“I’m starving, Mom.”
Paige walked halfway down the staircase. “How about you, Tucker?”
Tucker’s stomach rumbled at the mention of food. “I am pretty hungry, now that you mention it.”
“You got a bag or something?” Mark asked, standing on the step above Paige.
“What?” Tucker asked.
“You know, clothes, that kind of stuff?”
“I left where I was in a big hurry, so…”
“Jace got some stuff you could borrow?”
“Nah,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ll go out later and pick up some stuff of my own.”
“I’ll go see if I can find something you can change into in the meantime,” Mark offered. “You’re kinda starting to smell.”
Her mom and dad left, each on a different mission.
“Come here,” Blythe patted the bed next to her.
“I’m more nervous now than I was at the hospital, Blythe. I don’t want to do anything to hurt you.”
“Then get over here and hold me. If you don’t, you’ll hurt me more.”
“Wow,” Lyric rested her elbows on the counter in front of her and put her head in her hands.
Maybe he’d been wrong to tell her. Maybe she was judging him. He wished she’d say something other than wow.
She stood up and put her hands on his shoulders. “I gotta tell ya, as bad as this seems to you, and as bad as it seems to Tucker, it’s something you have to talk about, and get it over with. Rosa wasn’t who Tucker thought she was, and he needs to know that.”
“I’m not who he thought I was either.”
“Gotta say, you were a shit, but come on, you were what? Seventeen, eighteen?
Jace let out a huge breath. He hadn’t realized how long he’d been holding it.
“I’m not sure he’ll ever forgive me.”
“He will, Jace. Maybe not as quickly as you want him to, but he will.”
“They’re at Paige and Mark’s. Paige said they both fell asleep about a half hour after they got there.” Lyric told Jace after she got off the phone.
“How’s Blythe?”
“Good. She’ll be on bed rest for a while.”
“Did she say anything else?”
“She said the two of them seemed happy. Peaceful. Oh, and she told us to stop over later if we wanted to. I didn’t say one way or another.”
“She knows we’re together?”
> “Jace, it isn’t that unusual. We’ve all been spending time together lately. It might not be a good idea for you to see Tucker until he’s ready, but everything isn’t a conspiracy, ya know.”
“Was Bree there?”