“Mom, we are not renting a bounce house.”

She huffed. “Well, why not?”

Julia smothered a laugh behind her glass of lemonade and I glared at her for not backing me up. The three of us were gathered around the dining room table that looked like a Pinterest board had exploded everywhere. In just about two weeks, the twins would be turning one, and seeing as I’d never planned a birthday party before for little people that I’d given birth to, I’d kinda dropped the ball and assumed that I’d just make some smash cakes and take lots of pictures for posterity.

Apparently not. Because my mom got wind of my lack of plans, and there we were, looking over woodland themed ideas, while I tried to corral her into some semblence of sanity when it came to a budget.

“Because they’re only turning one,” I explained slowly, just like I had when she asked if we should hire a magician. “And they’ll be the only kids at the party, unless the adults want to use the bounce house. Which I suppose they might if we provide alcohol.”

Julia lost her battle and laughed into her hand, which made my mom give her a slight narrowing of her eyes. “It’s not a completely preposterous idea, but fine, we can discuss it again next year. Hopefully there will be other kids there by then.”

It was a thinly veiled statement that made Julia shift in her chair and me see red. Julia and Cole had struggled with infertility, and despite getting approved to foster a baby, they hadn’t had a placement yet since they were hoping for a newborn.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“Fair enough.” I slid my laptop across the table so they could both see it, and pointed at a banner idea that I liked. “I think this could be cute. And I could make it myself.”

One picture for each month that I could hang over their high chairs, anchored on each side by a cute little fox. Julia nodded. “I like that. And that would be perfect with the cake.”

My mom smiled, her version of an excited squeal. “Agreed. I can take care of commissioning the cake.”

“You don’t have to do that, Mom.”

She only patted my hand. “It would be my pleasure. Now, have we narrowed down a guest list?”

“I guess? I mean, our immediate family, of course.” I looked at Julia in question. “I thought maybe some of you and Cole’s friends, if you think that’s a good idea. Kat has been here a couple times since they were born, she and Dylan were so sweet to bring me dinner after the twins were born. And Michael, since he’s been so helpful lately. Plus Mrs. Cannon across the street. She’ll come with her husband.”

Julia smiled. “I think that’s a great idea. Kat and Dylan would be thrilled to be invited. Dylan’s sister has twin girls, so he’s used to the craziness.”

“And who’s Michael?” Mom asked, arching a slender eyebrow. Of course, it didn’t cause the slightest wrinkle in her forehead. Because Botox. Not that she’d admit it. But damn, I would if I was her. Her face looked amazing.

“The contractor. And he’s a friend of Cole’s. He’s great with the kids, actually.”

Mom sniffed. “Why does your generation insist on making it sound surprising when a man is good with kids? There’s no reason why he shouldn’t be good with kids. Being a male doesn’t infer a lack of talent in dealing with children, just like being a female doesn’t infer the opposite. Not all women are good with kids, even their own.”

“No kidding,” I said seriously, because my mom had the warmth of a prickly hedgehog. “But you’re right. I take it back.”

Over the monitor, Piper started squawking, which meant shortly she’d wake Jacob as well. Julia stood up. “I’ll get them.”

I smiled at her. “Thanks.”

Mom and I watched her go down the hallway, when I leveled her with a serious look. “Could you tone it down a notch?”

“Me?”

“Yeah.” I leaned forward so she had no choice but to look at me. “Don’t say that shit about ‘hopefully there will be kids’ around next year for their second party.”

Undaunted, my mom held my eyes. “Please refrain from using vulgar language. There’s no need.”

“This is my house,” I reminded her. “And if you remain purposely obtuse about the things you say in front of Julia, I can get a hell of a lot more vulgar than that, so don’t push me.”

She blinked a few times, clearly not expecting that. But my parents had done enough damage in Julia’s life, and I was beyond the point where I cared if they were offended by the things I said to them.

“Fine,” she said stiffly.

“Good.”

Julia came down the hallway, carrying Jacob and holding Piper’s hand. I grinned at their half-asleep faces and held my arms out for Piper. She dropped to her knees and crawled toward me, smiling when I lifted her into my arms.

“Good nap, sweetpea?” I whispered.

Taking her seat with Jacob in her arms, Julia gave me a look like she probably heard everything I’d said to my mom. It was grateful, a little embarrassed, and fully loaded with the kind of things that sisters can read in a heartbeat. I smiled in response, and my mom was completely oblivious while she stared at the screen of her phone.

