shoved me out the door, delving through paper bags for all the shit she’d brought Mom. She looked tired, worried, and secondhand sick. I spat phlegm into one of the plants by our door, ignoring the pulsating heat radiating from my body.
“Remind me why I’m getting kicked out of my own house again?”
“You spiked a fever last night. You’re not well, Knight. You know you can’t be here next to her.”
“Fine. I’ll take the guestroom downstairs. I won’t go anywhere near Mom.”
“I’ll be taking the guestroom.”
Emilia finally plucked a pack of chips from a bag. Salty snacks were good for Mom. She’d lost a lot of sodium. “I want to take care of my sister. Besides, even if you took the downstairs bedroom, you still have the flu. You’re a germ-ball, excuse my bluntness.”
I shrugged. “Been called worse.”
“I promise I’ll keep you updated. I made you some chicken noodle soup. It’s in a container near the other provisions. I’ll ask your uncle to report back if you haven’t touched it, so no funny business. Don’t worry, honey. She’ll get well.”
“She can’t get well.” I smiled bitterly, my eyes darkening. “We both know that, Aunt Em.”
Emilia’s throat bobbed with a swallow. She looked down. Why did people do that? Look down when things got too real? What was on the ground that was so fascinating, other than my mother’s impending grave?
“But she can get worse,” Aunt Em whispered.
She stepped into the house then, pushing the door closed in my face before pausing. “Oh, and I’m not sure what your current status is, but if you’ve decided to pull your head out of your butt and you’re swinging by Luna’s, please send her my condolences and let her know I’m here if she needs me.”
I was midstride when I turned around sharply, pushing the door back open.
“Condolences?” I could feel my eyeballs dancing in their sockets.
Emilia dropped her paper bags, peaches and garlic rolling on the floor.
Our parents had refused to get the memo that Luna and I were no longer BFFs or whatever bullshit term they called us. But that didn’t bother me as much as the notion that something bad had happened. Condolences meant one thing.
“What’s going on?” I braced my arm against the door, making sure she knew she couldn’t get rid of me before she explained herself.
I was burning like a thousand angry suns on their galactic period. The fever had come out of nowhere. Vaughn said it was probably because I’d nearly combusted watching Luna make out with Daria the other night.
When Aunt Emilia didn’t answer immediately, I stepped back into the house, ignoring my general dizziness. Getting into her face, I bared my teeth.
“Speak.”
I knew if Uncle Vicious ever found out I’d behaved even mildly aggressively with her, he’d castrate me and make dangling earrings out of my balls for his pretty wife.
Emilia’s jaw tightened. “Step back, boy,” she growled.
Maybe she didn’t need Uncle Vicious to make the earrings for her.
I decided to step back, because it was the quickest way to make her talk.
“Her birth mother, Val, died.”
“Jesus.” I covered my mouth, running my palm along my face. “How is she coping?”
Moonshine was entirely unpredictable when it came to Val, so I didn’t know the level of devastation I was dealing with here. I just knew she’d been looking for Val, and now she’d found her—probably not in the state she needed her to be.
“I thought you could fill me in. Edie hired a private investigator, and that’s what he came back with.” Emilia frowned. “How do you not know this, Knight? You used to be like siblings.”
Siblings, my ass. I needed to see Luna. Now.
Hold on a second—did I? Because last time we hung out, she’d yelled at my ass.
Yeah.
No.
I needed to.
Crisis trumped anything else. Even my mansion-sized ego.
Fuuuck.
She quickly amended. “Soulmates.”
“Thanks for making it creepy.”
“She needs you.”
“Tough luck.”
I could be a stubborn motherfucker. So no then? Not going to Luna?
Shit. I needed a fortune cookie to make the decision for me, or something.
“This can’t be about a little college fling. What really happened, Knight?”
Everything. Everything happened.
Luna had moved on. I’d stayed behind. Mom got sicker. Dixie was healthy and pushy and depressingly alive. Apparently, God had a twisted sense of humor, and the joke was on me.
Emilia cupped my cheeks, pulling me closer. I was over a head and a half taller, but she still looked every inch the person in charge between us. It was in her eyes. They were like the