Page 138 of Sing For Me

Will

“Are you sure you shouldn’t get some flowers?” CeCe asks, biting her nails. “I mean, she liked them last time, right? Before your date?”

“Haven’t you been paying attention?” Silas asks. “She friend-zoned him that night, Ceece.”

“Your brother knows what he’s doing,” my mother cuts in. “Leave him alone.” But she can’t resist leaning in to smooth the collar of my button-down shirt.

I look over her head, meeting my dad’s eye.Save me, I mouth, and he grins, reaching out to slide his hands around mom’s waist and pull her back again his chest.

“He’s fine. Everyone just chill, okay?”

“But this is a big deal, Dad,” CeCe insists. “I still think he needs to make a grand gesture.”

“I’m not making a grand gesture,” I say for the tenth time, wondering why in the hell I told them my plans in the first place. “That’s not what she wants from me.”

That night I left, she just wanted honesty. Effort. Both things I felt like I couldn’t give her at that point.

I just pray I can convince her I’m ready now.

“Grand gestures are overrated,” my dad says, tugging CeCe’s braid.

Mom turns in his arms, eyebrow raised. “You bought ahousein Seattle to prove how serious you were when I broke up with you.”

He frowns. “Hmm. She has a point. Maybe youshouldget flowers.”

“Oh, my God,” I groan.

But even as I complain, there’s a little corner of my heart that can’t help feeling warm and sappy about this moment. Having the four of them standing here, encouraging me, rooting for me, that means something.

Things have been different with my family since that morning my Dad and I talked. I know I still have a long way to go to get things back to how they were before Skye died. And, hell, maybe they never will be quite the same. I’m not the same person I was at eighteen and that’s okay. But I know I don’t want things to continue on as they were, me constantly trying to keep distance between us. After I talked to my dad, a lot of the anger that sat so heavily on my chest for so long finally started to fade.

The first thing I did after I left the basement that morning was to go up to my childhood bedroom and sleep for the next six hours. For once, it didn’t feel painful to be there. I didn’t hear the whispers of Skye’s voice in every corner. I couldn’t see the shadow of her face everywhere I looked.

When I woke up, I made lunch with my mom. My dad had already told her what happened—because the two of them tell each other everything—but when I tried to apologize for my distance, she waved me off.

“Just be here more, Will,” she said. “That’s all I want from you. Everything else will work out.”

I stuck around the house until CeCe and Silas got home from school. It felt a little strange, to spend so much time there after so long, but it was nice, too. Peaceful. The shock on my siblings’ faces when they saw me sitting in the kitchen sent a fresh swell of guilt through me. I hated that they were so surprised by my presence, when all I had ever wanted was for them to know they could count on me.

I took them out for ice cream after dinner, just the three of us. I apologized over caramel and nut sundaes, explaining to them that I’d been taking a lot of things out on Dad when I shouldn’t have, and that I was going to try to do better. Then I thanked Silas for checking in on me with Eva and somehow managed to grit my teeth and ask how band rehearsal had been going, even though it sent a dim flood of panic through me to even think about it.

Apologizing to my uncles had been harder. But in true Ransome fashion, they let me say my piece. When I was finished, Uncle Reed pulled me into a hug. “We’re all good, kid. We’ve always been good.” Daltrey messed up my hair, and Lennon slapped my back. Then Reed crossed his arms and stared at me. “Now what are you going to do about your girl?”

Because of course my dad told them about Eva. I wasn’t even surprised.

But I sure as hell didn’t know what to do about her. I missed Eva with a ferocity I hadn’t even realized I was capable of. She was the first thing I thought of every morning, the last thing I pictured at night. My chest physically ached, all the time, and I was restless and snappy and generally miserable.

“Go talk to her,” Rose said, pretty much every time she saw me. “You obviously miss her. You want to see her.”

“But what if she doesn’t want to see me? I was such an asshole.”

River rolled his eyes. “Stop being such a fucking pussy, man, and fix this shit.”

In the end, it was my baby cousin Vega, of all people, who finally convinced me to get off my ass and try to take care of my mess. In addition to making things right with my siblings, I’d made it a point to visit with each of the younger kids to apologize for being such a distant jerk lately. Vega informed me that she would forgive me on one condition—I had to be her assistant for the next four cooking shows she had planned. So it looked like there would be a lot of frilly aprons in my future.

We recorded the first one the next day. I expected to find my little cousin organizing her supplies when I got there—she could be pretty damn particular about the way her kitchen ran—and by particular, I mean bossy as hell. Instead, I found her staring off into space when I arrived at her sparkly pink kitchen.

“You okay?”