There was a knock on the door, and I handed Piper to my mom so I could go answer it. Through the large front window, I could see Michael’s truck parked next to the curb and I instantly found myself happier, lightness sweeping me at the thought of him crashing our little awkward-fest at the table.

It was weird. And disconcerting that he’d make me feel that way.

I opened the door with a smile, and he matched it immediately. “Hey. What’s up?”

“Thought I’d take a chance that you were home. I know you weren’t planning on me coming over tonight, but I have to help my uncle out on Monday with something else, so I was hoping I could get a start on tearing into that wall.” He hitched a thumb over his shoulder at the driveway. “But if you want me to wait until your guests are gone, I can come back.”

I waved him in. “Don’t be silly. Maybe you’ll create enough noise that my mom gets annoyed and leaves.”

He laughed and came in after picking up his toolbox off the front porch. “Duly noted.”

Mom and Julia halted their conversation when Michael and I entered the room, and I could see the instant curiosity in my mom’s eyes. But of course, he was tall and strong, handsome and smiling, right around my age, even though he was a few years older than me. So of course she’d be curious. Poor Michael, he was probably about to get an interrogation. My breath stuck in my throat a bit, praying that she’d keep the ice-cold routine to a minimum around Michael.

But I should have known. Ugh, he charmed her almost immediately.

“Mrs. Rossi,” he said and shook her hand, turning it so that he could place a chaste kiss on the top of her knuckles. “It’s obvious where your daughters get their beauty. That’s quite a gene pool you’ve passed on.”

She blushed. Her lashes fluttered. Julia and I rolled our eyes. Michael was thrilled.

“Thank you,” she said on a pleased rush. “Michael, was it? My daughter has left out some fairly important details about you.”

Michael took the open chair that I’d vacated and turned to face my mom. “Really? What did she have to say about me? This is vital.”

I slapped Michael’s shoulders. Mmmmm, muscles. “Okay! Time for you to get to work.”

He shoved my hands off easily. “Don’t be silly. I think it’s a wonderful idea for me to get to know your lovely mother.”

“New rule,” I whispered down by his ear. “You don’t talk to my mother.”

“Brooke,” my mom admonished.

“You weren’t supposed to hear that.”

“Well, I did. That’s unconscionably rude.”

Michael laughed, but stood from the chair. “That sounds like her.”

He walked past me, but I still slapped him in the stomach. He tipped an imaginary hat at my mom, who tittered all over again. Gross.

But when she did, Jacob clapped his hands and scrunched his face up in a laugh. My breath caught at the change it brought to his face.

“Well,” my mom said. “He certainly looks like that father of his when he does that.”

A weighty silence dropped into the room, along with my stomach, when Julia spoke. “I think he looks like Jacob.”

Her voice was firm, but kind, and I smiled gratefully at her. Or as best as I could around the dull thudding of my heart. Jacob had looked like Kevin. So much so that it hurt. Not because I missed Kevin, because really, I didn’t. But it was the kind of thing that my kids would never know, would probably never recognize in themselves, and that cleaved my heart in two. One half for each of them.

That’s what killed me, what wore down the already worn edges of myself. That those jagged halves of me were probably all they’d get. And it was the best I could do for them. Just me, for the two of them.

Michael cleared his throat. “It was nice to meet you, Mrs. Rossi. I better get to work.”

Quietly, he left the room, and my mom stood to gather her things, handing me Jacob with a tight smile.

“Thanks for you help,” I told her flatly.

Mom gave me and Julia an air kiss next to our cheeks and did the same to the twins before she left without another word.

“She is such a bitch sometimes,” Julia said as soon as the door clicked shut.

“Ha. Yes, she is. But at least you know she doesn’t only pick on you.”

Julia smiled sadly and nuzzled her face into Piper’s hair. “I don’t know why that helps, but I guess it does. Equal opportunity horribleness.”

“You’d think we’d be used to it by now.”

She processed that before nodding. “You’d think. I’m not though. Are you?”

I shook my head. “Takes the breath from my lungs every single damn time.”

“Good thing we have each other,” Julia said quietly.

“Good thing.” My smile was easy this time. “You and Cole have fun plans tonight?”

“Nope. Just a chill night, which is good, because he’s been working crazy hours lately.” She set Piper on the floor and stretched after standing from the chair. “Want me to stay and help with dinner?”

“Nah, we’ll be fine. I think I’m going to need a chill night myself after that.”

“You have wine?”

“Is that a serious question?”

