It’s nearly two o’clock when we draw close to my parents’ house. My car rolls slowly down the tranquil residential streets lined with mature pine and oak trees, manicured lawns, and large homes in a variety of styles and colors—some dark brick, some wooden houses painted neutral colors, and here and there, a few stuccos.
I was born here in Green Hills, a suburb about an hour’s drive inland from San Francisco, and my family moved to this part of town while I was still so little that I can’t remember having lived anywhere else while growing up.
As I’m driving up the last steep incline toward my childhood home, I get the same feeling I always do since I moved away. It’s a sensation of everything being strangely familiar but distantly so, like my memories are from a past life or maybe even a vivid dream. The place that used to be my whole life is no longer a part of my day-to-day reality. Which is weird, and I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be content to leave it that way.
A dark SUV I don’t recognize sits in the curved, concrete driveway in front of my parents’ sandy-colored, two-storied stucco house, and as I pull up and park beside it in front of the three-car garage, I’m guessing it’s my sister’s rental. She and her husband, Logan, were supposed to fly up here from San Diego this morning with their two little girls.
We get out of the car, and at once I notice that the grass covering the expansive front yard smells freshly mown. Arching my back and raising my arms, I stretch my travel-worn muscles with a grunt.
Jay rounds the hood of the car, his eyes on me heavy-lidded and burning as they run over my body from head to toe. Heat flares in my core and flickers down between my legs, like embers that were all too easily fanned into flames.
Shit. I’m horny. I want him, and I have no idea when or even if that need can be satisfied this weekend. It’ll be kind of hard to do, sleeping in separate rooms in a house filled with my family members.
He’d better stop staring at me like that, though, or the jig will be up. Everyone will take one look at his face, and there goes rule number one.
The front door to the house flies open, and a high-pitched little voice squeals, “Aunt Mia!”
“Freya!” I call back, throwing my arms wide as my oldest niece comes rushing toward me, her blonde ponytail bouncing behind her. She’s wearing strappy sandals and skinny jeans with a purple short-sleeved top, and my mind is blown at how grown-up she looks. She’s not quite six yet, but if I didn’t know better, I’d guess she was seven or eight.
Bending down, I scoop her up into my arms, letting out a grunt at the unexpected weight of all those small, gangly bones. I remember her being a newborn like it was yesterday, when lifting her was no more strenuous than picking up a watermelon or a gallon of milk.
“Oh, my gosh,” I puff out, groaning extra loudly for effect, “you’re getting too big to lift.”
Giggling, Freya leans back to look at my face, her smile showing rows of tiny, perfectly white teeth with the two front top ones missing. “Guess what?” she says with breathless excitement, widening her blue eyes almost comically at me. “When we go to the fair, I’m gonna be big enough for the big rides!”
“No way!” I exclaim.
Carrying her youngest on her hip, my sister is strolling toward us, and I throw her a grin before asking Freya, “Are you brave enough to go on the big rides?”
“Uh-huh!” the girl pronounces without hesitation, and then, with a look over my shoulder, she starts wriggling in my arms. “Uncle Jay!”
Uncle Jay? I cringe as I let the squirming child back down on the ground. I don’t dare to even glance back while Freya hurries over to him.
“Hey,” I say to Paige, giving her a hug that she returns one-armed. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine. Second trimester is the easy part,” she reassures me, and I can’t tell otherwise, because Paige always looks good. With her denim capris and flowing white blouse, I can’t be sure if she’s showing yet. Her long and golden-blonde hair falls in perfect, soft waves around her shoulders, and her pale eyes are accentuated by subtle makeup that makes them seem larger and all the more striking within her narrow, delicate features.
Next to Paige, I’ll always be the perky and cute one standing beside her exquisite and elegant big sister. I’m okay with that now. Ten years ago? A little less so.
“Hi, Abigail,” I chirp at the girl in her arms, who’s wearing an adorable pink summer dress, her short and whitish-blonde hair framing her porcelain-doll cheeks. After one cagey look at me, my youngest niece buries her face against her mother’s neck.
“Abi, you remember your Aunt Mia, don’t you?” my sister murmurs to her daughter, reaching up to tuck hair behind the girl’s ear. “She came to your birthday party.”
