I cringe, my shoulders tensing with the loudness of her voice. She releases me, just so she can walk around me. Standing in front of me, her sadness gone, replaced with anger and strength, she lifts her chin. “I did that, Dylan! I ignored what was happening to you, and to us, and look where it got us. I hated it. I hated that distance you created when all I wanted to be was enough.”

“Riley—”

“And now you’re about to do it again. You’re about to push me away and—” She inhales deeply. “Why aren’t I enough, Dylan?”

I drop the crutches, drop the bullshit pretenses and hold her face in my hands, forcing her to look at me. “Riley. I’m here because I need you. I’m here because you’re the only thing I need. You’re enough, babe. You’re everything!”

I don’t know how long we stand there, our breaths mingling, our eyes locked, our hearts beating, my hands on her face, hers circling my wrists before she narrows her eyes and lifts her chin with strength I’d once stolen from her. “Well?” she snaps.

“Well what?”

“Are you going to fucking kiss me because I have no problem throwing shit at you just because your leg’s in a cast!”

“Fuck, I love you!”

I dip my head, watching her eyes drift shut before knock knock knock.

Sydney and Eric check in on me, so does Dad. For some reason, they refuse to leave. Meaning Riley and my moment in the kitchen is on pause. But that doesn’t stop the build up, physical and emotional, of the things we want. The things we need.

She sits next to me, my hand on her leg, her eyebrows pinched. “B9,” she says.

Dad grunts.

“Did I?” she squeals, her hands raised in victory.

Dad grunts again.

She points at him. “I sunk your battleship! Say it, Mal!” she says through a laugh.

“Yeah, Dad!” Eric chimes in, walking into the living room with sandwiches a foot high. “Say it!”

Another grunt. “Fine! You sunk my battleship.”

Riley leans into me, her mouth pressed against my arm to muffle her cackle.

Dad drops his head and covers his eyes, but beneath his hands his beard shifts, revealing his smile. “You got me good, Riley.”

Riley laughs harder.

The front door opens and Holly steps in, her eyes widening when she sees all of us taking up every space of her living room. Then she smiles. “Perfect. You’re all here.”

Eric does his best to tidy up the mess we’d made in her living room in the few hours she’d been gone but it doesn’t seem to matter because she walks through the living room and into the kitchen. “Let’s talk,” she says, her voice firm.

Riley grasps my hand, helping me to stand, and like disobedient children, we file into the kitchen in a single line, Dad included, and each take a seat at the kitchen table.

Holly stands.

Dad grunts.

Eric chokes on a piece of ham.

Sydney sighs.

Riley won’t let go of my hand under the table.

And me? Honestly? I’m fucking shitting myself.

“So,” Holly says, pacing the small amount of space between the table and the kitchen counter. “I’ve had some time to think about things and firstly, I just need you all to know that my decision to take Riley home with me was not at all to separate the two of you long term. Do you understand?”

I look at Dad.

“Dylan?” Holly snaps, and I jump in my seat. “Do you understand?”

“Yes, Ma’am!”

Eric attempts to stifle his laugh. I glare at him. Fuck, I’d love to see him in this situation.

I squirm in my seat, my palms sweaty.

Holly sighs. “Good. Now that that’s out of the way, we can discuss living arrangements.”

I stare blankly at her.

“You are to stay here, at least until your leg is out of the cast. Even though I’m sure Eric, Mal and Syd visited you often, I never liked the idea of you living in that house alone. If something happened…” She shudders. “So?”

I look at Dad again. I don’t know why I feel like he’s somehow going to save me.

“Dylan!” she snaps.

I jump. Again. “Yes, Ma’am.”

Eric chuckles. “D, you’re twenty-four and still need a babysitter.

Sydney slaps his chest.

Dad grunts.

Holly says, “Eric, you’re almost thirty, still live at home and still check the mail in nothing but your Spiderman underwear.”

* * *

It’s ridiculously hard to imagine settling into a routine living in a house that’s not yours, with two women… especially considering I’ve spent the majority of the past year with twelve cursing men who piss and shit in the open.

I feel like I’ll be walking, or limping, or hobbling—whatever—on eggshells.

So I guess it’s kind of a good thing that Holly invites my family to stay for dinner and even a few epic rounds of Battleship. It’s a game Dad taught Eric and Eric taught me, and the only game Eric and I could really play together considering our age difference and his lack of imagination.

I’m assuming Battleship was played quite a bit while I was gone because a notebook that’d been used as a scorecard comes out and the games turn pretty serious. Even to the point where Eric goes over to their house and brings back a bright pink wooden contraption that sits between and around both boards—for extra secrecy, I guess. I’m not really sure what goes on for the four hours they play… but I do know one thing—our families are fucking crazy.

Riley stays by my side throughout all fifteen games, my hand on her leg and her side pressed against mine. We don’t speak, at least not to each other, and when midnight comes around and we all call it a night, I finally get what I’d been craving for since the moment she ordered me to kiss her in the middle of her kitchen.

“Good night, Dylan,” she says, lying in bed, resting her head on my shoulder and her arm on my chest. She leans up, kisses me once on the lips, and then smiles. “Batter up, rookie.”

“Batter up?”

“You gotta earn that home run.”

Two minutes later, she’s out like a light.

And a few minutes after that, so am I.

Fifty-Four

Dylan

“Morning Dylan,” Holly says from behind me. I drop the mug in my hand, coffee spilling, ceramic shattering on the floor.

“I’m sorry.”

I blink hard, the images slowly fading. “No, it’s my fault,” I mutter, turning to her.

She’s on the floor, a dish cloth in her hand as she picks up the pieces of the mug and starts wiping the blood off the floor. “Dylan?”

I can’t take my eyes off the blood.

She stands quickly, reaching for me and I step back, my ass hitting the counter.

“Dylan?”

There’s so much blood. “I fucking failed, Dylan!”

“Dylan!”

I gasp, choking on a breath as her hands find my shoulders, her face in my vision, her eyes like Riley’s—back when she loved me. Before she feared me.

“Hi.”

I drop my gaze. She can’t see me. Not like this.