The girls moseyed into the drawing room, carrying a homemade funnel cake and an awkward silence like a half-dead animal behind them. Luna refused to look up from her book, acting completely oblivious to the situation.

Daria pinned me with a death glare from the couch, curled around her fiancé. “Smooth, Cole.”

“Also thick, long, and hard. Your point?” I flashed her a smirk, whispering under my breath.

“Astalis.” Vaughn stood up.

Didn’t take a genius to know which sister he was referring to.

Lenora offered him a steadfast gaze. “Spencer.”

“Did you make the funnel cake?”

“No, why?”

“I would very much like to see my family and friends avoid being poisoned this Christmas,” he quipped.

“Lo and behold, he does have a heart. Would you believe I am literally surprised to hear that?”

“I might not know my insects, but you clearly have no clue what the word literally means. A quick word,” he demanded.

“I know quite a few.”

“I’m well aware.”

“Why is Vaughn talking British now?” Daria mumbled, looking around, dumbfounded.

Emilia and Baron stared at their son and the English girl, fascinated. It was like watching a car crash—or your pet Chihuahua standing up on two legs, reading Shakespearean poetry while sipping on black tea.

“Shall we…” she said at the same time he huffed, “Let’s go upstairs to…”

I glanced at Luna. Her eyes were still stuck on a page, but she was grinning.

Lenny nodded. “After you.”

They disappeared upstairs, leaving the rest of us in the drawing room.

I made quick introductions, noting the chilly smiles the Rexroths offered my girlfriend, before retiring to the backyard with Penn, Daria, Via (Penn’s sister), and my new best friend of late, beer. Daria invited Luna. She politely declined.

An hour later, I went in for a quick bathroom break. It was locked. Instead of going to any of the others, I waited. Luna opened the door a minute later, her eyes red-rimmed.

“Yo,” I said. Which sounded horribly stupid.

She bypassed me, but I snagged her wrist. Her shoulder pressed against my chest.

I grumbled into her ear, “I’m sorry.”

She froze in her spot, staring at an invisible dot on the opposite wall.

“I am. I do. I…” I shook my head. “I didn’t mean it, last time we saw each other.”

“Which part?” She looked up at me, her eyes a shade darker.

“The words. Only the words. Not the kiss.” I did mean the kiss.

“Why are you still with Poppy, then?”

If nothing else, her directness was admirable.

“Because forgiving you comes with a price I’m not willing to pay,” I admitted.

“I never asked you to forgive me.”

I smiled tiredly. “See?”

She shook her head, slipping from me. From us. But I wasn’t ready. I wanted her tortured, not gone.

“Ride or die, Luna Rexroth,” I yelled to her back. “You’re my ride or die.”

There was nothing I wanted more than to avoid the Cole residence until I flew back to Boon, but I couldn’t deny Rosie.

In her defense, she had pointed out in a text message that Knight wasn’t going to be home. I felt stupidly grateful. Rosie’s only request had been that I bring a blank notebook and a pen.

I showed up at her doorstep at six in the evening, wondering if Knight was with Poppy, then reminding myself I wasn’t supposed to care. Lev led me to Rosie’s bedroom upstairs. The Coles’ mansion was a nod to everything soft and southern. The furniture was classily upholstered or painted khaki and beige, with iron and crystal chandeliers everywhere, a vintage pottery collection, and ivy covering the courtyard walls.

As I moved down the vast hallway, a nurse brushed past me, making a quick dash downstairs while rummaging in her bag. My heart twisted in pain. I wondered what it felt like to be just a job for some people.

People who were in charge of your fragile life.

I pushed the bedroom door ajar. Rosie sat on the throne of her bed, looking like death.

I took a step back as I absorbed the image of her gaunt figure and braced against the wall. I’d seen her on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but she’d been wrapped in luxurious gowns and well-tailored coats that had hidden how thin she was. Her cheeks were sunken, her eyes rimmed with dark shadows. She motioned to me with her clubbed finger, holding a piece of used tissue.

“My darling girl.” She smiled through what I could see was great pain.

Gingerly, I stepped into her realm, forcing myself to return a beaming smile. I was so wrapped inside my own heartbreak, I hadn’t fully considered what Knight had had to deal with in my absence.

His mother was dying. That was the blunt, awful truth.

Rosie patted the space at the foot of her bed, and I perched on it, my eyes never leaving hers. She had all kinds of machines hooked up on her nightstand, and an emergency button installed on the wall.

You have a nurse, I wanted to scream, to sob and collapse into her arms. You never had a nurse before.

But I’d die before making it more difficult for her.

“How are you?” I asked instead.

“I’m going through menopause.” She stared skyward. Tears began to pool in her eyes.

I didn’t know what to do. What to say. I hadn’t been expecting that to come out of her mouth. Foolish and self-centered as I was, I thought she wanted to talk to me about Knight, about our obviously strained relationship.

“I’m too young for menopause.”

Rosie wasn’t one to dwell in self-pity, and she’d never once complained about her illness, so I wondered why menopause was the tipping point.

I put my hand on hers. Squeezed. “It’s okay.” Was it, though? “Does Dean know?” I searched her soft eyes.

She shuddered in a breath, nodding and wiping her tears with the tattered tissue, leaving clouds of it on her damp face. “Yes, but I don’t talk to him about it. I don’t talk to any of them about those things. I’m strong for my boys. But sometimes…” She bit her lower lip, her teeth shaking against it to the rhythm of her sobs. “Sometimes I need to break, too.”

“You can always break with me.” I held myself together with everything I had, willing myself not to cry. “Tell me how I can help.”

I meant it with a ferocity I didn’t know I could feel. I wanted Rosie to get better, even if it was obvious she couldn’t. She’d always been there for me—taking Knight and me on playdates and getting me out of my out-of-his-wits, then-single, father’s hands. She’d gifted me special editions of her favorite books on my birthdays—the number of books equal to the age I was celebrating—because she knew I valued her literary opinion. Growing up, when I’d had no clue what to do with my hair, she and Emilia—Vaughn’s mother—had learned how to braid it because they knew how much I hated going in for an appointment with a stranger.

When Edie had stepped into the picture and took over, Rosie still came to braid my hair every few weeks, just to keep seeing me. “Havana Twist or Cornrows?” she’d ask. I’d always signed cornrows. “Good girl. That’s the only thing I know how to do.”