I guess three months is an eternity for a three-year-old, because Abigail just tightens the grip of her chubby little arms around her mom’s neck.
“Her shyness has been getting worse lately,” Paige explains with a grimace.
“That’s okay,” I say loud enough for Abigail to know I’m talking to her. “I’m gonna be pretty sad if I don’t get a hug at some point this weekend, though.”
Still clinging to Paige, my youngest niece peeks at me, and I beam at her, trying my best to look friendly and goofy. She still just stares. Behind me Freya is chatting up a storm, and Jay’s much deeper voice only cuts in occasionally, when the talkative five-year-old allows it.
Over by the front door, I see two figures coming outside. Recognizing the dark-gray of my grandmother’s hair and the brown of my mom’s, I make my way over to them to say hello.
Smiling, I step into Grandma’s arms first, hugging her tentatively, because she’s a small woman and looks like she’s made of skin and brittle bones. But when she starts squeezing the air out of me, I tighten my hold, too. She smells like she always does, exactly like the grandma from my childhood—cinnamon incense with a hint of the floral scent of her medicated eczema lotion.
She leans back to look at me, stroking a hand along my cheek and saying, “Mia mine.”
“How are you?” I ask.
“Oh, I’m fine.” Grandma tilts her head to look behind me. “But we’ll talk more later. I need to say hi to that handsome young doctor of yours.”
I shake my head as she walks away. Maybe one of these days she’ll call him by his actual name.
I turn to my mom and enter into her embrace. “Hi, Mom,” I say, my voice muffled against her hair.
“How’s your hand?” Mom asks before she’s even let go of me.
“Fine. Much better.” I raise my hand up in front of her and wiggle my fingers to prove it.
Mom grabs it to take a closer look. “That’s a pretty big scar.”
“Yeah,” I say with an exaggerated sigh. “There goes my hand modeling career, I guess.”
My mom rolls her eyes, and her small-boned face, so much like Paige’s, tightens up with exasperation. “I was so worried about you that night.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” Sorry my poor choices and clumsiness caused you stress. Sorry you never get to stop worrying about your kids.
After giving me a kiss on the cheek, she moves down the driveway to join the others and greet Jay. Then we all head inside, everyone talking at once, Freya loudly trying to cut into the grown-up conversation while keeping a vise-like grip on Jay’s hand. I throw him a smile that he answers with an inscrutable look.
We pass through the tall-ceilinged and peach-colored foyer, past the formal living room, where massive windows flood the cozy space and its classical furniture with sunlight, and on through the open archway into the airy and oversize kitchen, where cream cabinets and white-and-gray marble countertops lighten up the already bright room.
Mom doesn’t like darkness. Guess she gets enough of that in the courtroom.
“Where’s Dad and Cam?” I ask my mom over my shoulder, as she’s the only one who followed me—sounds like everyone else stayed in the living room.
“I sent your dad to the grocery store,” she answers as she walks over to the open dishwasher, which she was obviously in the middle of emptying when we showed up. “I didn’t really have time this week to go stock up on what we need with everyone being here.
“And Cam?” I repeat, crossing over to help her, plucking a pair of coffee mugs out of the dishwasher. My little brother lives on campus, and there’s no way my parents would let him get away with missing Grandma’s birthday—not that he’d want to. I think. It’s hard to know with Cam. Sometimes he’s the life of the party. Other times he’s an antisocial turd.
“Oh, he’s in the backyard, mowing the lawn.” Leaving the bottom rack for me, my mom abandons the dishwasher to grab a spray bottle from under the sink and fill it up with water.
“I thought you had landscapers who do that.”
“Yeah, but he got mouthy with your dad, so...” With a wave of her hand, my mom trails off.
I let out a half snort, half laugh. It’s so comforting how some things never change. As a kid, Cameron wouldn’t have spent nearly as much time doing chores if he didn’t take so much joy in riling Dad up. Of course, my brother is an adult now—depending on your definition of the word—and he could’ve just refused to mow the lawn. That he didn’t must mean he’s in a good mood today.
