Madison spun around, bent down to pin Kylee with her piercing glare. “My son is dying. Now, I don’t know what went down between the two of you, but you and he . . .” She gestured futility. “God, I thought you were inseparable.”

Kylee pursed her lips, nodded. “Yeah. My fault. That he left, I mean. He wasn’t ready.”

“Ready for what?” Chaco asked, shifting, looking sick and on the point of tears.

“To become a man,” Kylee whispered.

“What the hell does that mean?” Madison’s expression had gone volcanic in a way Kylee had never seen.

“Means . . .” Tip whispered from the table, “that part of me still wanted to be a child.”

“You’re sixteen!” Chaco thundered. “You got a right to be a child.”

Madison kept giving Kylee that penetrating look, as if seeing down into Kylee’s soul. “No, Chaco,” she said. “He doesn’t.”

“You don’t know . . . how hard . . .” Tip paused to wince and stifle a cry.

“What’s hard?” Chaco stepped over to take his son’s hand.

Tip’s throat worked. “How hard it is to be worthy. Kylee’s perfect. Remarkable.”

“Am not,” Kylee cried, knotting her hands.

“Yeah,” Tip rasped, a flicker of smile fading on his quivering lips. He fixed her with pain-laced eyes. What she called quetzal eyes, enlarged, like hers. “You know so much. Been so many places. Smart. So fucking competent. It’s like . . . I’m just . . . never . . .”

Kylee felt herself reel. So much falling into place.

Madison was still giving her that look.

Kylee forced herself off the wall, walked over, and took Tip’s free hand. Chaco still clung to the other. She was aware of Chaco’s hot and questioning eyes as she looked down into Tip’s face and asked, “If I’m so goddamned smart, how’d I end up hurting you so badly? You’re my . . . What? Friend doesn’t cover it. Companion sounds formal. Lover isn’t comprehensive enough. I’m trying to say that you’re the only person I can ever be comfortable and safe with. We’re two parts of a whole, Tip. I’m just . . .” She shook her head as she stared down into his eyes. Felt the tears slip past to trace down her cheeks. “Don’t die on me.”

Tip tried to give her that familiar lopsided grin that made things all right. Lost it as his leg trembled. Pain made a mask of his face. Then he caught enough of a breath to say, “Be here when I get back, huh? We’ll try it again.”

“Nope.” She took a deep breath, fought against the smell from his draining leg, and told him, “I’m not letting you down again. I’ll be with you the whole way.” She felt her heart skip. “Even in Port Authority.”

Flute made a tittering sound, his head cocking slightly.