Addicted After All(178)

“Yeah, you do that,” I tell Rose. “Fly in your magic bubble, Glenda.”

“Shut. Up. Loren.” She huffs as she gets ten feet from Connor. And then he catches up to her, and he hooks his arm around her waist.

“They’re gone, darling.” He tugs her to his body.

“Richard—”

“You can’t run after them,” Connor says. “But he’ll rat out his friends.”

The redhead lets out a pissed laugh. “Like hell, you prick.”

Connor’s lip tics, and he straightens up, his arm wrapped around his wife’s shoulders while he holds Jane. She cries into his white button-down, soaking the shirt.

In a controlled voice, he says, “Burglary is a felony. In case the severity escapes you, I’ll clarify. You will now have severe trouble obtaining a job and applying to colleges. That Ivy League you dreamed about is now scratching you off their lists. And inside your social circle, you better hope you have loyal friends. Because those that care about status will write you off just as quickly as everyone else. You’re a social carp, a bottom feeder. You take the meager scraps that the more fortunate hand out to you.”

Rose opens her mouth to pipe in, hopefully not to call him a penis again. I wait for her retort, but her lips tighten closed and her shoulders constrict. She cautiously looks to Connor.

I frown and inspect the redhead.

He’s crying.

His eyes redden as tears streak his face. If I was more callous, I’d feel good right about now. I’d feel justified in his pain. He f*cked with us for a while. He deserves this, right? But the pity that surfaces belongs to a guy who’s been there. Who’s hated everyone and everything. Who just wanted to go and drown.

I didn’t want them to choose this. But I will never have another night like tonight. There will never be another shadow passing through our hallway. No amount of empathy will change my mind.

Connor’s demeanor softens as he says to the redhead, “Or you can make a deal. Reduce your charges, try to turn this felony into a misdemeanor.”

I see where Connor is headed with this one. “You’ll just have to give up your friends.”

He laughs weakly, and then he nods a few times in agreement. Right then, the police burst through the front doors with handguns outstretched and bullet proof vests, shouting multiple things at once.

It’s over.

I release my clutch on the guy, and he staggers forward with his hands in the air. I immediately lift a terrorized, wriggling baby out of Lily’s gangly arms. He latches onto my chest and I press a hand to his back, rubbing him as he settles down.

Lily hides her eyes behind her Wampa cap, like she’s hiding from me.

“I’ll talk to the police first,” I barely hear Connor say. One of the officers is about to near me for questioning.

“Can I have a minute?” I ask him.

With two authoritative hands on his belt, he nods once and steps back.

“Lil?” I whisper, watching her cross her ankles with anxiety. She’s not doing well. I put two fingers in her waistband and pull her to my chest.

She shuffles forward and sniffs loudly.

My ribs bind around my lungs. And I lift the furry white cap higher on her head. Lil’s green eyes well with tears, her delicate, round face as splotched as our son’s.

“I disappeared there for a moment, didn’t I?” I realize. She must’ve heard us banging into the walls. They could’ve been armed. Lily Calloway’s imagination f*cks with her on a daily basis, and I bet it constructed a pretty devastating end.

She wipes her nose with her arm.

If I provoked them longer, I think they would’ve tried to jump on me, to shove me down the stairs. But they were more scared of me than I was of them. I didn’t feed their hate with my own. I just let it rest.

“Don’t do that again, okay?” Her chin quakes.

“Love,” I breathe, my heart aching. I hug her closer, melding her small, wiry frame to my body. And my lips brush her ear. “You and me.”

She chokes on a laugh. “Lily and Lo.”

My chest swells. “We’re going to make it in the end.” I smile wide because I can see it now. God, I can see it.

It’s closer than I ever realized.



* * *



After the police write down our statements, a few of them scour our house for any signs of the other four who escaped. I think they all ran down the street, to their homes. And I have more than a gut-feeling the cops will knock on their door within the hour.