Chapter 282 Little makeshift Family..

Chapter 282 Little makeshift Family..
Indigo

Two weeks later

“Mama!”
The word hit me before Lila’s small body did, both of them crashing into me at once as she launched herself across the airport arrivals lounge and straight into my arms. I caught her without thinking, my knees nearly buckling under the force of it, laughing and crying all at once as I buried my face in her hair and breathed her in — that same sweet, familiar smell of her shampoo and something indefinably her, the smell I’d been aching for every single night since we left.

“Pumpkin,” I whispered into her hair, holding her so tight I probably squeezed the air right out of her. “I missed you so much. So, so much.”

“I missed you more!” she declared, pulling back just enough to look up at me, her little face scrunched with the particular seriousness only an eight -year-old could manage. “Grandma Tee said you were coming back different. Are you different, Mama?”

I laughed through the sudden sting behind my eyes. “A little,” I admitted. “A better kind of different, I promise.”

She studied me for a second longer, the way she always did when she was deciding whether to believe something, and then apparently satisfied, she grinned and hugged me again, this time slower, softer, like she just wanted to stay there a while.

When I finally straightened, wiping at my eyes, I found the rest of them waiting a few feet back, all wearing the same soft, expectant smiles, like they’d been holding their breath the same way I had.

Grandma Tee stood at the front of them, leaning lightly on her cane, her silver hair pinned up the way it always was, her eyes glassy the second they met mine. “There she is,” she said, opening one arm toward me. I went to her immediately, careful of her hip, and let her fold me into the kind of hug only a grandmother could give, steady, unhurried, smelling faintly of lavender and something baked. “You had us worried sick, young lady,” she murmured against my temple. Completely disregarding the fact that she hadn’t seen me in almost ten years. “Don’t you dare do that to this family again.”

“I’ll do my best,” I said, laughing wetly against her shoulder.

Rita was next, already reaching for me before I’d fully untangled from Grandma Tee’s arms, practically vibrating with the need to hug me herself. “Girl,” she said, squeezing me hard enough to lift me slightly off my feet, “you scared ten years off my life. Ten. I’m aging in reverse now just to make up for it.” 

I laughed, swatting at her arm, and she pulled back just enough to look me over, her eyes doing that quick, assessing sweep only another woman who loved you could do. “You look tired, but you look like you. That’s a good sign.”

Enzo gave me a much more reserved nod from beside her, his usual quiet self, though the corner of his mouth tugged upward when I threw my arms around him anyway. “Good to have you back, Indigo,” he said simply, patting my back twice like that was the full extent of his emotional vocabulary, and somehow it was exactly enough.

Isaiah caught me next, pulling me into a brief, brotherly hug, all warmth and easy humor even now. “Look who decided to rejoin the land of the living,” he teased, though his eyes lingered on me a beat too long, checking, the way Fabian always did. “Glad you’re back, Indigo. Truly.”

Tamara hugged me last, quieter than the rest, her hand lingering on my arm even after she stepped back. “We prayed for you every single day,” she said softly. “Every single one.”

“Thank you,” I whispered, meaning it more than I could properly say.

I stood there for a long moment, surrounded by all of them, Lila’s small hand tucked back into mine, and something in my chest swelled painfully with how full it all felt. 

It had always just been me and Lila. For years, that had been the entirety of my world, the two of us against everything, no safety net beneath us if we fell. And now here I was, wrapped in an entire household of people who loved me, who had waited at an airport just to see my face again.

Fabian stood a step behind me through all of it, silent, my travel bag slung over one shoulder, watching over the whole reunion like a bodyguard stationed at my back. 

I glanced over my shoulder at him at one point, and the look on his face nearly undid me all over again — pure, quiet contentment, like watching me be loved by everyone around him was its own kind of reward.

I turned back to Lila, still catching her up on nothing in particular, laughing at something Rita said, when I noticed the shift in the room. 

Everyone had gone strangely quiet, all of them smiling now in a way that felt too coordinated to be accidental, a few of them clapping softly like they were trying not to draw attention to themselves. 

I frowned, glancing between their faces, utterly confused, until I followed the direction of their eyes.
And found Fabian on one knee in front of me.

“What—” My voice cracked around the word, my hand flying to my mouth. “What are you doing?”