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Little Runner
Where’s his mom?
I glanced in the rearview, at his precious, innocent face.
And there I went, such a fucking fool, laying it out.
Me
She’s dead.
I felt pinned to the seat as I held my phone, waiting for what would come next. Nolan was halfway through telling me about what he’d had for lunch when one finally popped up.
Little Runner
I’m really sorry.
Me
Yeah, me too.
When nothing came through after a couple minutes, I finally forced myself from the driver’s seat, and I rounded to the back andquickly unbuckled Nolan. I swung him into the air before I set him on his feet.
He cracked up like it was the most fun he’d ever had, before he went running through the door and inside the house, shouting for hisauntieas he went.
We’d just finished up dinner and I’d told Nolan to head upstairs to grab a game for us to play when I finally received another text. Warily, I turned my phone over where it was face down on the table.
Little Runner
Did you love her?
Her question felt like a blade was slowly being driven through the center of my chest.
Hands shaking, I tapped out a reply.
Me
No.
Raven was casting me a speculative glance. “Who are you texting?”
“No one,” I grunted.
She laughed, though it wasn’t an agreeable sound. “Sure, sure, big brother. Do you think I haven’t noticed you sneaking around like you’ve got a dirty secret for the last week?”
She shocked the shit out of me when she plucked my phone from my hand and jumped out of her chair.
“What the hell?” I demanded as I pushed to standing, the legs of my chair screeching on the hardwood.
My baby sister danced away from me, spinning it over her head the way she used to do when she wanted to torment me when she was seven. “If you aren’t keeping secrets, then you won’t mind if I take a little peek. I mean, we don’t keep anything from each other, do we?”
I went to snatch it out of her hand, and she ducked the other direction.
“Ah-ha, just what I thought,” she said at my reaction, and from where she was halfway across the room, she turned her attention to my phone.
“Oh,” she murmured quietly as she realized who I was talkingto.
I scraped an agitated hand over the top of my head. “It isn’t what it looks like.”
