The food on the grill sizzles, flames jumping beneath the wrought-iron rack. My brother-in-law reaches for the tongs, then sets about flipping over each slice of zucchini.

“Five minutes ago you hated food, now you’re so famished you gotta stand here and watch me cook?”

I tear my gaze from the food and look up at Vince. “I’m not here for the food; I’m here for the family time. Can’t a girl just enjoy her favorite brother-in-law’s company?”

He slides a dry look my way. “I’m your only brother-in-law.”

“Then you don’t have to worry about competition,” I point out.

“What do you want?” he asks, wily enough to see through me.

Damn, I was being so slick, too.

I smile faintly at my own joke before remembering the predicament I’m in. Dumbass girls who find themselves in dumbass situations like these can’t afford smiles. We get scarlet letters sewn onto our garments and waste away in the shame we’ve brought on our families.

Vince quirks an eyebrow since I still haven’t spoken.

I sigh. “All right. I have some questions.”

“All right,” he says, already tentative.

“Okay, so you know I’m a student of science,” I begin.

Nodding once, he says, “Chemistry, right?”

“Correct. And in preparation for my genetics class in the fall semester, I’m doing a summer workshop—online, just for extra credit.”

This is all bullshit, but I don’t expect him to question me. He surprises me by frowning. “I’m no scholar, but wouldn’t genetics fall under the umbrella of biology?”

“It’s science,” I say, waving him off. “I have to take a bunch of scientific classes, not just one type. There are technically chemistry courses that—just, never mind, that’s not important. But since it’s extra credit, the teacher has leeway on the project and she added a sociological component.”

I’m completely crossing schools now, but thankfully my sister’s husband did not attend college, and doesn’t question this oddity. “Okay.”

“There’s a hypothetical situation that I have to do a thorough report on, and I need a male perspective. I thought, ‘hey, Vince is a male.’”

“Thank you for noticing,” he deadpans.

“So, is this a good time to ask you a few questions? I might think of more later, I just want to ask some preliminary questions to start.”

“I guess so.” He nods his head at me, putting the tongs down and asking, “Where’s your little notebook?”

Damn. I always carry my little brown notebook with hearts on it to jot notes in, but I don’t have it with me. That slightly delegitimizes my already-poor story—I would need to take accurate notes—but Vince isn’t Carly, so I might slide by. “I’ll take notes later. Right now I’m asking very general idea stuff. The scenario is about reproduction.”

“Wonderful.”

“Okay, so assume hypothetically you got a girl pregnant. Not a girl you’re in a relationship with or anything, but someone who… lives far away. It was only a few days together, but you got her pregnant.”

His brown-eyed gaze darkens and his face turns to granite. It makes my stomach sink. Does he see through my bullshit? Does he know what I’m talking about? He doesn’t speak, so I’m not sure.

I continue on, but tentatively. “And there’s no realistic possibility of you and this far-away woman being together. You’re essentially worlds away from each other. It’s not like there’s any feasible scenario in which you would be raising a baby together. Even if she kept it, she would have to raise it without you.”

He passes a hand over his mouth and turns to look back at the house. After a second, he looks back at me. “Who have you been talking to? Carly tell you?”

“What? No, I told you, this is a hypothetical.”

“This is fucking specific for a generalized hypothetical, Laurel. Don’t bullshit me. Did Rafe say something to you?”

The mention of Rafe drains the color right out of my face. I’m tempted to tell him never mind, to run back into the house, but I’ve already made it this far into this uncomfortable conversation; I may as well push on until I get some answers.

“I told you, this is just a hypothetical for a class assignment. It has nothing to do with anyone we know. Now, pay attention to the scenario.”

He scowls, not appearing to trust me, but I plod on anyway.

“If you got this woman pregnant, would you want to know?”

“Yes,” he says, without hesitation.

I pause. “Well, wait. I mean, what if she wasn’t even—I mean… Okay, what if she didn’t plan to keep the pregnancy? Do you still think it would be unethical for her not to tell you?”

Now he sighs like I’m killing him. “Laurel, I don’t want to get into shit like this with you and your sister. Do you understand the kind of family I was brought up in? Traditional doesn’t begin to cover it.”

I nod my understanding. “Carly has explained they’re sexist assholes. I understand. Hypothetical Pregnant Chick is not asking permission or advice on what to do from you, the accidental donor of sperm. I’m trying to find out, from your perspective, just yours, Morelli brain and all… would you expect her to tell you? Would you be pissed off if she didn’t, and you somehow found out after the fact?”

