“You can’t turn your back on her, Dean. It’s time we talk about it,” he said.

“There’s nothing to talk about. She’s my business, not yours. What did she want?”

“She’s asked me to convince you to see her.” Mom’s heartrending eyes begged.

“She’s fucking nuts.”

“Dean, language,” my dad scolded me like I was four. Whatever. I’d like to see how his ass would have handled someone like Nina. He had Helen fucking Cole. Someone wonderful and supportive and fucking human. Judging is easy. Dealing with complicated shit, however, not so much.

“Well?” I slouched back in my chair. “Say it, Helen.” I used her first name, which always got to my mom, and she winced.

You’re a grade-A asshole, Ruckus.

“I need to give her a chance, right? She has the right to explain herself. It’s time you meet him. Think of the potential bond. C’mon, I’ve heard it all, but I’m always up for the repeat.”

“It’s not fair to put this all on your mom.” Dad placed his hand over hers. I blinked once.

“Is this fair to me?”

“You’ll have to face her at some point,” Mom argued.

“I beg to fucking differ. I’ll never see her face ever again. Try me. Really, you should.”

“We need to sort this situation out. This is not how Coles conduct themselves.” My dad started in his authoritative voice. Eli Cole almighty was the definition of a good person. Always wanting to do the right thing. “You know why she is calling you. It’s time you face what she has to say.”

“If she wants me to meet him, I gladly will, but not for money.”

“That could be arranged.” He scratched his stubble with the frame of his glasses. He had no idea what he was talking about. I wasn’t going to drag Nina to court and battle her for years over this.

I stood up and leaned across the table.

“Do you love me?” I asked both my parents.

“Of course.” Dad scoffed.

“Then trust me when I say it’s better I don’t meet him. I’m not ready to deal with this right now. Respect it. Let it go.”

Feeling like shit—I certainly acted like a little one—I climbed up the stairs to my old room, preparing to get in the shower. My phone pinged. I didn’t feel like talking to anyone, but took a peek anyway.

Rosie

I need you to pick me up. No car + dinner from hell = desperate times call for desperate measures.

Trying to collect my fucking jaw from the floor, I chuckled. Oh, it was on.

Dean

Be there in 10.

Rosie

Promise not to hit on me.

Dean

Yeah…no.

I gave her a second to process this before I fired another text.

Dean

I will come. I will see. I will conquer (and then I will come again).

Rosie

I can’t believe I’m desperate enough to put up with you. Promise to at least not to tell anyone we’re meeting.

Dean

Yeah, whatever.

As if anyone gave half a fuck. At this point, Rosie and I were two loose cannons in an otherwise smoothly operated machine. Vicious and Millie were settling down. Jaime and Melody were married with a kid. Even bad boy Trent was wearing his big boy pants and doing the whole modern family gig, sharing joint custody over his daughter, Luna, with his baby mama, Val. Everyone was setting down roots and playing grown-ups.

Everyone but us.

She was the foul-mouthed, up-to-no-good lesser sister, and I was the stoner drunk whose most serious relationship was with his drug dealer. Nobody cared if we fucked each other’s brains out to pass the time as long as we kept quiet and didn’t mess up our lines or stain our bridesmaid and best man uniform.

That was what Baby LeBlanc hadn’t realized, because she was too busy protecting the precious feelings of her beloved sister. Feelings that weren’t even there. I tucked my cell phone into my back pocket and walked over to the closet in my room to change into a clean shirt. Grabbing my keys from the nightstand, my phone dinged again.

Rosie

Do U have weed on U?

Trying—and failing—not to laugh, my fingers glided on my touch screen.

Dean

What about your lungs? Aren’t they broken or some shit?

Rosie

Bring your stash, funny guy.

Indulging her was the only way to go. Rosie wanted to test boundaries. Didn’t she know I had none? Well, that was a lesson she was going to learn soon.

The fun way.

What makes you feel alive?

Playing with a different kind of fire. Making mistakes. Owning up to them. Owning up to me. Taking what I want and calling it mine. Even if it isn’t. Even if I know it never could be.

War prisoners should be sent to be tortured in the arms and by the tongues of my parents. That was the conclusion I came to after spending eight hours with Mama and Daddy.

I was a tough girl. Dealing with a long-term, life-threatening disease gave you that extra layer of durability. Like that colorless, finishing coat of nail polish no one sees. So the fact that I was on the verge of tears caught me off guard.