It’s pretty cool that everyone in my immediate family is here for the weekend, but we’ll definitely be missing my dad’s sister and her kids. My aunt Hannah is a big-shot marketing executive in New York City, and since the original plan was to not have much of a party, she booked tickets for the middle of next week so she could be here for Grandma’s actual birthday, which is on Thursday, and it was too late for her to rearrange her schedule. And my cousins are both in college on the East Coast and also couldn’t get away.
Mom starts spraying water on the various plants she has sitting on the counters and in the corners of her hardwood-floored kitchen, and I fish the basket out of the dishwasher, setting it down on the counter above the utensil drawers. From the living room come Jay’s and Paige’s and Grandma’s muffled voices along with Freya’s almost nonstop chattering.
I kind of feel like I’ve entered a parallel dimension. One where nothing has changed, because as far as my family knows, Jay and I are still just friends. And since that’s exactly what we’re pretending to be around them, it’s almost as if the past few weeks didn’t happen. Like it was all just a dream—a dream too strange and too good to be real.
Making enough noise to wake the dead, the girls and the other grown-ups join us in the kitchen. Paige is still carrying Abigail, and Freya is still tugging Jay around by the hand while he seems to be trying to have a conversation with my grandmother.
My heart does a little flip at the sight. He has a resigned but patient look on his face, and that’s exactly why Freya always attaches herself to him like a burr. Because he doesn’t mind.
“Uncle Jay!” she bursts out now, pulling him in the direction of the door that leads to the backyard. “Guess what! I’m building a fairy garden! Wanna come see?”
“Absolutely,” Jay says immediately.
“You don’t have to, Jay,” Paige cuts in, throwing an exasperated look at her older daughter.
“No, I think I do,” Jay replies with a small chuckle, and then he looks down at Freya while he says, “It sounds amazing. I can’t wait.”
Meeting his eyes across the kitchen, I give him a tiny smile. He returns it. That feels surreal, too. More like the old us, from before, when things were less complicated. Less tense. Less uncertain.
“Do you want to come, Abigail?” Jay asks the girl still clinging to her mom. His arm muscles flex as he resists Freya’s attempts to haul him toward the door. She clearly would prefer to have him all to herself. I know the feeling.
In Paige’s arms, Abi’s eyes go wide as she hesitates, her desire to join in warring with her apprehension. Everyone is quietly watching her, which probably doesn’t help, and I find myself silently cheering her on. You can do it, Abigail. Go play.
“How about I come with you?” my grandma says, and immediately my littlest niece starts squirming until her mom lets her slide down to the floor. She reaches for her great-grandmother’s hand, and with a smile, I turn back to putting away the clean utensils. Above the clinking of forks and knives, I hear the click of the patio door as the four of them go outside, the door shutting on Freya’s excited babbling.
“She calls everyone uncle and aunt,” Paige says, raising her voice above my clattering as she comes over and starts grabbing a handful of plates from the dishwasher. “I’m hoping it’s just a phase.”
“When Mia was a little younger than Freya, she went through a period of calling a lot of grown men ‘Daddy,’” my mom comments while picking dead leaves off one of her plants. “It lasted for months, because as soon as she noticed that it annoyed your dad, she did it even more often.”
I let out a choked laugh, my neck flaming, and Paige throws me a sideways glare as she stacks plates into the top cabinet. Typical Mia, her look says, and I stick my tongue out at her. My Goody Two-Shoes sister hasn’t intentionally irritated anyone in her life. Which is actually pretty irritating in itself.
The patio door opens again, and I grin as my brother steps inside—all strapping, athletic, six foot two inches of him. A black Giants cap with orange lettering covers his dirty-blond hair, and he’s wearing black sports shorts and a white tee that clings damply to his muscular torso.
“Did you finish?” Mom asks, glancing at him.
“Pretty much,” Cam says with a shrug, which could mean he mowed almost the entire lawn—or hardly any of it. “Had to come say hi to my favorite sister.”
“Hey!” protests Paige with mock indignation as he comes into the kitchen and swoops me up in a hug.
“Ugh,” I say while giving him a quick squeeze. “You’re all sweaty and gross.”
Pulling back before I can push him away, his mouth twists into a smirk. “It’s how the ladies prefer me.”
