Footsteps pounded up the front steps of the group home as all of her charges returned from school. Jenny stood and stretched. Another day of meetings, and phone calls, and attempts to shuffle children around in a way that would disrupt them least but help them most. But it had been a good day, a productive one, one where she’d been repeatedly told by her peers that she was doing a great job.

The tension that had been strapped around her chest like a body cast for the last month finally loosened. She was good at her job, and she could manage a home like this one. Jenny looked around the office. “I’m going to run this place permanently one day,” she announced to the empty room.

“Well, that’s good to hear,” Maisey said stepping into the office. “Although please wait until Ellen is done with it. She’ll be lost without this place.”

“Maisey,” Jenny said, looking up at the clock. How on God’s green Earth could it be four already? “I’m . . . oh my God . . . I just meant—”

“Relax,” Maisey said with a huge grin on her face. “I knew exactly what you meant, and I know Ellen would want you to inherit this place from her.”

“Phew,” Jenny said, a mix of embarrassment and relief flooding her. “Thank you for coming by. How are you?”

Maisey slipped out of her jacket and hung it up on a hook on the back of the door. “I am very good. I started my day having breakfast with one of my favorite boys.” The twinkle in her eye told Jenny all she needed to know.

“Nik came over?” she said, gesturing to the chair on the other side of the desk. “He’d already had breakfast with me.” If you counted toast frantically eaten on the way to the car “breakfast.” While the shower sex had more than made up for eating breakfast on the go, she’d had to eat a snack almost as soon as she’d gotten in.

“Well, he always did eat more than double his weight in food every day. Ellen used to say she didn’t know where all those calories went. It’s good to see you happy, Jenny.”

Jenny felt heat rise in her cheeks. She was happy. Very happy indeed. And she needed to focus on that, not the way her father’s eyes had narrowed into evil slits as he’d instructed her to take her own life under the flight path of a comet. Nik’s comments about being sorry flitted through her mind for the thousandth time. Her father showed no remorse, while Nik was doing everything he could to make things right. “I’m getting there,” she said. “I just need to get through the Canada tour. I think if I can hold myself together when he goes next week, then I can get through this. It hasn’t been easy, though, to get my head around things.”

“I bet,” Maisey said. “Nik has always been in conflict with himself. There are so many pieces to that boy that I used to say to Ellen that he was like Humpty Dumpty. I wasn’t sure we’d ever be able to put him back together again. But, as you know, he met Dred and the others, and one by one he committed to making sure they didn’t have the experiences he did.”

Jenny chewed on the end of her pencil as she thought about the boy who’d beaten up the school bully for making fun of her. Who’d escorted her to school every day after. Who’d listened when she’d talked about the abuses she’d suffered and had held her while she cried. “He looked after all of us, but in letting him do that, I think we all forgot to look after him. Not in an obvious way, but . . . I don’t know . . . I guess I missed how much he needed looking after too.”

Maisey pursed her lips. “I think we all have to take accountability for that.”

They sat there in silence for a moment. “I love him, Maisey,” Jenny said, and Maisey’s expression changed immediately from a thoughtful frown to a broad smile.

“That’s very good news because I believe he said the same thing about you this morning. Now, before I start crying or interfering with wedding plans, can I speak with Harry and Thomas please?”

Jenny spluttered. “You might be racing a little bit ahead of yourself, Maisey.”

Maisey waved her hand as if brushing away the comment. “You two were fated to be together from the day he met you. And you and I both know that all you need is time because time is the only thing that heals. Even if it’s brutal fucking reconstruction surgery, the two of you will heal together.”

It always made Jenny smile whenever she heard Ellen or Maisey swear. “I’ll go get them,” she said, refusing to be drawn in further on the subject of marriage. But as she left to go upstairs to find the two boys, the idea of a beautiful wedding dress, and Nik—handsome in a black suit—and the dock of the cottage he’d rented all blended together into a perfect wedding portrait. Yeah. Maisey was right. Even she could see wedding plans.

As she walked up the steps, she saw Albi sitting on Mark’s bed, his arm slung over the quiet boy’s shoulder. Mark’s face was somber. But whatever Albi said next, made Mark smile. A gentle sweet smile. Then Albi grinned. The two of them laughed, and Mark pushed Albi over so he slumped on the bed. Who couldn’t love this job? Trying to provide a foundation and surrogate love that was often genuine for the boys who lived here. Not that it always worked. What she wouldn’t give to be able to show Albi’s teacher that one precious moment she’d just witnessed. She had called Jenny three times that week with complaints about Albi’s temper. Swings and roundabouts.