I didn’t have a car, so I sat on the front steps leading to the mansion and waited for Dean to pick me up, my head slung between my legs.

Dinner’s events played in my head, making me gulp hard and fight the tears that threatened to spill over. We were all sitting at the table, served by Vicious’s staff, eating wine-tossed Coffin Bay King oysters from Australia (apparently, American oysters didn’t make the cut anymore, now that my parents were rich by association), talking about the final wedding arrangements.

Everything was relatively tolerable…until it wasn’t.

“Alrighty, I think it is time we address the elephant in the room.” Daddy put his wine glass on the table and raised his eyes to meet mine. “When are you planning to move back here, Rosie? We were very supportive of you experiencing New York. You were young and needed an adventure, but it is time you move on. You’re not a kid anymore, and your sister is no longer there to hold your hand.”

“Daddy, Rosie is her own person. You can’t tell her what to do,” Millie interfered, her voice like a soothing balm on my red-hot nerves. Mama sighed. Silverware clattered. I wet my lips, too taken aback to utter a word.

“You guys are always on her case, Daddy. Rosie is a grown-up.”

“She’s not like you, sweetheart. She’s a little reckless. We love our Rosie-bug exactly as she is, but things are changing. She gets weaker every year.”

“She is sick!” Mama bellowed, patting her nose with a linen napkin before bringing it to her eyes to do the same. I flinched. She kicked the conversation from first gear to fifth. “Look at her.” She pointed at me. “All skin and bones. Doesn’t she look thin to you?”

Millie sighed at me, apologetic, and shot Mama a look. “She’s always been thin.”

“Too thin,” Mama enunciated.

“Everyone is too thin in your opinion, Mama. Our family cat looked like a raccoon because you overfed it.” The same cat they had to give away when they found out I had cystic fibrosis. Jesus, I was as fun as having leprosy.

“That’s okay, guys.” I sniffed, hating that Vicious saw this exchange. “It’s not like I’m here or anything. Don’t let me get in your way of discussing my future.”

“We’re buying you a ticket back home. You should be spending your time with us, not running around in a big city looking for trouble.” Mama’s voice was dancing on the verge of panic.

“I’m staying in New York.”

“Paul,” she wailed. “Tell her.”

“Yes, Daddy.” I smiled. “Tell me.”

Paul LeBlanc wasn’t going to betray me. You could always count on Daddy to shut Mama up when it came to me. Millie tried to protect me, but didn’t have that kind of authority.

Daddy looked between Mama and me.

“I’m sorry, Rosie-bug.” He shook his head, and at first, I thought he was apologizing on behalf of his wife.

“But your mama is right. I worry for you out there, too.” He shifted in his seat. “But then, maybe we need to take into consideration you have Darren now.” Daddy scratched the ghost of his stubble, mulling this in his head. “He seems to be taking good care of her. Don’t you reckon, Charlene?”

Your father is not a misogynist, I tried to convince myself. He just sounded like one a second ago.

“About that.” I coughed, feeling my palms grow sweaty and my heart twirling like a hopeless drunk, stumbling its way out of my body to the nearest plate. Maybe someone would be kind enough to stab it. “Darren and I broke up.”

“What?!” Daddy roared, shooting up from his seat and slapping his palm on the hardwood table. He looked as shocked as I’d felt. Had he forgotten my love life was ultimately my business? I frowned, watching as Millie placed her hand over Mama’s, asking her wordlessly to stop. When I looked up, I realized that she was crying so hard her whole body was heaving.

“She has no one there. No one. And she is wasting away, dying.”

Yup. My family was kind of a bunch of drama llamas.

Daddy’s eyes still blazed, threatening to sear my skin with ugly scars.

“He moved out a few weeks ago.” I kept my voice neutral, flattening a palm over the white cloth napkin I didn’t even get to use yet. “He wanted to get married. Even went as far as proposing, with a ring and all. But as you know, I’m not interested in marriage. Especially considering my recent complications.” They knew exactly what Dr. Hasting, the expert Vicious had hired, told me last year, after she ran some thorough tests on me. “He will bounce back.” I found myself comforting them instead of the other way around. “I will, too. He deserved better than this life.”

There was silence. The kind that drips into your body and nibbles at your bones. I held my breath, ready for a physical blow that would send me flying to the other side of the room.