Begin Again(72)

“C’mere, doll,” she says, grabbing Milo’s coat and helping me shimmy out of my other one. “We’ll get you in the shower. I’ll leave you out a change of clothes. Nobody’s lost a finger to hypothermia in this house yet, and I’d like to keep our record clean.”

I stammer some frankly unintelligible thank-yous before bringing my human body slowly back to life in the guest shower. There’s a pair of boy’s jeans, a T-shirt, thick socks, and an oversize flannel waiting for me just outside the door, with my underwear that Jamie stuck in the dryer for a quick cycle. I pull them on gratefully, most of the chill finally shaken off, and pad out to the living room.

Milo stands up from the couch when he sees me, making Bozo the dog whine petulantly at the loss of his body heat. There’s a split second his eyebrows lift when he takes me in, the floppy socks and the faded jeans, the flannel that goes all the way down to my knees. It occurs to me then that these used to be his.

“Oh, good,” he says, his expression neutral by the time he settles on my face. “You’re alive.”

“Yeah. Thank you again.” Bozo hops off the couch and comes over to nuzzle me on the leg. I lean down to scratch his ears and he lets out a low, appreciative woof. “I should, uh—get back to campus. Figure out what’s going on with Valeria and Shay.”

Milo sucks in a breath. “Sorry. No can do.”

I knit my brows in confusion, pausing mid–ear scratch. “Is Stella broken?”

“No. But your priorities might be a little on the fritz.”

“Excuse me?”

Milo does that deep “I’m the RA” sigh he usually only reserves for drunk co-eds yelling in the halls.

“Andie. Shay and Val are adults. They’ll work their own stuff out.” He takes a step closer, and only then do I see that he has my backpack full of textbooks on the couch. He pulls it up by the strap incriminatingly. “You need to study.”

“Well. Yes. After I figure out how to help.”

The itch is back, the compulsion. It wasn’t when I first planned this whole thing for Valeria and Shay. But it came back the instant Connor and I hung up the phone. That knee-jerk reaction to prove myself. To make myself useful. To know that even if the rest of my life might be a mess, there’s one thing I can do right.

Milo crouches down on the other side of Bozo, leveling with me. “I’m no Squire, but is it possible that you’re hyper-focusing on someone else’s problems to avoid your own?”

I narrow my eyes at him. “Touché.”

He tilts his head toward a door on the other side of the room. “We call that Flynn Family Jail. No distractions. No internet connection. Just couches and textbooks and like, one window, because we’re not total monsters.”

“You’re . . . putting me in study jail?”

“Scarlett’s already in there. Grad school thesis. So at least you’ll be in good company.”

Before I can think of any further protests, he unceremoniously walks over to the door, opens it, and deposits my backpack on the other side. Bozo follows me hopefully until Milo sticks a leg in front of the door to cut us off from each other.

“See you in two hours.”

With that, he shuts the door behind me, leaving me in a small, white-walled room occupied by a very stressed-out-looking person I immediately identify as Piper’s identical twin. The only differences are Scarlett’s hair is slightly longer, her eyes are entirely more sleep-deprived, and her outfit is decidedly more cottagecore to Piper’s wilderness-guide chic.

“Hello, fellow inmate,” she says, as if it is perfectly normal for strangers to get locked in a room full of inspirational prints that say things like WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU WILL MAYBE AT LEAST MAKE YOU SMARTER AND DON’T FUCK THIS UP! BUT IF YOU DO AT LEAST THERE’S CAKE.

“. . . Hi,” I say, settling into the chair across from hers and pulling a blanket over myself, half certain I’m hallucinating.

Scarlett shoves an open box of Oreos at me. “Godspeed.”

Four Oreos and a boatload of statistics problems later, Scarlett lets out a loud yawn. I look up from my pages to see that it’s entirely dark outside.

She taps my book. “We need sustenance.”

“Yeah.” I am still trying to wrap my brain around the fact that the Flynn family just short of academically kidnapped me, but I’ve gotten a lot of work done. More than I thought I’d get done today, with Shay and Valeria top of mind and Connor just behind them. Scarlett stands up and stretches and I follow suit, closing up my books and wandering out with her.

The lights are dim in the living room and even Bozo is nowhere to be seen. Scarlett ventures out toward the kitchen, then stops abruptly. I figure out why a beat later: The kitchen table is empty save for two people. On one side is Milo, his shoulders tight and his eyes trained on his hands, which have worked themselves into a knot. On the other is Harley, slumped in his own chair, tired eyes set solely on Milo.

I open my mouth in a silent oh of realization, backing up before Scarlett does.

“Okay if I drive you home?” Jamie asks quietly, appearing behind us with the kind of quiet that probably only a mom of seven could master.

I nod, pulling my backpack up over my shoulder and following her out to the family minivan.

“Thank you,” she says, once I’m firmly in the passenger seat.