Jenny knocked on Thomas’s door, waiting for him to let her in. When he finally did, she was surprised to find Harry wasn’t in there with him. “Maisey’s here,” she said. “Why don’t you go sit with her in the living room, and I’ll get everyone started on their homework in the kitchen? You can join us when you are done. Where’s Harry?” she asked, looking around.

Thomas tilted his head toward the room next door, a grin on his face. “Said he wanted to go sit and color on his bed because he doesn’t have any homework.”

Jenny grinned as his words reinforced what she’d been hearing today, that she could do this. “I’ll go get him.”

As Thomas left his room and headed downstairs, she tapped on Harry’s door and stepped inside what had once been Nik’s room. It had been redecorated since, but she couldn’t enter without wondering what would have happened to Nik if he hadn’t been saved by Ellen. When she noticed Harry, her heart stopped. He was actually under the quilt that was on the bed, humming as he happily drew a character from one of his Pokémon cards.

“Hey, Harry,” she said. “Maisey is here for her chat with you guys. I told Thomas to go meet her in the living room.”

Harry groaned. “But I just got comfortable.”

It was a struggle to keep her face straight. “Well, the bed will still be there once you are finished with Maisey.”

With a kick of his feet, Harry pushed the bedding back. “I might sleep in here tonight,” he said casually as he moved past her, and only when he was out of sight did Jenny let her grin show.

“Right,” she shouted. “Let’s have the rest of you downstairs. Homework, then movie night. Leon, I see you lurking with the headphones, pretending you can’t hear.” Leon glared at her, but she stood her ground. “Albi, Mark, let’s go.”

She waited until everyone had trooped downstairs, schoolbooks at the ready. Through the hall, she could see Harry sitting next to Thomas on the sofa.

Nelm, one of the weekend evening overnights came in through the front door in a hurry. “Are you okay, Nelm?”

“I said, where are they, bitch?” a loud voice bellowed just as Nelm slammed the door shut.

“We need to call the police. I think it’s Thomas and Harry’s dad.”

Jenny tried to quell the vile bite of panic as she grabbed her phone and handed it to Nelm. “You do it,” she said calmly and hurried to the living room. A large man stood on the lawn dressed in a pair of sweatpants and a hospital gown. Shit. Shit. Shit. He stood with his meaty hands on his hips and pointed straight at her through the window. “I want my fucking boys,” he slurred. She was reasonably confident it was the mix of pain medication and the results of the shotgun injury to his jaw causing his speech to be challenged, but she couldn’t rule out alcohol.

Blood began to trickle from a wound on the side of his face. It had been over two weeks since their father had tried to commit suicide after killing his wife. God, the man must be in pain. It was a wonder he was standing.

“Is that my dad?” Harry said, fear reverberating through his voice.

Thomas threw his arm around him.

“Yes, it is,” she replied. “Maisey, would you get Thomas and Harry upstairs please?”

As the boys moved, Harry began to cry, and the smell of urine filled the air. Jenny could kill Donovan McGee for that alone. She hurried to the kitchen and passed Nelm, who was still explaining the situation to the police. Fortunately, the commotion hadn’t carried to the back of the house. “Boys,” she said, “we need to move this upstairs. Leave your things and all go into Leon’s room.”

Leon’s room was down a narrow hallway at the back of the house. The home was reasonably secure, but if necessary, they could block the corridor with furniture. And with no clear view of the street, none of the children would be able to witness whatever happened next.

Jenny ran around the downstairs. As her heart raced, she bolted all the doors and made sure the windows were locked, which, thanks to the cold weather, they all were.

“Shit,” she shouted in fright when McGee’s face appeared at the window, both palms planted on the glass. Thankfully he didn’t appear to be armed. She hoped he’d come straight from the hospital, and that he hadn’t had time to find a weapon.

“You don’t get to keep me from my kids, bitch. Fuck you and your fucking system. I’m taking them.”

