Page 29 of Steadfast

“Why doesn’t she want to hang out with us?”

“I have no idea,” I replied honestly. “Personally, I love hanging with you.”

Aisling smiled.

“You almost done?” I asked. “Sersh and Ro are going to pick the movie without you if you don’t hurry.”

She didn’t reply but dropped the mostly built bed into the tub of Legos. I climbed to my feet and pulled her up with me. Holding her hand, I tugged her toward the door.

“I want to play dice,” she said decisively, following behind me.

“I thought you wanted to play a board game.”

“Well,” she said before going quiet.

“What?”

“I picked that game because it takes a long time,” she confessed sheepishly.

I smiled at her, hiding the way my guts twisted. She’d been trying to keep Mom with her for as long as she could. The memory of Mom acting like June Cleaver for the social worker flashed in my mind, and I thanked God again that the kids hadn’t seen it. Aisling would’ve been over the moon, thinking it was real.

“I like dice better,” Aisling added.

“That’s because you always win,” I teased as we walked down the stairs.

“Aisling wants to play dice?” Cian asked easily from the foot of the stairs, like the last hour hadn’t happened. I forced myself not to smooth my hand over my hair self-consciously.

“Can you get paper and a pen?” I asked, letting go of Aisling as she skipped toward the living room. “I’ll find the dice.”

“She always wins,” he complained as he headed toward the backpacks still lined up by the door. I really needed to go through the supplies left and take an inventory before I finally put those away.

“She deserves the win tonight,” I murmured as I headed toward the junk drawer in the kitchen. I found the dice and spun around to find Cian behind me.

“Sorry I blew up,” he said quietly.

“Understandable.”

“Still.” He was looking over my shoulder. “If I would’ve just kept my mouth shut she would’ve left before you got here, and you wouldn’t have had to deal with that whole thing.”

“It would’ve come up at some point.” I let him off the hook.

“Richie really got you that necklace?”

“Graduation present,” I confirmed.

“It’s pretty,” he mumbled. “You better put it on or hide it.”

He knew Mom had been stealing. I thought I’d shielded him from it. I’d never said anything.

“I will.”

Cian nodded. “Don’t forget the popcorn,” he ordered, turning to leave the room. “Sersh said she wants extra salt.”

We spent the rest of the night playing games, the TV blaring mostly unnoticed. Aisling beat us at dice, Cian killed at poker, and Saoirse won twice at some board game that I’d found at a garage sale—probably because she was the only one who seemed to understand the directions.

Ronan and Saoirse eventually fell asleep on the floor, so I ended up on the couch for the night in case Mom came home. I didn’t want them dealing with her alone, and I didn’t have the heart to wake them up. Cian carried Aisling upstairs to bed, promising her as they left that she could sleep in his room on Ronan’s bed.

Checking my phone, I realized Richie had texted me a few times, and I replied to them while I walked around, making sure all our windows were shut and the doors were locked. In a couple of hours, it would be hot as hell in the house, but I was too scared to leave the windows open downstairs. I crawled onto the couch and stared at my phone, glad that I’d been able to turn the night around.

---