“I promise I’ll keep you updated. I made you some chicken noodle soup. It’s in a container near the other provisions. I’ll ask your uncle to report back if you haven’t touched it, so no funny business. Don’t worry, honey. She’ll get well.”

“She can’t get well.” I smiled bitterly, my eyes darkening. “We both know that, Aunt Em.”

Emilia’s throat bobbed with a swallow. She looked down. Why did people do that? Look down when things got too real? What was on the ground that was so fascinating, other than my mother’s impending grave?

“But she can get worse,” Aunt Em whispered.

She stepped into the house then, pushing the door closed in my face before pausing. “Oh, and I’m not sure what your current status is, but if you’ve decided to pull your head out of your butt and you’re swinging by Luna’s, please send her my condolences and let her know I’m here if she needs me.”

I was midstride when I turned around sharply, pushing the door back open.

“Condolences?” I could feel my eyeballs dancing in their sockets.

Emilia dropped her paper bags, peaches and garlic rolling on the floor.

Our parents had refused to get the memo that Luna and I were no longer BFFs or whatever bullshit term they called us. But that didn’t bother me as much as the notion that something bad had happened. Condolences meant one thing.

“What’s going on?” I braced my arm against the door, making sure she knew she couldn’t get rid of me before she explained herself.

I was burning like a thousand angry suns on their galactic period. The fever had come out of nowhere. Vaughn said it was probably because I’d nearly combusted watching Luna make out with Daria the other night.

When Aunt Emilia didn’t answer immediately, I stepped back into the house, ignoring my general dizziness. Getting into her face, I bared my teeth.

“Speak.”

I knew if Uncle Vicious ever found out I’d behaved even mildly aggressively with her, he’d castrate me and make dangling earrings out of my balls for his pretty wife.

Emilia’s jaw tightened. “Step back, boy,” she growled.

Maybe she didn’t need Uncle Vicious to make the earrings for her.

I decided to step back, because it was the quickest way to make her talk.

“Her birth mother, Val, died.”

“Jesus.” I covered my mouth, running my palm along my face. “How is she coping?”

Moonshine was entirely unpredictable when it came to Val, so I didn’t know the level of devastation I was dealing with here. I just knew she’d been looking for Val, and now she’d found her—probably not in the state she needed her to be.

“I thought you could fill me in. Edie hired a private investigator, and that’s what he came back with.” Emilia frowned. “How do you not know this, Knight? You used to be like siblings.”

Siblings, my ass. I needed to see Luna. Now.

Hold on a second—did I? Because last time we hung out, she’d yelled at my ass.

Yeah.

No.

I needed to.

Crisis trumped anything else. Even my mansion-sized ego.

Fuuuck.

She quickly amended. “Soulmates.”

“Thanks for making it creepy.”

“She needs you.”

“Tough luck.”

I could be a stubborn motherfucker. So no then? Not going to Luna?

Shit. I needed a fortune cookie to make the decision for me, or something.

“This can’t be about a little college fling. What really happened, Knight?”

Everything. Everything happened.

Luna had moved on. I’d stayed behind. Mom got sicker. Dixie was healthy and pushy and depressingly alive. Apparently, God had a twisted sense of humor, and the joke was on me.

Emilia cupped my cheeks, pulling me closer. I was over a head and a half taller, but she still looked every inch the person in charge between us. It was in her eyes. They were like the ocean on a perfect summer day. Flat and blue and calmer than anything life could throw at them.

“You’re so stubborn. So…tunnel-visioned. You’re such a…”

“Cunt?” I offered indifferently.

“A guy.” She bit her barely contained smile. “We always thought we were going to have girls, Rosie and me.”

I couldn’t help but smirk, mainly because all they had were boys. And we were about the most testosterone-filled creatures in the history of mankind. Sometimes I wondered if I had blood or jizz in my veins.

“Sorry to disappoint. Then again, I was adopted. Mom, at least, had a choice.”

“There was never any doubt you were a Cole, Knight. You weren’t a choice; you were destiny.”

I waved her off. Mom and Emilia had the tendency to go full-blown This is Us on my ass when I brought up the A-word (adoption). I never understood why they were so butthurt about it. It wasn’t like they’d fucked some random and given me away.

“Speaking of adoption, are you sure your son is yours? Because you’re like oil and water.” I tried to disconnect from her embrace, but the Leblanc sisters, for all their tininess, cuddled like Olympic wrestlers.

“Yup. I have four stretch marks to prove it.”

“I bet he carved his name on the walls of your uterus, too, warning off any potential future siblings. The bastard.”

Aunt Em laughed, her bright blue eyes shimmering with joy. She had Mom’s laugh, and I could already see myself making her laugh when Mom wasn’t around anymore, just to get a taste.

“What’s so funny?” I frowned, finally managing to pull back.

“I bet you didn’t mean to say the uterus thing out loud.”

Shit. “Sorry. My filters are broken.”

“Your manners, too. You know I love you like a son, but you need to get your butt out of here.” She smacked said butt lightly.

I did. I knew that. But I was feeling particularly loyal to Mom, and particularly vindictive about the rest of the world.

“I only have one mother.”

Burning.

I was burning.

Like a nice, hot vacation in hell.

I woke up with my blanket sticking to my body, glued by cold sweat. Everything was so wet, for a second I thought I’d pissed the bed. I ran a hand over my head and found my hair soaking, like I’d just gotten out of the shower.

I slid out of the bed in the Spencers’ guestroom, still clad in my black Tom Ford sweatpants, and grabbed my joint and a lighter from the nightstand. I slipped my socked feet into a pair of slide sandals. I didn’t bother putting on a shirt. I headed to the kitchen for a glass of water before going on the porch for a smoke, but once I was out of bed, I continued past the kitchen to the front door, tossing it open like a moonstruck monster.

Any more bad ideas, assface?

Fresh blood pumped in my veins as I climbed up to Luna’s window for the first time in months, a fucked-up Romeo in a story that was definitely a comedic tragedy. She’d made it clear she wanted nothing to do with me. And I’d made it clear I didn’t care.

I wasn’t done throwing Poppy in her face every chance I got. But it didn’t matter. Emilia was right. Luna needed me. I refused to believe we were two strangers with a past, that our mile-long memories were nothing, that our first kisses were nothing, that the way we molded around each other was nothing, that our blood oath wasn’t worth shit.