Page 77 of Well Aware

“Of course you’re here.” He sighed. “Magnolia, get off your feet. Mom, meet Iris. My best friend.”

Iris lifted her head up and smiled.

“Hi,” she signed.

Expertly, Olive signed back to my girl.

“Hi, I’m Grandma Olive.”

And for some reason, I didn’t correct her.

Because, if this was going where I thought it might, she’d spoken the truth.

It gave me a squishy, excited feeling inside my chest to realize, too.

NINETEEN

I’m awake and ready to be a problem.

—Text from Magnolia to Beau

BEAU

I had two sleeping girls in my bed, and both of them were taking up the majority of the king-size mattress.

Gently as I could, I moved Iris farther into the middle of the bed, then crawled into the small space that I was allotted.

I’d just closed my eyes, exhaustion deep set in my bones, when my phone started to vibrate on the table next to my face.

I reluctantly hit accept and walked back out of the room, stubbing my toe on the tiny shoe that was in the middle of the hallway. One that I’d seen, but chose to leave because I was too tired to pick it up earlier.

Cursing, I answered the phone slightly breathless. “What’s up, Black?”

Black sighed. “Hate to wake you up but…got a minute?”

Instead of answering, I slipped outside onto the back patio so I could speak without waking up the whole house. “What’s up?”

“Got a call about thirty minutes ago,” he said. “It’s Magnolia’s place.”

I blinked. “What about it?”

“Drunk and disorderly out front,” he said. “Name’s Eloy Wilkinson.”

I groaned. “That’s Magnolia’s ex.”

“Well, I brought him in and he’s airing out in the drunk tank,” he said. “But someone’s already come by to bail him out. I had to explain that he couldn’t get out until he was arraigned in the morning.”

“Who tried to bail him out?” I wondered.

He paused as he looked for the name. “A one…Cain McDuff.”

My stomach soured. “Fuck.”

“What?” Black asked.

I rubbed at my forehead. “How drunk was Eloy?”

“Sloshed,” he said. “Got the code to his phone, though. He was very helpful in providing that for us. Let me see if he made any calls.” He paused. “Do the two know each other?”