“How’s it going, guys?” I asked as I wandered over to check on Hunter and Amelie. They had been playing on the computers together from the moment school had ended and the club had picked up, and it was clear they were intently focused on the campaign they were working on.

“Good!” Hunter grinned at me. He had practically been pinned to my leg all day at school, telling me about the sleepover he’d had with Jason and how much he’d enjoyed it, and I was delighted to see him doing so much better. I glanced at the clock. It wouldn’t be long until Holden got here, and I couldn’t wait to see him again. Even these little moments we managed to steal together were enough to sustain me, enough to remind me totally what I was doing with him. I missed him, even though he’d only been away a few hours. Which was a little silly, but I couldn’t help how I felt.

The program had worked beautifully. Zoe had come running to me at break time to tell me as much, waving her hands around and exclaiming as though this was truly the most exciting news in the world.

“I’m glad it’s working,” I told her. She nodded and ran her hand through her hair.

“Ah, it’s going to come in so useful,” she sighed. “Seriously, what can’t that guy do?”

“I know, I know.” I shook my head and smiled. I’d been thinking that myself. He seemed so utterly perfect, filling in all these gaps in my life without me even having to ask him. Because he wanted to show me how much I meant to him. That’s what he’d said. It felt so good to have someone, a real boyfriend, who seemed to want to remind me every chance he got that he felt like the luckiest dude on earth for dating me. I had never felt so valued in a relationship, so important to the person on the other side of it.

“You should marry him and lock it down now,” she told me, heading back to her classroom. “He’s amazing. If you let go of him, I’m going to be pissed.”

“I’ve got no intention of breaking up with him, trust me,” I assured her, and she paused in the doorway and cocked an eyebrow at me.

“Things going well?” she asked, and I nodded effusively.

“So well,” I gushed. “I think… I really think I’m falling for him.”

She planted a hand on her heart as though touched by the sentiment.

“I’m so happy for you.” She smiled, and even though she was usually all sarcastic quips and snarky comments, I knew she meant this.

“Me too,” I replied, and she laughed. As she left, I bit my lip, excited to have a chance to talk about Holden, about us, about how brilliantly things seemed to be going between us. And with Hunter too. Hunter seemed to be warming up to me, and he was connecting with his peers in a way I had never seen him pull off before. Things were looking up for all of us.

I smiled as I watched Hunter and Amelie confer over something and then turn back to their individual screens. I’d be damned if I had a clue what was going on in front of them, but it looked PG, and they seemed to be having a good time, so I wasn’t going to get in the middle of it.

I glanced at the door and spotted Holden striding toward the room. We still had a few more minutes before the club was officially done, so I could steal a little time with him for a split second. I stepped out, shutting the door behind me so nobody else could get in, and grinned at Holden.

But as soon as I was face-to-face with him, that smile slipped off my face at once. Something was wrong. Seriously wrong. I scanned him up and down for any obvious signs as to what the problem was, but I came up with a straight blank.

“Holden?” I reached out to him, touching my fingers to his arm, and he pulled away at once, turning his back to me.

“What’s wrong?” I demanded, striding toward him, my heart pulsing hard in my chest. This had all been going too well. I should have been more suspicious. I shouldn’t have let myself get comfortable, fall for him, I should never—

“I’m sorry, it’s nothing to do with you.” He shook his head and grimaced. “I just… something happened. When I was back at the house today.”

“Is everything all right?” I widened my eyes, and Holden pressed his lips together and looked as though he was going to slam his fist into the wall next to us.

“Karla was there,” he told me, looking up into my eyes as though this should send a shiver of horror down my spine. I furrowed my brow.

“Karla?” I prompted him.

“Hunter’s mother,” he explained—and my stomach dropped to my shoes.

“I thought you said she wasn’t a part of your lives anymore,” I reminded him, and he rubbed his hands over his face as though trying to make some sense out of this situation.

“Yeah, well, she wasn’t.” He held his hands up. “She hasn’t been for almost ten years. She left after Hunter was born. I wasn’t lying about that.”

