“Portia needs to go to school.”

“That’s Angelica’s problem.”

At that, I drew in a sharp breath through my nose and held it.

It wasn’t angry or annoyed.

I was trying to fortify myself because he was right.

I had to stand my ground, not just for myself, but for the kids, and in a way, for Angelica too.

I was about to nod when my phone went again.

We both looked down at it and I knew Boone had read the screen because he grunted, “Unh-unh.”

But even if this indicated he was intent to intervene at this juncture, I was who I was.

This was my shit.

So I took the call.

“Brian, listen to—” I began as greeting.

And again, I didn’t get further.

“You’re the one who caused this mess, Ryn,” my brother bit at me. “The least you can do is help during the transition.”

Help during the transition?

What planet were these two living on?

“Let me get this straight,” I said. “I’m done being taken for a ride by you and Angelica. I make that clear. You cut me out of the kids’ lives. And when the kids don’t like that because they love their aunt, you’re not only blaming me for the situation you created, you want me to help straighten it out? When the point is, for all of you, that the kids should not only expect their parents to straighten themselves out, but they deserve that?”

“Why did I know it was a waste of my time, calling you?” Brian asked a question he obviously didn’t want an answer to.

The problem with that was, he was slurring his words.

He either never went to sleep or he was so hammered when he did, he woke up drunk.

“I cannot believe you spread your shit to Mom and Brenda,” he went on.

I did not inform him it was not my shit, but instead, me calling Brian and Angelica out on theirs.

I said, “I’m not talking to you in this state.”

“I’m only in the state you put me in,” he retorted.

“I’m sorry, did I hallucinate working last night? Instead, was I at your place forcing whiskey down your throat?”

“Ryn,” Boone whispered.

I focused on him.

“Hang up the phone, baby,” he went on, just as Brian said, “You’re a piece of fuckin’ work.”

I didn’t hang up the phone.

I told my brother, “I have one hope for you, Brian. One hope for you and your children and even Angelica. And that hope is that one day, you’ll sit in front of me with your sheet of paper, reading it to me about the amends you’re making on your way back to yourself and you don’t feel too much of a total and complete asshole that you’ve treated me this way.”

And yeah.

That was when I hung up.

I also turned off my phone.

Not just the ringer.

The phone.

I wanted to throw it across the room.

I also wanted to leap out of the bed and scream at the top of my lungs.

Not to mention, leap out of bed, put on clothes and haul my ass to Angelica’s to look after Portia and Jethro.

I didn’t do any of that.

I just stared at the black screen of my phone, unable to do anything at all to cope with the overwhelming helplessness I was feeling about people who I loved who were fucked up so huge, in that moment, there was no way to unfuck them.

And how much all of that hurt.

“Ryn.”

I continued to stare at my phone.

“Kathryn, sweetheart, look at me.”

I lifted my eyes to Boone’s.

“So, yeah, I’m that girl you give a shot who’s got so much baggage and shit dragging down on her life, you not only wonder what the hell was wrong with you that you gave it a shot, you contemplate moving to another state to escape her and all her garbage.”

“Not even close,” he said gently.

Man, was he this good of a guy?

“They’re blaming me for all of this,” I told him.

“Of course they are, sweetheart,” he replied. “It’s their MO. They don’t do responsibility.”

He got that right.

“Portia’s a good kid,” I told him. “She looks after her brother. She’s not the kind of kid to throw a tantrum. I just…it freaks me out, Boone, to think what’s happening over there that she’d have this extreme of a reaction to me not being around.”

“Maybe you should call your mom,” he suggested.

“And drag her into this mess?” I asked.

“It’s your call, but she might know what’s going down, if she doesn’t, she might want to know what’s going down or she might need to know, in case they blindside her when they call her to help out.”

“One thing I know is going down is that Brenda didn’t look after the kids this weekend after Angelica tried to pull a fast one. Angelica’s been with them all weekend. And obviously, that didn’t go too good.”

“It’s not your problem, Ryn.”

“They’re my niece and nephew.”

He took my jaw in both hands and put his face in mine. “It sucks. It’s hard. I don’t understand how hard it is, but I get that it’s hard. It’s still not your problem. As hard as it might be on those kids, they have to learn how to be a family, however that comes about, and they can’t do that if you pick up the slack for them financially, emotionally and with your time.”

And another sharp shot of air went up my nose.

“Do you think they’re in danger?” he asked.

That thought hadn’t crossed my mind.

At least not in the conventional sense of the word “danger.”

“No,” I answered. “Angelica loves them. Brian adores them. But neglect is neglect, Boone.”

“And that’s what you’re trying to put a stop to, am I right?”

Shit.

He was right.

And I couldn’t put a stop to it if I came running anytime Angelica called and conned, cajoled or threw a tantrum to get me to play her role when she wasn’t feeling like playing it.

That wasn’t being a mother.

She’d started out as young mom, true.

But she didn’t have that excuse anymore.

She had to learn and me doing it for her wasn’t helping.

I knew that Boone knew I’d come to this conclusion when he touched his forehead to mine briefly before he pulled away and dropped his hands from my jaw.

He was right about something else, of course. Mom should know, if only because she would eventually be up to bat to deal with this situation, if one or the other of them hadn’t already called her to go and deal with the situation.

“I’m gonna call Mom,” I muttered.

“Right, I’ll go make coffee,” Boone replied.

I hit the button to turn on my phone, Boone gave me a kiss that didn’t last very long (sadly), then he got out of bed.

I did not watch my phone boot up.

I watched Boone’s ass in his boxer briefs as he left the room.

Fortunately, I had no voicemails or missed calls in the minutes my phone had been shut down.

Unfortunately, my call to Mom was disconnected before pickup or voicemail, which meant she’d declined it.

And that meant she was on the phone with someone else.