the closet for most of the day. She wasn’t fond of visitors.

He understood the sentiment.

At the last second, he grabbed the notepad Lila left by the phone and scribbled out a message. The words weren’t important.

All that mattered was getting to his sister.

* * *

Walking into an empty house was like stepping into a tomb.

So it wasn’t totally empty, as a prancing Spot proved almost as soon as Lila set down her soft-sided briefcase. Her cat rubbed against her ankles, already purring. That was a sure sign Nick wasn’t around. He tended to bang things and curse under his breath a lot and Spot preferred orderly silence. They maintained a détente most of the time that only occasionally deteriorated into a paw swipe or stare down contest, so Lila figured they were cohabitating just fine.

Cohabitating. The thing that had been on her mind all damn day.

She placed her purse beside her briefcase and scooped up the cat to carry her into the bedroom. She toed off her heels and let out a happy sigh as she padded to the closet in stocking feet. Finally, toe freedom. A tug on the louvered doors and she was facing her many shelves and rods, half of them still empty. She wasn’t a clotheshorse, preferring to buy classic pieces that did double duty. To say she had plenty of room left was an understatement.

Her drawers were a little more stuffed, but they could always add on another dresser if needed. Not that Nick had a huge wardrobe. His idea of dressing up consisted of retro concert T-shirts and clean jeans. It wasn’t a matter of fitting in his belongings, but dealing with the reality that within one year, she’d divorced one man and would now be living with another.

Possibly. If she managed to get out the words.

She sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the open closet in the waning twilight. She’d had a late meeting with Donovan, and she’d been torn between hoping the lateness of the hour would mean Nick would’ve stopped by with takeout or that he’d maybe eaten elsewhere. Ah hell, who was she kidding? The only reason she hoped he’d taken care of dinner on his own was because she didn’t want to argue about the whole moving in thing. And when it came right down to it, there was nothing to fight about.

She wanted him to live with her. He wanted to live there. Did it really matter what anyone else thought? True, she was still hiding her relationship with Nick from her boss, but they’d been circumspect this long. It wasn’t as if Nick had to shed his address entirely. He could just not…stay there very much while they were still operating in downlow mode.

If at all.

Someday soon she’d have to fess up to Donovan. She and Nick couldn’t live in secret forever. It wasn’t fair to either of them. But one bridge to cross at a time.

Right now, she was crossing the one about not giving a fuck what people thought. She’d been coloring within the lines for so long that she barely knew how to take an independent action without consulting everyone in the universe to see if it appeared unseemly.

What she should be doing was taking a page from her ex-husband’s book. He was having a baby with his mistress. His mistress who’d obviously been knocked up before the divorce was finalized because she was due this month.

Lila set down Spot beside her and dropped back on the mattress. Her cat immediately climbed up on her belly and started to knead, which made her laugh. She was so damn ticklish.

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