“Then what is she doing back here?” I furrowed my brow. “I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I,” he replied. “She was there at the house when I got back there, and she told me she wanted to be part of Hunter’s life again. And—”

He cut himself off as though he didn’t want me to hear that next part. His face was overwritten with tension, anger—maybe even something close to fear. I wanted to reach out and hold him, but his hard edges wouldn’t soften for me. I knew how hard this had to be on him, and I had no idea how I should deal with it.

“She wants to be a part of Hunter’s life?” I focused in on the positive. “That’s a good thing, right?”

“She signed over all her rights to him the day he was born,” he snapped back. I knew his irritation wasn’t aimed at me, but it still made me jolt, to hear him talk to me that way. He had never been anything other than kind and soft with me this whole time, but the fury in his system was taking control.

“She doesn’t have any right to come back into his life and act like she’s been anything other than utterly absent all this time.” He shook his head.

“But surely, it’s something positive for both of them if she wants to see him again, right?” I pressed him. At the front of my mind was the conversation Hunter had with me at the museum when he’d made it clear he’d noticed his lack of a second parent. He might have never expressed those kinds of feelings to Holden—he’d said his father shut down all conversation about Karla—but there was no way Holden hadn’t picked up on it at some point, right?

“I don’t know.” Holden shook his head. “I don’t think her intentions are exactly pure here.”

“What do you mean?” I wondered aloud. I couldn’t imagine anything but good coming from a mother wanting to reconnect with her son, no matter how long it had been since she left.

“I mean…” He took a deep breath as though he couldn’t quite believe that he was truly going to come out and say this. “I mean, when I was speaking to her, I let her into the house. I didn’t think I had a choice, but I’m pretty sure she wasn’t in it just for Hunter.”

My heart dropped.

“You as well?” I whispered. How could I compete with the woman who was the mother of his child? They would have a connection that ran deeper than mine could ever hope to. If she made it clear she wanted him…

“My money,” he replied, and I felt my heart rate smooth out once more, return to something more normal.

“How would she get that?” I furrowed my brow.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I don’t know her. I know the kind of person she is, the kind of person she’s always been. I wouldn’t have put it past her to have found out about the money I’ve made since she left and for her to try to finagle her way into a big chunk of it.”

“I think you should give her a chance,” I told him. “I mean, she can’t take anything you don’t give, you know?”

“You don’t know her like I do,” he growled. “You don’t know how she is when you give her the chance—I can’t talk about this right now.” He shook his head and headed to the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

And with that, he went to pick up Hunter. Hunter was disappointed at being dragged away from his game, but the club was over, and other parents were starting to arrive as well. I chewed on my lip as Hunter waved goodbye to me, and Holden nodded his farewell without saying a word. I knew this was big, bigger than anything we’d had to deal with before. Even if I hadn’t known the history between them, it was easy to see how something like this could fuck Holden up. He’d raised his son for so long with it being only the two of them, and it had been hard enough for him to open that up to even me. For another woman—a woman who had some true biological claim over his kid if not a legal one—to come into his life and demand that he find her a place in it? He must have been freaking out. I knew I certainly was.

I sent all the rest of the kids home with their parents and hung back to tidy up after the club was out. My mind was racing. I wished I could talk to someone about this, but I could tell Holden didn’t want anyone else knowing the truth of what he was dealing with. I wanted to go to him, to comfort him, to tell him it was all going to be all right, but it wasn’t the truth. He wouldn’t believe it, even coming from me.

I stood there, staring at the blank screen on one of the computers, and ran through everything he’d told me. And doubt began to rise in my chest. What if he was keeping this woman at arm’s length for my sake? What if he was worried that taking her back into his life would get in the way of the two of us? If I stayed in the middle of this, would I be getting in the way of a true family?

The questions barreled through my mind so fast I could hardly keep on top of them, and I did my best to push them down. What I wanted wasn’t important. What mattered was Holden, Hunter, and that woman. I was an outsider to this family, a newcomer, someone who would never truly share the bond I wanted with them. And I had never felt that more intently than this very moment.