“You shouldn’t have done that,” I scold Emilio as I follow him into the kitchen.

“Done what?” he asks with a grunt as he fills Roxy’s little plastic bowl up with more O-shaped cereal.

I lower my voice to match his deep growl, mocking his tone. “You should put your dick away, Mick, because my daughter has never seen one before and she might faint at the very idea of someone having…” I scrunch my face up. “What did you call it?”

“Morning wood,” he grunts out.

“Oh, yeah. Morning wood. You embarrassed him.”

“He should be embarrassed. He was dry-humping my daughter on top of a couch cushion in the middle of the room.”

“He was not,” I scoff. “He fell.”

“Some men have a habit of falling directly into a p–”

I shush him. “Don’t say it.” I jerk my thumb toward the living room. “The kids are out there.”

“I don’t need to say it. You know what I was thinking.”

I grimace. “Unfortunately, I do.”

Emilio has never been shy with me or my sisters about men, sex, or anything that might happen when you put those two words in the same sentence. He’s not pervy, but he can be direct. When I was younger, I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. As I got older, I realized that he did it because he loved us. He wanted to share his knowledge of men, whether we particularly wanted to hear it or not.

“Do I need to send your mother over to have a talk with you?” Emilio threatens.

I pop a grape into my mouth and talk around it. “Only if you’re intimidated by it.”

“Intimidated, my ass,” he snarls playfully. Then he glances toward Roxy’s high chair. “How’s it going with the kids?” he asks. “Did they keep you up last night?”

I yawn into my fist. “They only got up once during the night. Then they were all up when the sun came up.”

He laughs. “The joys of parenting.”

“It’s not parenting,” I argue. “It’s babysitting.”

“Yeah, same difference.”

“It is not. Parenting is permanent.”

“Damn, I wish somebody had warned me about that before we adopted all of you. There we were, thinking we could give you back when you all got your periods the same week of the month, or when you all needed cars at the same time. We tried to return you, but they wouldn’t take you back.”

I laugh. “You did not.”

He sobers quickly. “No, we didn’t. We knew the minute we saw you guys that you were ours. We saw Peck first, and then the rest of you. One trip out of the group home for ice cream, and we knew we had to have all of you.”

“Fucking overachievers,” I grumble, because I have heard him say that a million different times.

“Exactly,” he says. “Marta was all, like, ‘we just need one child who needs us, Melio,’ and I was all, like, ‘but there are five, and we need them, and they need each other,’ and then poof, there you were. I parked my Harley in the garage and Marta made me start driving the minivan. It was like somebody chopped my balls off.”

“Were we worth it?” I ask, grinning at him.

“A million times over,” he says, his voice strong.

Emilio scrapes some eggs onto six plates and puts toast and jam in the center of the table. He pulls a plate of bacon out of the microwave and slides it across the table. “Thanks for cooking,” I say.

“You’re welcome.” He sits down across from me. “So…”

I arch my brows at him. “So?”

“So what’s the plan?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” I say truthfully.

“You probably should sit down with Mick and come up with one.”

“Can’t we just wing it?”

“That might work if it was just you and Mick, but it’s not. It’s four beautiful children who want nothing more than for their mother to come home.”

“Their mother needs to get healthy first.”

“And then?”

“And then they go back home with their healthy mother, who will love and care for them for the rest of their lives.”

“You’ve been watching Disney movies again, haven’t you?”

I grumble as I shove a forkful of eggs into my mouth.

“Best case scenario, their mother gets the help she needs. Worst case scenario, their mother can’t be a mother, or at least not a good one. You need to prepare for the best and the worst, and not just somewhere in the middle.”

“I’ll talk to Mick, I promise.”

Emilio goes into the living room and comes back carrying Chase, with Anna and Devon right behind him. They sit down at the table while Emilio props Chase on his thigh, with his back resting against Emilio’s chest. Emilio hands Chase a spoon to play with.

“Mick has probably had time to take care of that little problem by now. Why don’t you go tell him breakfast is ready?”

I get up and kiss Emilio on the forehead. “Thank you,” I say.

“You’re welcome,” he replies gruffly.