I checked the peephole and pulled back. What the heck was Mom doing here? I opened the door, and Gus came flying around her, tackling me with a sticky hug. “Ice cream?” I laughed.

“I totally ate yours.”

I ruffled my fingers through his curls. “I’m totally cool with that.”

Mom looked me up and down. “Late night?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Afternoon checkups never happened at Boulder.”

She bowed her head with a smile. “Touché.”

I motioned her inside, and she stepped in, dressed, hair and makeup done. She was healing. “It’s nice,” she said, her eyes sweeping over our apartment.

“Thanks, Mom.”

“Mrs. Howard,” Sam mumbled as she sat up.

“There’s your late night,” I whispered at my mother.

Mom laughed quietly. “Her mother would definitely not approve.”

“Here’s the deal, Mom.” I crossed to the refrigerator, pulled out a Sprite, and pushed it toward Gus. “You show up on the weekend, you keep the secrets.”

“Deal.” She fidgeted with her phone. “I have an appointment for your sister. Do you think Gus could stay with you for a couple hours?”

“An appointment on a Saturday?”

“We thought it best that she start seeing someone, especially after I found those credit card bills you paid off while I wasn’t quite myself.”

I cringed. “I didn’t know how to tell you.”

“You did just fine. Better than I could have ever dreamed. I confiscated everything she bought. She’s buying it back a bit at a time, and seeing the psychologist is part of that. It wouldn’t hurt you to, either, you know.” She forced a smile, like she hadn’t just suggested I go to therapy.

I blatantly ignored her and turned to see Gus staring at Sam’s glittery eye mask. “Gus, you want to hang with me for a bit?”

“Yeah!”

“He’s cool, Mom. Sam, there’s no point trying to sleep. He’ll start poking at you in five minutes.”

“Rawr!” she growled at Gus and pulled him down, locking her arms around him as he struggled playfully to get away.

“Thank you, Ember.”

“No problem. That’s why I moved back here, Mom. To help out.”

Her cool hand stroked down my face like I was five again, and the light caught the diamond of her wedding set. “I want you to live your life, too.”

I thought of Josh, and the way he’d worshipped my body last night. Mom would die if she knew. “I am. Don’t worry so much about me.”

“I never have to worry about you. You’re more put together than half the population. Gus! I’ll be back in two hours. Don’t you dare act up.”

“Bye!” he managed through his laughter.

Mom gave me a hug and headed out the door.

I snagged Gus out of Sam’s arms. “Sam, if you’re going to attack my baby brother, you at least have to smell decent. Shower. Now. Before child protective services gets called on us.”

She flipped me the middle finger when Gus ran into my room and went for the shower.

“Can we watch this?” He held up a DVD of a horribly gory movie he took from the bookcase in my bedroom.

“Nope.”

He grabbed the envelope from the top, and his expression puckered. “You haven’t read Dad’s letter yet?”

I shook my head. “Not ready, yet. I will.”

He nodded. “It’s okay to do things at your own pace.” My brother, the sage.

“Did you like yours?”

He nodded, his head stuck further into my DVD collection. “He loves me, but I already knew that. He said he sent me my own soldier-guardian almost-angel. At least, that’s what he called him. How cool is that?”

Sometimes I just didn’t speak seven year old. “Awesome, buddy.”

“Iron Man?”

“Sounds like a plan.” We popped it into the player, and I pulled him back onto my lap. I breathed in the sunshine scent of his hair, like taking a shot of pure joy, and smiled as it raced through me.

Sam came back in, freshly showered and perky, with a towel wrapped like a turban around her head. “That shower sure helped you.”

“Well, I figured we’d have to get ready for the hockey game, right?”

Gus slurped at his Sprite, but I didn’t bother to correct him. That’s what moms were for. Big sisters were for movies and contraband soft drinks.

“I don’t think I’m going tonight.”

“What?” Sam dropped her jaw. “You’re like the girlfriend of the star player, and you’re not going? What’s he going to think? I’ll tell you what. He’s going to think that he’s awful in—”

I threw a pillow at her face before she could finish the sentence. “He’s doing something for his scholarship and won’t be back until tomorrow night.”

“Well, that sucks. What do you think he’s doing?”

“Not sure.” As I shook my head, my chin rubbed across Gus’s head. He leaned further against me, more engrossed in Tony Stark and his soda than anything. “I’m just hoping it’s not his leg. I don’t know what he’d do if he lost his scholarship.”

“You and Coach Walker? That’s cool. Gross, but cool. He got shot, you know,” Gus announced. “Coach Walker did.”