of our asses, and I’m not looking to be black-and-blue.”
“He won’t.” Those words come from Rosie, and I know she won’t be the one spilling her guts because she’d be in just as much trouble as me, minus the bruises.
They are daddy’s girls like Gigi. Always the apples of their father’s eye as they did crazy shit on the down-low, keeping their status as good kids instead of hell-raisers.
They are nothing like their mom. Aunt Suzy is sweet, kind, and she has an innocence to her no one else with my family’s genetics has. But these girls don’t care, nor did they get virtue from their mom.
“Bathroom,” Luna groans, limp as a rag doll in my arms.
Arlo steps into the hallway, adjusting a T-shirt she must’ve grabbed from my room. “Everything okay?” she asks, eyeing Luna in my arms.
“She’s drunk,” I tell Arlo, motioning to the right with my head, needing to get around her with the dead weight.
She steps aside, letting me stalk past her to get the girl who hasn’t learned her limits to the toilet before she expels the contents of her stomach in the hallway. “What can I do?” Arlo asks Rosie.
“Nothing. She’ll be fine. This happens sometimes.”
Sometimes? I’d laugh if I weren’t so pissed at the two of them.
“It does?” Arlo asks her, clueless. “How often?”
“This time wasn’t her fault, though,” Rosie explains, but she doesn’t answer Arlo’s question.
The two of them have become masters of deflection. If they had been born with dicks…
They would be me.
The reality of that truth hits me square in the chest like a punch, knocking the wind out of me for a moment.
I push open the bathroom door with my foot and use my elbow to turn on the light before depositing Luna on the small rug in front of the toilet.
She groans, immediately moving her upper body over the toilet seat, hugging it like it’s her lifeline. “Go,” she tells me as her back starts to heave.
I don’t have to be told twice. I leave her there, clinging to the toilet to do her business for however long it takes her to get rid of the poison in her system this time.
“I should go help her,” Rosie says, lifting her chin toward the bathroom as I step back into the hallway.
I grab Rosie’s arm before she walks around me. “When she’s done, I expect answers before anyone goes to sleep tonight.” I glare at her, letting the little spitfire know I’m pissed, in case she hadn’t clued into that little fact already.
Rosie nods with a heavy swallow, staring up at me with a deep frown. “Okay,” she whispers.
She’s gone as soon as I let her loose, closing the bathroom door behind her.
“I take it this isn’t the first time they’ve shown up at your place like this?” Arlo asks before walking toward me.
I shake my head. “Those two are nothing but trouble, Ar. Total shitshow.”
She wraps her arms around my middle, resting her cheek against my chest. “They seemed really sweet at your grandma’s.”
“They’re good at appearing one way in front of the family and another way with those who know them best. If you looked up party animals in the dictionary, you’d find a picture of those two.”
“There are no pictures in the dictionary, honey,” Arlo teases, squeezing me tightly as her body shakes with laughter.
“Arlo,” I warn, hanging on by a thread because those two interrupted what I’d hoped would be a very eventful night. “Come on. Let’s go to the living room unless you want to listen to the show. There’s going to be lots of groveling and promises about sobriety she’ll never follow through on.”
“Poor thing,” Arlo whispers, peeling her body away from mine. “Is she even old enough to be drinking?”
“Not until next month.” I take her hand, leading her toward the couch, and collapse backward, bringing her with me. “I imagine you were never like them.”
Arlo settles in my lap, her legs on the cushions, pressing against my thighs. “There was a time when I was a little out of control.”
I raise my eyebrows. “You?”
She nods, smirking. “Me.”
My hands find her ass, cupping her cheeks in my palms. “Tell me about that Arlo.”
She shakes her head. “She wasn’t very nice.”
“Impossible,” I whisper, staring into her haunting green eyes.
Arlo has been nothing but reserved and sweet. Thinking about a side of her that is anything but is truly impossible for me to imagine. Visualizing her in the foster care system is also something