"Have you been eating?" her mom probed, her thick Creole accent kicking in.

Solace sighed tiredly into the phone at her mother's questioning. "Yes, Manman. I'm eating perfectly fine."

"Are you sure you don't want to come to Montreal with us? It'll be our first Christmas apart, lapen mwen," she said worriedly.

Solace smiled at the nickname – my rabbit. As a child, she had a weird obsession with carrots after her optometrist told her they were good for her eyes. With the fear of glasses, she ate them with every meal. Her vision was perfect, so something worked. "I'll be okay here. Emi and I were going to check out the holiday lights at Faneuil Hall. I'll call you on Christmas morning, too."

"Bon, bon. And school? I hope you're focusing with your exams coming."

"It's me. Of course I am." Full disclosure, Solace couldn't allot as much time as she wanted to study with Sage being a full-time responsibility, but her schedules were always excessive. She studied more than she had to, but she liked being overly prepared. "How's everybody else?"

Her mom exhaled loudly as if she had been holding in whatever she was about to say for weeks. "Your dad has been eating too much salt even though his blood pressure is so high. That man never listens."

"Do not complain about me to my own daughter," her dad suddenly yelled in the background. Solace winced when shouting, rustling, and possibly running ensued on the other end of the call. Her dad took over the call as he spoke breathlessly. "She is so fast."

"Alo Papa," Solace laughed, rolling onto her side on the bed and hugging the comforter to her chest. "Maybe if you listened to Manman and cut down on the salt and exercised, it wouldn't be a problem."

He huffed. "I do exercise. Every day. Me and Akio go on runs." Akio was Emi's father, and now Solace's dad's apparent workout buddy.

Her mother howled with laughter in the back. "They walk. To the donut shop."

"Leave me alone, Edmée," her dad grumbled. "I have more important things to talk about with Solace. Did you hear that Constance is going to school for dance? What kind of career is that, right?"

She rolled her eyes. Unlike her parents, she was happy for her cousin, who was doing what she wanted. Behind that happiness trailed bitterness. She wished she had the guts to go after what she loved without the fear of failure. Solace was her own barrier. If she ever figured out how to dismantle the hurdle of being herself, only then would she dare speak to her mom and dad.

"I told her mother that you were at Harvard with a scholarship. That you were going to become a big politician." That wasn't exactly what she was going to do, but parents always did love exaggerating their children's successes.

"Is Lou there?" Solace asked, attempting to get out of the conversation. As much as the future worried her, talking about it with them worried her even more. Doubts would grow, stirring with her anxiety and concerns, turning her into a ball of jittery restlessness. A tense Solace was more high-strung than usual.

"Louis, come talk to Solace!" screamed her dad, causing her to wince and move the phone inches away from her ear. She heard the pattering of feet jogging up the stairs and a door slamming open.

There were a few disgruntled sighs over the phone until Louis spoke. "What's up, dork? How's Boston treating you?"

A small smile curled at her lips. At 15, he thought he was cooler and smarter than her. It didn't help that he towered over her. It should be illegal for younger siblings to be taller. It granted them too much power. "I'm surprised you didn't ask me about Emi."

"That was my second question. I had to lead with you, so you'd think I care about you," he remarked.

Solace scoffed. Louis had the fattest crush on Emi. It started when she spared him a minute and played some sort of video game two years ago. Ever since that day, he'd been obsessed. Emi thought it was cute and flattering, which only fueled his crush. "I'm doing great, thanks for asking."

"And Emi?"

"She's fine."

"Does she ask about me?"

"No."

"Solace, you have to talk about me to her," Louis stressed. "Hype me up."

"I'm not setting you up with Emi. She's four years older than you and not interested." He began listing off how age is just a number and that she would love him once he was a rich entrepreneur, but Solace's attention shifted over to the screaming and banging in the living room. Please, I can't deal with this. Can I not have one peaceful day?

"Louis," she said, cutting off his rant about his twenty-step plan to make Emi fall in love with him, "how is the Reyes family?"

"You mean the family of the kid who disappeared?"

"Sage. His name is Sage," she said quietly, sitting up in bed and tracing patterns on her comforter.

"Okay, don't get all testy. I thought you hated the guy."

It irked her how nonchalant he was being. But wasn't I like that? To him, Sage was still a notion, a faraway thing that didn't affect him in any manner and was only remembered through the lame memorial at their high school. It was a completely different thing to have the boy everyone thought was dead sleeping on her couch and eating her food. "Just answer the question, Lou."

"I don't know. They're still living in the same house. I can ask Jabari. He helps coach my basketball team during the break. I think he visits the Reyes' pretty often."

Solace considered texting Jabari. The last thing she heard, he was at Brown on a basketball scholarship after he took over Sage's position as captain. She hadn't talked to him since graduation, and it would be unusual to pop out of the blue, asking about the family. It was better if Louis did it. "Yeah, talk to him. Ask him how he's doing, too."

"Sure, but why?" he asked curiously.

