“You just met them last week!” he yells.

“But I feel like my heart has known them forever.” The sound of Mellie’s laughter makes me soften. The look of pure surrender on Seth’s face as he takes care of the girls makes me melt. And Joey, when she gets all dirty when she eats, I think it’s adorable. “I love these kids. And I will fight with my dying breath to take care of them. So don’t ever tell me that they’re not good enough for my life. In fact, I think it’s the other way around. I’m not good enough for them.” Finally, a tear tracks down my face. I have a lot to learn, but I can do it. “But I will be.”

“If your mind is made up,” he clips out.

“Unequivocally,” I toss back.

The line goes dead. And it’s only then that I let myself crumble. I rest my palms on the dresser and put my weight on them, biting my lower lip as a sob racks me.

“Aunt Sky,” I hear from the doorway.

I look up and swipe my fingertips beneath my eyes. “Seth,” I say. God, I hope he didn’t hear any of that.

“Are you all right?” he asks quietly. He walks into the room. I look away because I still want to cry.

Seth reaches out and wraps his arm around me, pulling me against him. He has me in a weird kind of headlock, but it feels nice. He holds me close to him. He’s already inches taller than I am. I force myself not to sob but for a moment. “How much of that did you hear?” I ask as I pull back.

“I didn’t hear anything about orgasms,” he says with a grin. He swipes a hand over his mouth.

A chuckle erupts from me. “Well, that’s good.”

“And I didn’t hear anything at all about Phillip’s junk.” He shudders.

“Even better.” I look up at him. “I’m sorry you heard all that.”

“I’m not,” he says, and he suddenly looks like a young adult. “I’m glad I heard it.”

“Well, I’m not. I’ll try to be quieter next time.”

He sits down on the edge of my bed. “I’ve been really worried,” he admits.

I sit down beside him. “Me, too.”

“But I’m thinking that since we don’t have a mom and you don’t have a family, we can make this work.” He doesn’t look at me, and I sense a little tremor in his voice.

“I think we can make it work, too.”

He puts his arm around my shoulders. “I have one question for you.”

I assume he wants my resume, which is wholly inadequate, particularly since Phillip thinks he just put me on leave. It will be a cold day in hell… “What?” I ask.

“Did you mean it when you said you wanted to teach me to drive?” He grins down at me.

I laugh. It feels good to laugh with Seth. “Yeah, I meant it.” I bump his shoulder with mine. “Our groundskeeper taught me.”

“That’s sad,” he says, his eyes narrowing.

“Yeah.” I nod. “It kind of is.”

Matt

I wake up the next morning knowing that I have to apologize to Paul. I was way out of line last night, and I can’t just let it go. I wait around for him to wake up. He usually goes to the tattoo parlor before I do, but his bedroom door is still closed. He doesn’t have Hayley, his five-year-old daughter, this week. She’s with Kelly, her mom. He sometimes sleeps in when he doesn’t have to get up with her. She rises with the sun, and although it’s a-fucking-dorable to see her padding around in her jammies, a man needs some sleep sometimes. We work really late at the shop, so we don’t always get eight hours.

Looks like Paul is making up for lost time.

Logan lives with Emily, Pete lives with Reagan, and Sam went back to college late last night on the bus, so it’s just Paul and me in the apartment now. It seems quiet. Too quiet sometimes. I’m used to the TV blaring because Logan doesn’t know it’s turned up too loud—he’s deaf—and Sam and Pete, the twins, throwing one another all over the furniture. Now it’s just me and Paul, two old guys, and a whole lot of quiet. I don’t think I like it.

I hear Paul’s door open and then the splash of him going to the bathroom. We’re guys. We don’t have to close the door when there are no girls here. He comes into the kitchen then, his blond hair sticking out in one hundred different directions, and he scratches his belly, his flannel pajama bottoms showing off the tattoo of Kelly’s name. I am well acquainted with it since I put it on him. And it’s a damn fine tattoo, if I do say so myself. Me, I don’t have any women’s names on me anywhere, and I’m pretty sure I never will.

“’Morning,” Paul mutters, pouring himself a cup of coffee.

“’Morning,” I say back. I open the paper and stare down at it, but I can’t see the words on the page. I can feel Paul’s need to dump his bowl of Honey Graham Oh’s over my head. Hell, I deserve it.

“Sorry about last night,” I mutter.

He doesn’t look up from his cereal. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I was an ass.”

“I should have kept my mouth shut.”

“I should have agreed with you. You were right. It’s not done.”

He talks around a mouthful of food. “If it was done, you wouldn’t have been acting like that dickwad punched you in the gut.”

“Yeah.”

“What does she see in him?” he asks.