“Seriously?” I wrinkle my nose at him.
“Ew!” yelps Paige.
And Mom scolds, “Cameron!”
My brother throws up his arms in surrender. “Okay! Sorry! Sheesh.”
Grabbing an apple from the fruit bowl on the kitchen table, he plunks himself down in a chair, stretches out his long and tanned legs, and bites into the fruit with a loud crunch.
With a shake of my head, I put the utensil basket back in the dishwasher, and then I turn to my mom, who’s leaning against the counter and frowning down at her smartphone. “Do you need help with anything for the party, Mom?”
“Oh,” she says, her gaze flickering toward me. “No, I hired an event planner. She’s handling everything, which has been such a relief, let me tell you.” Mom draws in a breath and adds briskly. “Okay, since you’re all here, you can help me figure out the sleeping arrangements. I wasn’t expecting your grandmother to stay here, and now she’s in the guest room where I was putting Jay, so we’re one room short.”
With a mild frown, I ask, “Can’t someone sleep in the den?”
Mom opens her mouth to reply, but Paige beats her to it. “Logan’s staying in there.”
I narrow my eyes at my sister. “Why?”
She bends to close the door on the dishwasher, so I can’t see her face as she replies, “Because I’m pregnant, and the bed in my room is small, and I need my personal space right now or I get too warm and can’t sleep.”
Taken aback, I raise my eyebrows across the room at my mother.
“Plus,” Paige sees the need to add testily, “his phone keeps ringing at the most ridiculous times of day, and he refuses to mute it, so this is better for both the girls and me.”
Mom closes her eyes and shakes her head in response to my inquiring look. Which means, Don’t ask. Okay, then. Guess I won’t say any more. But it’s really hard to do, because my sister sleeping separately from her husband? That really begs more questions, no matter how reasonable her excuses sound.
“So,” Mom goes on in a business-like tone that sounds strained, “we have you two in your rooms”—she looks up and points at Cam and me first, and then she gestures at Paige—“and you and the girls in your room. So that leaves Jay. Like I said.”
Even though none of us have lived in this house for years, she still calls them our rooms, and she hasn’t changed the decor in any of them. I can never decide if that’s weird or sweet. Maybe it’s a bit of both.
“You can put a mattress for him in my room,” my brother offers in between taking the last few bites of his apple.
“We don’t have any air mattresses. One broke and the girls are using the other two.” Mom sets her phone down, closes her eyes, and rubs her forehead. I recognize that movement at once. She gets stress headaches. Usually during difficult cases but also when she has to figure out how to coordinate family stuff. Clearly, despite the event planner’s help, this weekend is getting to her.
I exchange a look with Paige, who then turns to Mom and suggests, “Call Dad and tell him to go buy another one.”
Ugh. This is way too much fuss over something that shouldn’t be a problem. So before my mom can respond, I cut in, “Jay can stay in my room. There’s no need to stress about it, Mom.”
She gives me an owlish stare. “Well, where will you sleep then?”
My stomach does that little clenchy, crampy thing it does when I realize I’ve spoken before thinking. There’s a full-size bed in my room, and ohmygod, the thought of sharing it with Jay and sleeping that close to him has my cheeks growing hot and my spine tingling. Which definitely doesn’t help me answer the question.
Grabbing the edge of the counter at my sides, I cautiously ask, “In my room?”
“Okay.” Mom draws the word out. “So then you’ll need that air mattress, anyway.”
Shit. My mind is scrambling. I could say I’ll call Dad and get it taken care of—and then just not do it.
Or I can be an adult and not lie.
“No, you don’t need to bug Dad about it,” I tell her. “We’ll figure it out.”
The silence that falls over the room feels heavy, oppressive. Mom is watching me, saying nothing. My siblings are looking at me, too—Paige squinty and tight-lipped, Cam wide-eyed and slack-jawed.
“What?” I bite out, giving them all challenging looks in turn. This is what I get for trying to be helpful and take a load off my mother’s mind?
“Jay and Mia, sittin’ in a tree...” Cam starts chanting in a singsong voice.
