26
PARKER
The dining room at the main house feels warm in a way I’d forgotten—candles flickering in the chandelier overhead, the smell of Mom’s famous pot roast mixing with garlic bread and something chocolate baking in the kitchen. Laughter bounces off the high ceilings as Lottie and Jimmy compete to tell the most dramatic version of their school day.
“And then the teacher said we could pick ANY book from the library,” Lottie announces, her seven-year-old voice pitched with the gravity of world-changing news. “ANY book!”
“That’s so cool!” Noah practically vibrates in his seat. “We got to pick books too! I picked one about rockets!”
“I picked one about animals,” Liam adds more quietly, cutting his food into precise pieces. “It has pictures of every kind of bear.”
“Every kind?” Mom asks, her sea-glass eyes—so like mine, so like Charles’s—warm with genuine interest. “Even polar bears?”
“Especially polar bears.” Liam’s rare smile appears. “Did you know they’re the biggest land carnivores?”
I’m watching this unfold—my sons at a family table, surrounded by people who love them, talking about their day with the kind of excitement only children can muster—and something in my chest cracks open. This is what I wanted for them. Family. Belonging. Normalcy wrapped in the complicated reality of who we are.
But my mind keeps wandering.
To Jace in the back of the SUV this morning, his hand cupping my face, our lips inches apart before Charles’s voice crackled through the comm.
To Cal in my bedroom a few days ago, holding my bed frame together while making jokes about ceiling architecture, his amber eyes full of heat that he was barely restraining.
To Silas in the hallway outside McCoy’s office, kissing me like he was drowning and I was air.
“Mom?” Noah’s voice pulls me back. “Mom, did you hear me?”
“Sorry, baby. What?”
“I said Jake wants to come over to play! Can he? Please?”
“We’ll see,” I say automatically. “After we get more settled.”
“Parker was telling me about the operational assessments,” Charles says, seamlessly redirecting. “Sounds like the meetings went well today. Mostly.”
“Mostly,” I echo, taking a long sip of wine.
“Ryan Matthews asked her out,” Charles continues, and I nearly choke.
“Charles—”
“Out where?” Noah interrupts. “Like to the park?”
“No, buddy.” Charles grins at me over his wine glass, clearly enjoying this. “He asked your mom to dinner. Like a date.”
Both boys turn to stare at me with identical expressions of confusion.
“But Mommy has dinner with us every night,” Liam says carefully. “Does Mr. Ryan want to have dinner with us, too?”
“No, sweetie. It would just be—” I shoot Charles a look that promises violence. “It would be a work dinner. To discuss business.” Of all things for my brother to bring up in front of my kids. “If it even happens,” I add quickly. “Which it probably won’t. I’d have to check my calendar, and it’s very full and?—”
“You should go,” Charles says, ignoring my glare. “Ryan’s good people. Smart, ambitious, runs a clean operation. And he’s single. When was the last time you went on an actual date, Parks?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Six years?” he presses. “Seven?”
“Charles,” Sienna says warningly, but there’s amusement in her voice.