Jenny looked behind him and saw people watching. Good. She wanted every witness known to man to make a statement about how he had approached the house. But her training kicked in, and the first rule was listening and empathizing. Though she was no hostage negotiator, there would be progress only once she’d built up a rapport with him. “Mr. Donovan,” she shouted with a calmness she didn’t really feel. “I can only imagine how upsetting this is for you.”

“You fuckers blocked me from seeing my kids. How do you suggest I resolve it, bitch?”

Part of her wanted to scare him away, warn him that the police were hopefully only minutes from arriving, but she knew that as soon as she did that, he would run and they would always have to be on the lookout for him. As long as the children were safe, she needed to keep him there, talking to her. “It must be very frustrating for you. What are you hoping to accomplish by showing up here?”

“I want my boys . . . You blocked . . . You stopped . . .” Exhaustion laced his words, and a pitiful sadness graced his features.

He stepped back on the lawn and looked to the upper windows. Hopefully between Nelm and Maisey, they had gotten the children safe in the back of the house. “THOMAS! HARRY!” He paced forward and back along the garden, then lunged forward and grabbed the huge rock that had been part of the rockery she remembered Nik and Elliott building all those years ago.

With Herculean effort, he threw it at the window.

* * *

Nik let himself into Elliott’s house, where they were supposed to meet for one last review of the tour details.

He needed to explain, and he needed to remember that he didn’t need to say he was sorry.

All that mattered was finding a way to gain space to figure shit out.

Kendalee was in the kitchen making a massive pot of something that smelled a lot like chili. “I’m hoping you’ll join us for dinner, Nik,” she said, using the back of her hand to swipe a loose hair off her face. “And perhaps Jenny can join us when she’s done. I’d love to get to know her better.”

He remembered how badly he’d treated her when she and Elliott had been going through a rough patch, when Kendalee had doubted whether Elliott’s demons would hurt her son, and suddenly felt like a complete shit. “I’d like that, Kendalee,” he said, hoping the damage he’d done to the band was reparable. “And, listen . . . I was a jerk . . . you know, when Elliott disappeared. I was self-absorbed and—”

“Stop,” she said as she walked from behind the huge island at which he’d eaten his breakfast so many times over the years. “Nik, you were right to look out for Elliott, and the strange thing about life was I was right to be looking out for Daniel. Often two opposing things can be true at the same time. Whether you wanted the title or not, you are the patriarch of this family you created, even though they are only a handful of years younger than you. Up until now, it’s been your job to defend them fiercely . . . and now it’s okay to let go a little so you can enjoy your own life.” She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him. “I’m sorry I doubted Elliott, because you did a fine job helping raise him, Nik.”

Nik hugged her too. “Thanks, Kendalee. For what it’s worth, I think you are doing a better job with Daniel.”

Kendalee smiled, as he wanted her to. “Text Jenny. Tell her. Chili. Here. And if she can get here quickly, I’ll entertain her until you guys are done.”

Nik walked down the stairs, trailing his fingers along the round wooden handrail. It might be sentimental, but he was going to put one exactly like it on the way down to his own recording studio when it was installed. Before he opened the door, he took a deep breath and shook off the dizzy feeling.

The guys looked up at him from where they were sitting around on the sofas, all conversation stopping. Any minute now, a tumbleweed was going to roll by.

“Hey,” he said and dropped down on the sofa next to Jordan, who slapped him twice on the thigh. It was enough of a welcome to boost his confidence. “I’m in my thirties, and I don’t know how the fuck that happened. And if I try to make sense of all those years, they’re split into the years before you all arrived at that home, and the years after.” He paused and scratched his forehead. Words seemed foreign. Difficult to come by. Nobody else spoke to fill the void. “The years before were, well . . . even generationally before me . . . my parents . . . my grandparents . . . they were traumatic. And while I’ve known and felt it for years, it’s only just hitting me now just how much that has affected me. I felt so fucking alone. Living on the street, living with some of the cash-for-kids foster parents, in it only for the money.”

Jordan slung an arm over his shoulder, a solid reassuring presence while Nik bared his soul.

“And then I ended up at Ellen’s. And then, Dred, you showed up kicking your way through that front door, and I thought holy fuck, he’s just like me. And then Elliott, you came and I overheard Ellen talking to your social worker about how you’d set fire to your last foster parent’s home—”

“For the record, it was just the fence,” Elliott said with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, but everyone laughed as he’d intended.

