My eyes widened. Alice was going to move in with her boyfriend? But she was, like, our leader. Plus, it wasn’t like we could all stay at Alice’s without her. I panicked. I didn’t want to leave this house. I didn’t want to leave Grace and Julie and Emma and Brenna and Jamie and Audrey and, maybe most of all, Merit. I loved this weird, crazy life we’d made together.

Although I had to hold on to the hope that Dad would be home and we’d be out of here soon anyway, right? Sure, there was no doubt that, in our current situation, Mom and I felt stronger as a part of the mommune. But this was a small stopover for us no matter what happened. And what about Alice? Didn’t I owe it to her to want her to be happy?

“I want to make a life together, Elliott. I swear I do. And I do want to live with you. I’m just trying to figure out how to make it all work.”

Merit’s voice calling “Iris!” made me hang up the phone quickly, which was dumb. For all he knew, I was making a call, not listening to one.

He looked at me suspiciously. “Whatcha doing?”

“Oh, um, I was going to call the girls. They like it.”

“And they didn’t answer so you furiously slammed the phone down?”

I smiled in a way that I hoped was so cute he forgot I was being sketchy. “Thanks for driving me,” I said, hopping off the bed and slipping my shoes on.

“Uh-huh,” he said. “Smooth transition there.” He paused. “Look, Iris, are you sure you should be going to see your dad alone?”

I peered at him. “Asks the boy who got us burner phones?”

“I know, but that’s different. This is jail. It’s not safe. A burner phone isn’t going to, like, shank you in the prison yard.”

“I don’t know what any of that means,” I said as he followed me down the steps.

“Well, I don’t either, but I also don’t want to find out.”

“But see, I’m not going alone. I’m going with you.”

“Going where?” Alice asked from the bottom of the steps. Whoa. How did she beat me downstairs? She was fast. Like sneaky fast. She must have gotten off that phone call really quickly.

“Chloe’s house,” Merit and I said simultaneously, as we’d discussed earlier.

“You are going to Chloe’s house?” Alice asked him.

She had mad mom skills.

“Sophie’s going to be there,” I whispered to Alice.

I wasn’t sure if she bought our lie, but she stopped her questioning. Plus, she was the one lying. Would she really leave? And if so, then what?

“We’ll be home in time for dinner!” I said in a singsong voice as we headed out.