Page 81 of Unleashed

Quick question--just so I know what to expect tomorrow. Are you the only one in the bed?

Maren

Of course I’m the only one in the bed! My sister is here.

Ruth

Oh no! I’ve been sleeping in bed with Tucker for months now with Birdie right down the hall. I didn’t realize there was a law against finally finding some freaking happiness for ourselves.

Maren

Wow. That was unnecessarily aggressive.

Ruth

Seems like it was pretty necessary to me.

25

Trevor

Ijudged Tucker a little for moving Ruth and Birdie into his house the way he did. Thought my brother had lost his fucking mind. Even when I believed their relationship was real, his eagerness to have them under the same roof baffled the fuck out of me.

I am completely and totally unbaffled now.

Honestly, I don’t know why he didn’t move them in sooner.

My baby brother did have company more than I ever have, but taking a random woman home for one night versus providing for a specific woman and her sister indefinitely? Those are two very different things.

And the difference between waking up alone in an empty house and waking up to a five-year-old waiting to grill you about how the remote on the television in their room works? That’s even more dramatic.

“Trevor,” Zara whisper-yells. “I can’t make my TV work.”

I dig the heel of one hand into my eye, trying to work myself a little more awake. “Do you always wake up this early?”

“Yes.” She waggles the remote in front of my face. “Can you help me?”

“Sure.” I take the device before it lands on my cornea. Sitting up with a yawn, I grab my cell from where it’s plugged in on my nightstand. “You know it’s five thirty in the morning, right?”

“I know how to tell time.” Her tone is indignant. “Maren taught me.”

“That sounds about right.” I usually sleep until six, but it looks like that’s not in the cards for this morning. “You’ve got a pretty good sister, you know that?”

“I know.” Zara shifts back a little as I fumble my way out of bed. “She’s a better mom than a lot of moms.”

“You can say that again.” I normally make my bed the second I’m out of it, but it won’t kill me to skip a morning. “You hungry for breakfast?”

“I already had breakfast.”

That makes me pause. “Yeah?” I look over her pajamas in search of a hint at what she consumed. “Where did you get breakfast?”

“Nana DeeDee brought it to me.” Zara swipes at a strand of hair that’s fallen from the braid Maren worked into her hair before bed. “Yesterday she showed me how to call her on my tablet, so I called her and told her I was hungry.”

I can see the whole interaction in my mind. Can one hundred percent envision my mother doing all of that and more.

And it has me laughing out loud.

Because Maren’s gonna lose her shit over it.