“Home, fence, shed, store. You fucking burned them all. Don’t get pedantic now. And I added you to our little group in the home. Because I figured I might be able to help. And then Jordan. . . . fuck. You . . . you don’t know how hard I tried to get you out of that fucking attic, and every night that you went back up there, I felt I’d failed you. And Lennon. All those fucking years and I still didn’t know you had a sister. I don’t know when ‘friend’ became ‘older brother’ became ‘parent,’ but I think the glue I used to hold us all together became the glue that was holding me together. I was only as strong as you were. And as you guys became unstuck, finding families of your own, moving on, I think I became unstuck too.”

The room sat silent. He looked at each of them he’d just spoken about and saw nothing but genuine brotherly love, something he finally allowed himself to feel in the pit of his stomach.

“You know we would have been fucked without you, Nik,” Dred said. “I mean, I was all set to cause hell. To get out. To leave. And then you found me that night, trying to sneak out of the bathroom window. I would have been a fucking mess out on the street on my own.”

Nik shook his head. “You would have been fine. You would have done what you’ve always done—you would have approached it head-on.”

“I wouldn’t have,” Lennon said gruffly. “I know you were the one who told the guys to find a session drummer rather than a replacement for me until I was old enough to tour with you legally. Without all this . . . I don’t know, man.”

“And it was your idea to buy this place,” Jordan said, gesturing around Elliott’s recording studio. What had previously been the home they’d all shared. “You didn’t even ask me if I was cool moving out on my own. You just knew I wouldn’t have been able to deal, so you made it that I didn’t have to.”

“We talked while you’ve been away these couple of days,” Elliott said. “We back you one hundred percent. After the U.S. leg of the tour ends in March, we’ll take the rest of the year off. Work on solo projects, do whatever the fuck we want. But we meet back in a recording studio the first week of January and we’ll listen to what we each have.”

Dred stood. In fact, all of them did. “If we need a new band name to put out different stuff because that’s what you want, so be it, but it’s the five of us making music that matters.”

“As long as you don’t come back with shit that sounds like Maroon 5,” Lennon said.

“And I’ll break your fucking hands if it sounds like something Pixie would like,” Dred said.

Nik laughed at the idea of coming back with a show tune, just to wind him up.

“And it’ll be my pleasure to burn your guitars if you don’t show,” Elliott added.

He stood and swallowed hard. “I don’t want to lose this. To lose us. Taking a step away from being around each other so much, it’s . . .”

“Scary fucking shit,” Lennon offered quietly.

Nik placed his arm over Lennon’s shoulder, then did the same to Jordan, who did the same to Elliott, and so it went until they were in a circle, heads in the middle. Then he realized they were waiting for him, like they always had, like they always would, no matter how much they saw each other on a daily basis. “We won’t lose this,” he said, suddenly determined. “Because this, us as brothers, was here long before we layered everything else on top of it.”

Everybody’s phones suddenly beeped.

“What the fuck are the chances of that?” Elliott said, pulling his phone from his pocket. “Fuck, I got an X from Leon.”

Dred looked at his. “I got one from Mark.”

“An X from Ravi.” Jordan showed his phone.

Nik looked at his phone and saw an X-message from Albi, and a message. Someone is in the group home. He broke in through the window. We’re hiding with Maisey.

Nik began to run, followed by the rest of the band. Elliott yelled something to Kendalee, but Nik didn’t stop to listen. The group home was three blocks away. No point getting in cars and attempting to beat Friday night traffic. They’d be faster on foot. His chest contracted, not just from the pressure of pumping his legs but from pure fear. Jenny was in there. And all those kids. And Maisey.

“Fuck,” Nik yelled as they turned onto the home the street was on, only to find it was blocked by two police cars with flashing lights.

“Stay back,” a policeman yelled in a feeble attempt to stop them.

Nik ran by, ignoring the demand.

The sound of Jordan cursing to his right told him his bandmates were following him through.

“My fucking mom is in there,” Jordan said, and the words broke Nik’s heart. Out of everyone, Jordan was closest to Maisey. To hear him cry out exactly what she meant to him tore Nik apart.

Glass lay shattered on the floor, and the living room window was a mess.

They reached the door just as two police officers exited the building with a stranger in handcuffs.

Then out stepped Jenny, a bandage around her hand, and Nik’s knees nearly buckled. He ran to her.

