Page 19 of Light

It takes every ounce of my self-control not to scoop her up here and now. Despite the fact that we can count the scales on our holiday-themed mermaid porch mat from here, the woman continues tossing me so much stubborn intention, I know I can only redress with words. “Nothing sucks anything,” I assert. “And look, we’re almost home.”

“No,” Emma retaliates, her lips still tight and her teeth still clenched. “Home is two hours away.” Without waiting for my retaliation, she whips her attention at Calvin. “You know how to drive an Audi Q8?”

The guy’s eyes pop wide. “You want me to pay you for the chance?”

“Other way around,” she counters. “We’ll reimburse you for the overtime on your sitter.”

“Jina and Tosca are at a sleepover tonight and then a birthday party tomorrow,” he returns. “And I’ve prepaid for Juliet’s Lyft.” His composure stiffens. “Her roommate can help her get inside once she’s home, because I’m not getting anywhere near that brand of crazy anymore.”

“Smart…guy.” But Emma’s encouragement is more a pair of guttural grunts and then a bunch of heavy breaths. “The keys are hanging from the hook…next to the inside door of the garage.” She bursts with some more winded gusts after we clear the crosswalk in front of the house. Her whole form is trembling from the strain of simply breathing.

“Okay, listen.” The woman can continue to refuse the free ride in my arms, but she’s sure as hell not going to ignore the logic from my lips. “I get that we’ve had some crazy-as-shit times lately, and that tonight was crazier than usual, but we can’t just pick up and leave—”

“You mean the same way we didn’t ‘just pick up and leave’ from the ridge in the first place?” And just like that, she’s accomplished her normal one-two punch of enthralling me and maddening me in the space of one sentence.

“Point to Mrs. Richards,” I concede. “But hardly the match.” As I take a few seconds to enforce the claim by shoring my stance, my opened posture clears the way for more of the searing memories from Dad’s last moments alive. And his desperate words to me…

Faline…she’ll never fucking stop, Reece.

Words that became prophecy.

Because tonight, one of the woman’s minions raised a glass full of Bolt-ini to us…before seeming to see right through us.

Thank fuck she’d passed out drunk a few minutes later. Which has given us the pause button we need to think this shit through.

If only I can get my headstrong wife to track with that program too.

“Look, we don’t have to kneejerk this now,” I go on. “Taking a second to go inside and talk strategy here is—”

“A second we don’t have.”

She’s still all glowing fire and glorious impatience, tempting me to think about taking her inside to do other things, but I set my jaw and rebut, “All right; it’s clear that you’re still upset about all this—”

“Reece.” Her lips press together and her nostrils flare. “I’m not upset.”

“Okay.” I pull in a breath, focusing on being the neutral factor here. “Fine. Not upset. Freaked out, then.”

“Reece.”

“Or spooked. Or whatever you want to call it—”

“Reece.”

“What?”

“What I am is in labor. And what I need—what your son needs—is to take his first breath in his real home.”

So much for neutral.

Or pause buttons.

Or strategy.

Or thinking.

Or anything beyond the hot ball of pure terror that careens down my throat—before I finally manage to blurt, “Cal?”

“Yeah?”