Oh, the goddamned, annoying little… I snatch Mom’s spray bottle off the counter and aim it at him. Laughing maniacally, he throws his arm up in front of his face as I hit him with a spray of water, and I keep shooting him with it as he jumps out of the chair and darts away from me toward the family room adjacent to the kitchen. Probably because he knows I won’t dare follow him and risk getting any of the furniture in there wet.
As I trudge back to the counter and set the bottle back down, Paige asks tightly, “How long has this been going on?”
Oh, for Pete’s sake. I put my hands on my hips. “Nothing’s going on. You’ve never shared a bed with a friend?”
“Female friends, yes,” she says pointedly.
I manage to meet my big sister’s questioning gaze for only a couple of seconds before looking away, suddenly scared of what she’ll see in my face. Getting indignant about this feels wrong, all things considered.
But if I have to tell a fib to follow rule number one, so be it. I’m guessing Jay will be displeased enough about this already, for several reasons. Because, yes, I suppose it does look strange and suspicious for us to share a room let alone a bed. Plus he won’t like to think that he’s being a burden in any way.
I sneak a peek at my mom and find her studying me with that probing look of hers. The one that she gets while she mentally runs through the list of questions for her cross-examination. Any minute now the inquisition will start.
“Hey, Mia,” Cam calls out from where he’s looking out at the backyard through a window in the family room, “your boyfriend’s coming back to the house.”
I clench my teeth. Really, just because he’s physically bigger than me now doesn’t mean I can’t still kick my little brother’s ass. Firmly, I state, “Jay is not my boyfriend.”
Which is the truth.
The door swings open and Freya runs past Jay inside the house with him following closely. Grandma and Abigail are nowhere in sight, so I suppose they decided to stay outside. Freya rushes up to her mom and starts exuberantly describing the gazebo of sticks, leaves, and flowers that “Uncle” Jay helped her add to the fairy garden.
Something almost like pain fills my chest as he enters the kitchen. His face carries an expression of ease and calm, and it occurs to me that he looks...happy. And that I’m not sure when was the last time he looked like that. Definitely not at all, not even once, since that night I asked him the questions that changed our relationship—probably forever.
I’m sorry. I think I’ve screwed up again. I can’t say the words out loud, so I try to tell him with my eyes.
Jay’s demeanor changes, grows guarded. He glances at my mom, who’s darting her narrowed gaze between him and me. Back and forth, back and forth. Assessing, speculating.
And then he turns his attention to Paige, who’s clearly just half listening to her oldest child’s chattering while doing the same ping-pong thing with her eyes as Mom is.
He focuses on me again. Gives me a hard stare. Oh, yeah. He knows something’s up. I open my mouth to ad lib an excuse to get us out of here so we can go somewhere and talk, but just then my brother comes up behind Jay and gives him a clap on the shoulder.
“Hey, need help getting your bags out of the car?” Cam asks.
Jay looks hesitant and a little confused. It’s a pretty obvious rescue attempt, because who needs help with the kind of luggage you bring on a weekend trip? Still, I’m grateful. My little brother drives me crazy a lot of the time, but he’s like a guard dog when I need him to be: loyal, fierce, and not to be fucked with.
“Uh,” Jay replies uncertainly. “Sure?”
They stride past me on the way out. Jay leads the way, and he avoids my eyes, giving me a wide berth. Cam slows down, brushes close to me, and surreptitiously pinches my side. He doesn’t do it hard, and I manage not to move or make a face. I can only assume that was some sort of sign language meaning, You owe me one.
“All right, I leave it to you to sort it all out, Mia,” Mom announces, and then she sticks her hand out to Freya. “Come on, sweetie. I forgot I have a surprise for you upstairs.”
With a squeal of delight, Freya’s face lights up. “Just for me?”
My mom’s lips tremble like she’s holding in laughter. “No, not just for you, but Abi can get hers later.”
There’s a flash of disappointment on my niece’s face—apparently she liked the idea of being singled out and getting something her little sister wouldn’t—but she still grabs Mom’s hand eagerly. They leave the kitchen, and then their voices drift slowly up the stairs.
Paige goes over to the kitchen table and sits down, and I cross over to join her. “So where is Mr. Underwear Model, anyway?”