Truthfully, she felt selfish for not keeping up with them. Solace owed them nothing. She wasn't close to their son, and Jabari and she only became friends after Sage went missing. The only time she talked to his parents was during the search parties, and they were surface-level conversations at best. She had no fealty to them, yet she could've done more. And did Sage know how his family was? How his best friend was doing? That annoying prick deserved to know.

"No reason. Just wondering," she said dismissively. And there it was. Another loud yelp and the booming of her pots. He was going to destroy my home. "Listen, I gotta go. I'll talk to you all later." Without waiting for a goodbye, she ended the call and dramatically fell back onto her bed.

A strangled noise left her when Sage yelled, Emi snickered, and a toddler screamed. Wait, a toddler? Did they kidnap a child? Lord, help me. I can't be associated with baby-napping, too. The list of crimes is just piling up, huh. Solace wanted to tune all of it out and let them do whatever the hell they were doing out there. The bed was soft, and maybe she could pretend she was back on her vacation in Haiti, lying on the hammock on Bassin Bleu, a beautiful waterfall that took up too much memory on her camera roll. But the sounds were just getting louder, and her patient was wearing thinner.

Wrapping her blanket around her shoulders and hugging it tightly, she sulkily scrambled down the short hallway, and what she saw made her want to turn back around, lock her bedroom door, and sleep. Kyo, Emi's baby cousin whom they occasionally looked after, had somehow shoved his chubby little body into a pot and was using the lids as if they were cymbals. Sage was sitting on the floor, frustrated, and trying to rip them out of his hands as gently as possible without making the child cry. Emi, on the other hand, was recording them, her hands shaking from laughter.

"I didn't know we were babysitting Kyo today," Solace said, taking a seat beside Emi.

"Gina dropped him off when she got called into work last minute. Said she'll pay us double," smirked Emi, taking a side of her blanket and snuggling in.

"Double is not enough," grumbled Sage, poking Kyo in his forehead in which the baby only giggled and slammed the lids even harder. He glanced up at Solace. "I told him not to play with your pots, but he didn't listen. Babies are dumb."

Solace's mouth wavered into a smile. "I don't think that's a socially acceptable thing to say."

"I don't give a shit," he shrugged and bent forward to make direct eye contact with Kyo, his chain dangling out of his t-shirt. "You're dumb." The toddler laughed loudly, his cheeks bubbling up in delight. His lids-now-turned-cymbals banged, and all three of them winced at the screeching sound. Sage gritted his teeth and grabbed them from him. "No more for you."

She brought her legs to her chest, savoring the sound of quiet. Kyo, who sat in the middle of the three, glanced at her and Emi as if he hoped one of them would take back the lids from the bad guy. Solace was not going to be it, but then his bottom lip started to quiver, and he looked all too cute. She didn't love children. They were annoying and too needy, in her opinion. But babies were adorable when I could return them to their rightful owner.

"He's going to cry now," sang Emi, angling her phone at Sage, who glowered.

"He's using a clear manipulative tactic to guilt us into giving him the lids back," he explained with full seriousness.

Solace gave him a look. "He's a baby. Not a seasoned contract killer."

"You gotta start them young."

At that moment, Kyo, in fact started to cry. Like absolutely bawling his eyes out. His screeching, snot-filled nose, and teary cheeks were ten times more irritating than the banging of the lids. Solace turned her bored gaze from him to Sage, who gripped the lids tightly as if he would rather bash his head in with them than give them to Kyo. But as the crying continued, Sage's resilience weakened.

"Here take it, you conniving demon," Sage hissed and handed them the lids.

The crying immediately stopped, and the slamming of the lids began again.

"Can we lock him in the closet?" he wondered.

"That's child abuse," Emi pointed out.

"We can give him some food and put some Netflix on for him. He'll love it," Sage defended, leaning back against the kitchen cabinets and crossing his arms. "What do babies eat anyway? Chips and guac? Pupusas? Hey, baby," he called out. "Do you like Mexican food?"

Kyo nodded, almost as if he understood the question. Solace watched as Sage's eyes lit up, and he chuckled at the response. Emi nudged her in the side, shaking her head as they communicated with expressions at how terrible he was with babies. Now, she wasn't great, but she knew enough to keep them alive and well for a few hours.

"You're not so bad," Sage said, tilting his head and moving closer to Kyo.

The toddler stuck his tongue out and proceeded to smack Sage in the face with the metal lids.

Solace laughed loudly at how his face contorted into one of regret and exasperation. She brought her hand to her mouth, using the other to smack Emi's knee in joy. Maybe babies weren't terrible after all.

"To the closet he goes," finalized Sage, standing up and walked over to it, sliding it open for a few objects to fall on his head: a cheetah-print scarf, a book on the history of quilts, a mannequin arm, and an expired coupon book for free tires.

Sage Reyes, a boy who charmed everyone, couldn't even charm a baby.

***

Author's Note:

Hi everyone!

We got two more chapters before the only heist begins! It's just a bit slow since I want the painting process to be realistic! I hope the chapters are entertaining enough!

I'll give you a hint for Monday's chapter! It consists of pictures with Santa LOL.

Until next time – m.k.t