She laughed and wrapped me in her arms in a tight hug, like she could force my mom’s words out of my head by sheer will. “Just making sure. I love you, little sister. You’re a damn good mother.”

“Thanks. Now get out of here. Tell Cole I said hi.”

After she left, I sat for a while, just watching my kids play on the floor. Eventually, my mom’s words would settle into my heart, the calloused way she’d delivered them, but now wasn’t the time to let them in.

* * *

I turned the Shop-Vac off and wiped my face with a damp rag, feeling like I’d never be able get the taste of dust out of my mouth. Demo was fun, but it was dirty as hell. I stretched my hands up to the ceiling and groaned when something popped in my back. It was just dark outside, and I was sure Brooke would be ready to kick my ass out. I’d heard Julia and Mrs. Rossi leave, thankfully not too long after I got there.

Mrs. Rossi. First I thought she was a pretty older woman, more refined than I was expecting considering neither Julia or Brooke were the kind of women who put on airs. But then she opened her mouth about Jacob, and my mouth went sour. If it had been socially permitted to throw her out of her daughter’s house, I would have done it in a heartbeat.

In fact, the whole time I worked, my earphones pumping heavy bass and guitar into my ears, I felt my blood slowly turn into a rolling boil, like a pot that got left on the stove too long. It brought back so many memories. Things I actively tried to forget about from when I was younger. A neighbor throwing out a comment that she didn’t think Tristan or I could hear. That father of his.

Even thinking the words made my skin go cold. What a bitch.

I could’ve left quietly, wave to Brooke and leave her to her evening. But something tugged inside of me, something clawing at my heart that said that wasn’t what she needed. So I switched to one of the clean t-shirts that I kept in my bag and rinsed my face in the sink of the full bath just beyond the plastic.

I could hear her in the twins’ bedroom, and I walked down the hallway loud enough that she wouldn’t be surprised. Her scream from the last time I’d been there made me grin.

But my grin faded instantly when I heard Brooke sniffle around the words of the book she was reading.

“On the night you were born, the moon shone with such wonder that the stars peeked in to see you, and the night wind whispered, Life will never be the same.” Her voice wobbled the entire way through, and I leaned my forehead on the wall just for a second. Me walking in and looking pissed off wouldn’t help her in the slightest. “Because there had never been anyone like you.”

Sniff. Little catching breath.

I shored myself and braced my shoulder on the doorframe. Brooke stopped reading, but she didn’t look up at me. The twins were on her lap drinking from bottles. Piper was half asleep, and Jacob wasn’t far behind. They didn’t even notice that she’d stopped reading, because the gentle rocking of the chair was keeping them hypnotized. Finally, Brooke looked up at me, and I wanted to rip my heart out.

A tear fell down her face, but she couldn’t wipe it away because her arms were full. My jaw clenched from the effort of holding still, of not walking over to her and using my hand to absorb it away from her skin, take it into my own.

In that moment, I hated her mother.

Not just for how she made Brooke feel, but because someday, Jacob would understand what her words meant, and it would soak into his heart like an ink stain.

“Are you hungry?” I asked her quietly, and her forehead creased adorably. “Obviously you’ve got things handled here, but I could make myself useful. Go grab some pizza and some wine.”

“Michael,” she said in a soft voice, never ceasing the rocking of the chair. “I can’t ask you to do that.”

“You’re not. In fact, you don’t have to say anything. If that sounds good, to have pizza and wine with a friend who promises not to flirt with you, then blink twice. I’ll take that as a yes.”

She laughed, and it sounded watery and unsure, which made my heart squeeze in my chest. Then she blinked twice, slowly and deliberately.

“Okay. You finish up here, and I’ll be back. Any preference on toppings?”

When she shook her head, I lifted my chin in acknowledgment and turned to leave.

“Michael?” she said softly. I turned back toward her. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet. The pizza might be as terrible as the company.”

We both smiled, and I went to get us some pizza, feeling better than I had all week. It wasn’t until I was driving back to her house with a large margherita pizza and a jumbo-sized bottle of cabernet in the passenger seat of my truck that I felt the slightest twinge of nerves.

The lights were warm inside her house, a welcome comfort from the dark that I knew would be waiting for me at my own house since Tristan was working at the wood shop.

My nerves weren’t because I was uncomfortable, not in the slightest. We had rules in place now, clearly defined boundaries to this tentative new relationship that was unlike any that I’d ever had before. But would that stop me from going back into the house?

Hell no.

I grabbed the pizza and the wine, and tried not to run to the front door, hoping that she didn’t change her mind and decide to lock my ass out.