“How does this have anything to do with genetics?”

“I told you there was a sociological component. Just answer my question.”

“If I got a woman pregnant, I would want to know. Regardless of the circumstances, I would be at least mildly annoyed to find out later that she was pregnant, went through it all without me, and didn’t even tell me. That would anger, sadden, and annoy the living fuck out of me. Hypothetically.” He adds that last part with more sarcasm than I thought a single word could hold, but I’m too busy processing his response to overthink it.

Since he is a Morelli male, he’s the closest to Rafe’s perspective as I can get. Probably his other cousin, the evil one, would have a closer opinion, but there’s no way I’d reach out to him. I try to envision sitting down at my laptop with some lemon tea and typing out an email to Mateo Morelli, asking him about his perspective for my bullshit assignment. The mere description of my assignment would be enough for him to realize I’m full of shit. I’d probably have Morellis crawling up and down Vince and Carly’s residential street the following morning when I woke up. Maybe Rafe on their doorstep with all his goons from the funeral spread out on the manicured lawn.

That would be bad.

Mostly bad.

Part of me wouldn’t hate seeing Rafe again, but probably not under those circumstances.

Consequently, even though it probably shouldn’t, Vince’s Morelli perspective gives birth to a spark of hope. “So, you would expect her to contact you? Even if you never planned to see each other again?”

“Yes.”

“And you would never be weirded out and think, why didn’t she take care of this without bothering me?”

“I’m not a dick, so no. I created the situation, didn’t I?”

“And what if she had no way of contacting you? And trying to get a phone number would be frankly dangerous?”

“Generalized scenario my ass,” he mutters, shaking his head and grabbing the tongs. “It was your sister’s fucking idea to keep this from you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about,” he states.

I don’t, and it sounds like a headache that I don’t have time for right now. Patting him on the back, I say, “All right, thanks.”

He mutters to himself, but I ignore him and head back inside to see Carly. Personally, I don’t think I have any sort of ethical responsibility to tell the man I’m not even in a relationship with, despite his super sperm that somehow made it through the condom, but I know the Morelli men have ass backward attitudes in some regards. Rafe and I never got into that sort of thing. Our days together weren’t spent getting to know one another, they were just for fun. There was no reason to probe; we were never going to see one another again.

I should probably just tell Carly. She would counter Vince’s Morelli perspective with reason and I wouldn’t have these lingering thoughts. I wouldn’t even consider trying to reach out to Rafe. I’m not sure how I would. I could probably ask Vince’s sister, Cherie—I only met her briefly, but she’s the only Morelli I could contact without it getting back to Rafe. He and Mateo were clearly buddies. If I reached out to Mia, Mateo would know. He keeps his wife locked down like she’s the Hope diamond.

I don’t want regrets, though. I don’t want to feel guilty after the fact.

But why should I? We aren’t together. He melted me into a puddle by holding a baby, but I’m pretty sure he’s not yearning for any of his own—especially not with some girl he barely knows.

Maybe I’m trying to invent a reason to reach out. It’s an embarrassing possibility, even inside my own head, but maybe it’s less my conscience and more the memory of his kisses, the way his big, strong hands moved over my skin—the way he pulled me into his arms and the sparks that shot through my body. It was like I’d never been touched before and my body could hardly stand the sensations.

There’s a weight in my stomach that tells me it’s probably that. My perfect Easter fling was… well, perfect. Even if he wouldn’t care about the little problem he left in my womb, even if I could take care of it without bothering him, there’s a small part of me that would like to see him.

A small, stupid part.

The same small, stupid part that got her hand on the wheel over Easter break and thought a fling with a hot guy would be harmless fun.

Harmless fun, my ass.

I should have listened to Carly. I saw the waves that rocked her boat as she attempted to hold the wheel steady, navigating the rough waters of the Morelli family. She tried to warn me there was no such thing as safe, simple fun with them.

That was part of the fun of it, though. I walk the path of the straight and narrow, never even pausing to smell the flowers. A few days with a dangerous, sexy man seemed exhilarating.

It was.

It just also fucked up my life for a minute.

Well, all I can do now is right the wrong. I’ll ask Carly for some money, tell her I need it for textbooks or something. I can’t undo the damage that’s already been done, but I can fix it and move on with my life. That’s the right thing to do. The only thing to do.

Rafe Morelli may have wrecked my day, but I’m not going to let him wreck my life.