“Jenny, what the fuck happened?”

She wrapped her hands around his waist and he kissed her, long and deep. He didn’t give a shit that people had their phones out recording this shit.

“It’s the new boys’—Thomas and Harry’s—father. He hasn’t been allowed to see them. He’s a desperate man.”

Jordan brushed by them. “Where is Maisey, Jenny?”

“Lennon’s old room,” she said. “With the boys. I told them to go stay there.”

“While you dealt with this?” Nik nodded in the direction of the window. He felt like he would throw up at the thought of her confronting a man nearly twice her size.

“Yeah. I dealt with it, Nik,” she said with a shy smile on her face. “I managed to talk him down off the cliff and got him to wait in the living room until the police got here. He never made it past the living room.”

Nik took her hand and kissed the white cloth around it. “So how did this happen, my little warrior?”

“A bit of flying glass. Nothing too serious. Listen, I need to go in and see to the boys. Then we’re going to need to find somewhere for them to stay while the police investigate what happened.”

“You’ve been enough of a hero today already. Just go and make sure the boys are okay. They’re gonna want to stick close to you, even if they don’t show it. Trust me, I was one of them once. I’m gonna figure out how to solve where you all sleep,” he said.

Jenny nodded. “Thank you for coming to help,” she said. She walked up the stairs and then turned and stopped suddenly. “Wait, how did you know what was going on?”

“The X,” he said. “Albi.”

Two hours later everyone stood in the large family room attached to the kitchen at Elliott’s house. Nik looked around at what they had pulled off. His own home was too much of a building site to be safe, but Elliott’s was perfect. As were the sleeping bags and sleep mats he’d bought from the camping store that were now lined up in the dining room. The table and chairs were pushed up against the walls, but it was impossible to move the two giant Christmas trees that flanked the fireplace. Kendalee, with the aid of Pixie, Jordan, and Lexi, was making the chili stretch by adding masses of garlic bread and salad he’d picked up at the grocery store.

Dred had gone home to grab Pixie and Petal before he’d come back, and Petal was doing her usual rounds. Currently she was clinging to Elliott, who was trying to set up the family room so that nearly twenty people could sit and eat while the movie Elf played in the background.

Hands wrapped around his waist from behind, and he instantly knew it was Jenny. “This was a good thing you did,” she said quietly beneath the hubbub and noise so many kids and adults could make.

“It’s Elliott’s house.” He pulled her in front of him and scooped her hair back behind her ears.

She smiled. “Yes, it is. But it was you who said they shouldn’t be separated, who came up with logistics of how to get it done. We could have just had someone board up the windows and made the living room out of bounds until it was all cleaned up. Now the kids feel like they are on some luxury camping adventure, and more importantly, they feel safe with you, Elliott, and Lennon staying over.”

“How are you doing?” he said, kissing the dressing that covered her hand. “That must have been terrifying, and on top of the week you’ve had—”

“Nik, I’m fine. If anything, it proved to me that I can handle just about anything this job can throw at me. And Dad. Well, you were right. He was never sorry.”

Nik pulled her forward and kissed her forehead.

“I forgive you, Nik,” she said quietly. His heart stopped beating in his chest. “It’s time to let that go. I don’t want you to worry that while you are away I’ll get cold feet, or leave again. And I don’t want to watch you head off expecting you to do something foolish. Because that isn’t the man you are now. This man”—she traced a finger gently down his chest, swallowed, and looked up at him, tears rimming her eyes—“this man wouldn’t do that to me, and I have to hold on to that.”

A weight he wasn’t aware he’d been carrying lifted from his shoulders. “Thank you,” he said gruffly. “You have no idea how badly I needed to hear that.”

“I love you, Nik,” she said as he gathered her into his arms.

“I love you too,” he replied, pressing his lips to hers.

A loud chorus of groans sounded from the hallway as the boys saw them kiss. Nik laughed as he watched Albi make a gagging motion.

“You know,” he murmured, “I’m beginning to wish I’d come up with a different plan, one that ended with you and me going home together.”

Jenny laughed, a pink flush on her cheeks. “No, you don’t. This is the crazy life we dreamed of. One that included a large family.”

And as Nik looked around Elliott’s home, he realized the truth in her words.

He’d wanted nothing more than a family of his own. Nik reached for Jenny’s hand.

And now he had one.