“I don’t want to know her!” he screamed, high and sounding so young the sound was like acid to my soul. “Not today! Not tomorrow! Never! She’s a bitch!” Before I knew it, he was off the carpet and throwing himself on his bed. He yanked his pillow from where it had been sitting and smashed it against his face, screaming into it for several long seconds until he tapered off. His chest started doing that puffing thing again, and I was 99 percent sure he was crying. It killed me. And what he finally said next, slid the knife in even deeper. “Don’t make me go with her. Please. You promised me—you promised me you would always take care of me.”

“Don’t call her a bitch,” I told him calmly, even though I felt anything but that. One of the worst things in the world was watching someone you love fall apart. “I told you, if you don’t want to see her, that’s fine. I’m not going to force you to, but maybe one day when you’re older you might want to. Maybe. I don’t blame you, but I want you to understand that you’re mine. You’re not going anywhere. I didn’t carry you around inside of me for nine months, but that doesn’t mean anything to me. You’re mine, Josh. You’re my Joshy Poo and you always will be. I’ll fight anybody for you who tries to say otherwise. But just because you’re mine doesn’t mean one day—if you want—she can’t be in your life, too. Some people don’t have even one person who cares about them, and you’ve had Mandy, too.”

He was silent. His back was bowed over his pillow, and he was shaking. I had never, ever wanted to kill a person more than I did in that moment. This was what Anita had done to unbendable, resilient Josh. I’d never forgive her for it. His question came out like a croak, muffled and raw. “You promise I’m yours?”

“Josh, you really believe you’re not?” I asked him as I got to my feet and sat on the edge of the bed with him, scooting back until I was lying alongside him, my head resting next to his chest. “I’ve wiped your butt. You’ve thrown up on me. I’ve spent my weekends at your games screaming my voice sore. I’ve hugged you and loved you even when you haven’t been very nice. You’re my d-o-double-g. You’re the peanut butter to my jelly. The pain to my ass—”

I was pretty sure he snorted even with the pillow covering his mouth, but it sounded watered down and hurt.

My own eyes started to get teary. “One day when you’re way older, you’re going to get a girlfriend and I’m going to want to kill the little b-i-t-c-h. I’m going to hate her guts. But you know what? I know at the end of the day, I’m still going to be your number one girl.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because she will never know what it’s like to have put a thermometer in your butt.”

That time, his laugh reached his chest.

“Josh, I love you and Louie, and nothing and no one will ever replace you two losers. I swear on my life. I will lie, cheat, and steal for you, and I always, always will.” I scooted my head closer to him, so the side of my face rested on his rib cage. “You hear me?”

His face was still covered. “Yeah, I guess.”

I’d have to take it. “You better.”

Neither one of us said anything for a while, but eventually the pillow on top of his face fell away, and his hand went to my hair. “Promise, we’ll always be family?”

“Kid, you couldn’t get rid of me if you tried.”

“Even if you have kids one day?”

I wasn’t stupid. I knew where this was coming from, and I’d messed up by not addressing it with him. So I made sure to wrap my arm around his forearm and kiss the soft skin there. “If I ever decide to pop out a baby, he or she is going to be your brother or sister. If you think of them as your cousins, it would break my heart and I’d give you a wedgie until you said otherwise. We’re family. There’s nothing tighter than blood.” I paused, needing to make him laugh. “And vomit. There’s no going back once you’ve been thrown up on.”

He sniffled, and I could sense him nod his agreement.

I swallowed and decided to take advantage of the moment. “I need to tell you something that has nothing to do about what just happened, but about our family, okay?”

“What?” he croaked suspiciously.

“Dallas—”

“Oh.”

“Oh, what?”

“I know about Mr. Dallas already,” he announced.

I sat up and set an elbow under me, watching his puffy, red face as he stared up at the ceiling. “What do you know?”

“He loves you. You love him,” he muttered with an eye roll, glancing down at me briefly before focusing up again. “You know, first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Aunt Di with a baby carriage.”

Uhh, where the hell had that come from? “How… did you know?”

“I have eyes?”

This fucking smart-ass.

“And he told me.”

“What did he tell you?”

He glanced at me from his spot still lying flat on the mattress. “Remember when Jonathan’s mom yelled at you during the tournament and you cried?” How could I forget? “He told me.”

What the hell? “What did he say?”

Josh rolled his eyes, sliding his elbows underneath his shoulders to sit up, bored with this conversation. “I don’t know. He said he liked you—yuck.” I blinked at him. “One day during practice when we saw that dad talking to you, I told him I didn’t like you talking to him, and he said he didn’t either. So I asked him what we should do, and he said nothing because you were never gonna do anything with him and that one day soon, between me and him, none of those jackasses—he said it, not me, don’t get mad—would never bother you again.”