Page 84 of Love Out Loud

“No kidding.” I let out a short laugh. “How are you feeling?” I place my suitcase in the corner of the room as far out of the way as possible and sit on the edge of the bed opposite RJ. He climbs off and sits in his mom’s lap.

“Better now. Appendicitis is no joke.” Her eyes go wide, and she shakes her head. “That hurt.”

I pat her hand where it lies on top of the hospital blanket. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here with you,” I whisper, the tears I’ve been holding back all morning threatening to break through.

Richard clears his throat from where he’s standing next to the couch. “It’s about time we got RJ home. How about we give you and your mom some time, and I’ll be back later. Where are you staying, Lark?”

Eyeing my full suitcase in the corner, I shrug. “I hadn’t gotten that far.”

He nods as if he assumed that much. “They want to keep her here tonight, so how about you stay in her room at our place until she’s discharged, and we can go from there?”

I shoot him a grateful look. “Thank you. That would be great.”

Rachel collects RJ’s things. He gives Devin a quick fist bump on their way out. As Richard passes me, he squeezes me on the shoulder. And then, the room is silent except for the humming and beeping of all the machines Devin is hooked up to.

“So,” she hedges. “Are you missing the end of your audiobook for this?”

“No. We finished primary recording yesterday. I just have some corrections left, but that’s easy. I can do that from anywhere.” I move over to the couch to give her some more room.

She frowns down at me. “Wouldn’t you go back to do it?”

“Oh, honey,” I say on a sigh. “I don’t think so. I’d have to turn right around and head back here to move you into your dorm and then to Ann Arbor anyway.”

Being a parent is so weird sometimes. You can see your kid for who they are, but you’re sort of always seeing a previous version of them overlaid in your mind. Like now, when her face is scrunched up and one eye is squeezed shut, she’s both eighteen and ten, looking at me with a mixture of confusion and skepticism.

“So you are going to stay here for a few weeks?”

“I really don’t know, kiddo.” I smile weakly. “I got on the first flight out of LA to be here, and I didn’t think much past that.”

A nurse comes in then to ask her a few questions and check her vitals. She makes a joke about me being Devin’s sister, which we get all the time, so we both politely smile and make some small talk before the nurse leaves again.

After a few moments of painful silence, Devin asks, “How’s Lennon?”

“Good,” I say a little too quickly. “Good. Good, good.”

“Mom.” She sounds annoyed. “You’re being weird. What is going on?”

“Nothing!” I insist. “I’m tired. I’ve been up since Rachel called me at two-something this morning.”

Devin’s unimpressed face is a thing of legend. She’s been perfecting it since she was a tween. Sometimes I’d tease her about it, trying to make light of her hormonal tendency to be completely irritated with pretty much everything I said or did. But when she pins me with it now, my heart skips a beat in trepidation. I almost feel like I’m in trouble.

“Can we skip the part where you try to hide whatever it is you’re hiding from me and you just tell me like the adult I am?” Her eyebrow ticks up at the end of her sentence as her lips form a tight line that leaves zero space for objections.

I gape at her. “Stop doing that. It’s creepy.”

“Doing what? Reading you like a book? It’s not that hard.”

“It’s like you can see into my soul, and I don’t like it.”

She flashes me a tight smile. “I learned from the best.” She pauses, then says, “That’s you, in case that wasn’t clear.”

“Yeah, I got it. Thank you.” There’s probably no sense in hiding any of this from her. I was going to tell her eventually anyway. But I still pick at a loose thread on the couch to avoid looking at her. “LA was great. Working on that audiobook was… It was magical. I want to keep doing it.”

“You should.” She wiggles excitedly in her bed. “Oh my gosh, I’ve been thinking a lot about this. I’ve never been to LA. Real estate out there is super expensive, but I could come stay with you for a while on breaks, and—”

“Whoa. Hold your horses there. I’ve been looking into renting studio space in Ann Arbor. Maybe even soundproofing a room in the townhouse so I can work from home.”

“Pardon my French, Mom, but why the fuck would you do that?”