Walk Through Fire (Chaos #4)(186)

This was not because Freddie had shouted, “Pink stinks!” and when he did, High made a mental note to bring the boy with him and his father the next time this crew got together.

No.

It was because the huge-ass space was a mess. Plastic tiaras scattered everywhere. Feather scarves. Crumbs and spent wrappers mingled with half-eaten cupcakes. Glow sticks snapped and glowing. Wineglasses. Wine bottles. Pop cans. Opened bags of chips. Sprinklings of pink and white M&M’s.

It was like Cleo’s thirteenth birthday was happening, not like the women were planning it.

High saw Chief picking his way across the top of the kitchen table with no one grabbing him to put him down (as usual).

Poem was sitting in Veronica’s lap, being stroked, looking like she was asleep.

And Logan was taking Poem in as Katy declared, “I want a pink birthday too, Aunt Millie.”

“Aunt Millie gives you one every year, honey,” Dot returned.

“Well, I want another one,” Katy told her mother.

“You can have whatever you want, sweetheart,” Millie told her niece.

“Millie,” Zadie called, and his woman looked to his baby girl who was wearing a tiara and had a feather thing wrapped around her neck. Then again, so was Millie. “On my birthday, I wanna be queen.”

“You’re always queen,” Deb muttered, grinning at her daughter and sitting across from Millie at their huge-ass kitchen table (also wearing a tiara and a feather thing).

Zadie turned to her mother. “I wanna be more queen.”

“Do not deviate from that dream, sister,” Kellie advised, smiling at his baby girl. When Zadie looked to Kellie, she finished, “Live for it.”

“I already do,” Zadie informed her.

High swallowed a grunt of laughter.

“What Kellie’s saying is, you can have whatever you want, too, darling,” Millie told Zadie.

Zadie gave her attention back to Millie and beamed.

Millie beamed back.

Seeing that, High no longer felt like laughing.

No, looking at his daughter and his woman, he backed out of the doorway.

He retraced his steps down the hall, but this time, he did it looking at the walls.

Walls Millie had covered with the pictures she’d had in her pad in Cheesman.

Pictures that now mingled with framed photos she’d unearthed from that crate. Photos of him and his woman from years ago.

There were also photos of him and his woman now. His girls. His brothers. All of them together. Even photos from back in the day of Keely and Black.

He moved up the stairs, the walls there also covered with photos.

At the top of the stairs, he turned to his and Millie’s bedroom.

He walked straight to his side of the bed.

The very first night they moved in, he got in bed beside his woman and when he did, he saw she’d put it on his nightstand.

A blown-up eight-by-ten in a silver frame.

It was a picture of them at a Chaos cookout years before, Millie sitting on a picnic table pressed into him, High standing beside her with her in his arms.

He remembered that shot. It was the first photo she’d placed in the first album of them she’d made.

It was the first picture of them ever taken.

He looked across the bed and saw another frame, this one crystal.

In it was also another eight-by-ten.

In it was High sitting on the couch in their living room with his girls piled on him, his arms wrapped around all of them. Millie in his lap. Cleo in hers. Zadie on top. Cleo had hold of Poem. Zadie had hold of Chief.

They’d been horsing around, so none of his girls were looking in the camera. They were all too busy giggling.

High was looking into the camera.

He was not laughing.

You didn’t laugh when you held a living dream in your arms.

It was the last photo of them ever taken since Elvira had snapped that shot a week ago.

As ever, when Millie wanted something done and done right, she didn’t f*ck around.

The picture was in its fancy-ass frame and sitting on her nightstand the next day.

High looked from frame to frame and as he did, he knew he’d gotten it wrong.

His Zadie had it right.

Never give up.

Never quit dreaming.

Because dreams had a way of being.

You just had to keep hold.

Millie

When the boat stopped, the girls jumped up from their seats and moved toward the exit as I called, “Hurry! It’s gonna happen any second. I don’t want you to miss it! We’ll catch up!”

They didn’t need to be told twice.

Cleo and Zadie dashed ahead.

Logan and I, his hand wrapped warm around mine, followed them slowly.

We’d already been there that day because I’d wanted the girls to see the blooms on the trees.

But, of course, we also had to get there in the night.

We sauntered off the boat, Logan and me, hand in hand, and I knew he was keeping an eye on his girls as I did the same.

We got there in time. We stopped underneath. The girls were roaming, eyes up, waiting.

Logan didn’t roam.

He pulled me into his arms.

I didn’t lift my eyes up as in up, but I did lift my eyes.

To his.

“Today’s no different,” he murmured, his voice low but also scratchy.