I gave Logan McKinley that nickname after the first time I met him, because holy shit, I’d never in person seen a more beautiful and perfectly built man. Paige doesn’t like the moniker, so of course I use it as much as I can.
“In the den, on a conference call,” she replies.
“Couldn’t take the day off, huh?” I think I hear the front door slam followed by feet on the stairs. Jay and Cam bringing the bags in?
“No,” Paige says neutrally, putting her elbow on the table and regarding me while resting her head on her hand. “It’s a pretty big case. One of the firm’s biggest clients being indicted for securities fraud.”
I don’t really have a response to that. Logan is a partner at a huge law firm and handles mainly criminal defense cases, while Paige runs her own little firm part time, somehow managing to juggle clients in between taking care of the kids and their house.
She always seems perfectly happy with that, but you couldn’t pay me to trade places with her. Just thinking about it, I feel like I’m getting an ulcer. And now they have child number three on the way. How does she do it? I mean, seriously?
Looking her directly in the eye, I say, “How are you feeling, really?”
“I’m okay. Everything’s just fine.”
She sounds like she means it. So why am I not convinced?
“How’s work?” she asks, lifting up her hands to examine her nails. And I’m pretty sure she’s trying to deflect the conversation away from herself.
“Eh,” I reply with a sigh. “It’s work.”
Paige arches her eyebrows at me. “Really? You seemed more excited about it last time I asked.”
Yeah. That would’ve been before Tricia Michaelson and her baby without a heartbeat. Which I’ve kind of, sort of come to terms with, because I can think about it now without tearing up. But I still think about it. Every day.
I offer my sister a weak smile, slouching back in my chair and stretching out my legs. “Well, I guess I’m learning that Pap smears aren’t that exciting.”
She seems to chew on that for a moment. “So you think you might want to do something else?”
“I don’t know.” I start scraping my nail on a tiny dent in the cherrywood table. “I’ve actually considered moving back up here.”
“Yeah,” Paige says musingly. “I’ve thought about that, too. The kids would love being closer to Mom and Dad. But they’d miss Logan’s dad, of course. Unless we could convince him to move, too. Since he retired from the police force and is doing private investigation now, maybe he actually wouldn’t mind.”
Wow. Well, that’s surprising. I’d never have guessed Paige was thinking of uprooting her family like that.
“What about Logan’s job?” I ask, because her husband has, what? Nine years now with that firm? He’s an equity partner and has a network of resources and colleagues as well as rapport with judges and other court officials that he relies on to do his job well. That’s not a position you up and walk away from on a whim.
“Well, he wouldn’t have to come with us if he didn’t want to.” Paige tosses out this comment quickly, almost nastily, and then she flashes me a little smile. As if to say she’s only kidding.
Except it hadn’t sounded like a joke. I sit up straight. “Everything okay with you two?”
“Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?” She gives a small laugh. A sound meant to imply she doesn’t understand why I would even ask that. Reaching out and gently tucking some stray hairs behind my hair, she says, “Can I do your hair and makeup for the party?”
Um. Okay. The back of my neck prickles, and my stomach twists, because now she’s definitely changing the topic on purpose.
But if she and Logan are having problems, and she doesn’t want to talk about it, I guess it’s none of my business. Unlike her, I don’t pry.
Teasingly, I say, “You’ve got two little girls to act as stand-ins for your dolls now.”
“Yeah,” Paige fires back, “but you’ll sit still, and you won’t whine about me hurting you when I brush your hair.”
I let out a short burst of laughter. “Don’t bet on it.”
“It’ll be fun,” my big sister cajoles, sitting up and tilting her head to look at my hair, as if she’s already picturing how to fix it. “Just like old times.”
I blow out a sigh, giving an exaggerated groan. Because it seems appropriate. “Fine. But only as long as you promise not to get offended if I don’t like it.”
Paige gives me a thumbs-up. Looking up at the clock on the wall, she says, “What time is it? Ugh, I have to start getting the girls cleaned up.”
Yeah. As my sister pushes away from the table and gets up, I realize I should probably go find Jay. And get out of the way the inevitable discussion about how we’re sharing a bed this weekend.
That should be about as much fun as trying to dig a hole in the ground with a toothpick.