I sigh, turning to my parents. “Why does it sometimes feel scarier falling for two kids than it does falling for their dad?”
“You love them,” my mom says, reading my mind the way she’s been doing since I was a kid. It’s a statement, not a question.
I nod. “I do. Of course I do. How could I not? But it’s all so complicated, you know?” I shake my head, trying to gather my thoughts. “I like him. I really, really like him, and I think maybe he could be my one. We have so many things we have to figure out, and in the middle of it are these two great kids, and what if I mess it all up? I don’t know anything about being a parent. Not that I would be, like, their parent or anything. They have one of those, and they have a grandma who seems excellent, and they had a mom and don’t need me to be that. Cam is an amazing dad, and he, Riley, and Ethan have built this beautiful little family together…and what if I break it? What if they’re fine the way they are and don’t need someone else to be a part of it? What if…”
My dad squeezes my shoulder, cutting off my spill of unfiltered thoughts. I take a breath, and then another one, willing my heart to slow down its rapid-fire beating. Shit. I didn’t realize any of that was in my head.
Brains are such assholes.
Dropping his arm from my shoulders, Dad turns me to face him and takes both of my hands. “Twenty-three years ago, I fell for a little girl who belonged to someone else.” He glances over at my mom, and the look they give each other is so full of lovethat my heart squeezes. “I had some of the same thoughts you’re having now. What you and your mom were building together was so beautiful and so special that it didn’t seem possible there could be room for a former hockey player with abandonment issues and a truckload of unresolved trauma.” My mom slides an arm around his waist and leans her cheek on his bicep. He bends, kissing the top of her head. “But what I learned then and have learned over and over again a million times since, is that hearts make space, Maddy. Family makes space. Just look around this room.”
I do, seeing my brother joking with Tyler’s dad, Asher. Caitlin’s parents, Ben and Hallie, sharing a chair in the corner, talking with Caitlin and Maya. Sophie, Emmy, and Sarah laughing at something on Emmy’s phone. Liv helping my grandparents set up dessert in the dining room. Various other cousins sitting in pairs and trios around the room, laughing, talking, and enjoying the warmth and coziness of the holiday.
My dad squeezes my hand. “You see it, right? The way this family has stretched and grown and opened itself up over and over again throughout the years. It’s loud and chaotic and sometimes a little messy, but that’s family, Maddy. And now, those two kids are ours, because they’re yours.”
Mine. My heart squeezes again because I like the thought of that.
But because my brain is a jerk, it immediately serves me up a list of all the reasons this is a terrible idea.
My mom puts a warm hand on my arm. “It’s okay if you’re not ready yet. It’s okay if you and Cam need some time to figure this out before you shout it out to the world or even just to all the people in this room. But what your dad is saying is, don’t worry that there won’t be a place for you in their family. If you all love each other, there will be, just like there will be space for Cam and his kids in this family, when the time is right. Only you get to decide when that is, and there’s no rush. Just enjoy thefall.” She glances over at my dad again and grins. “It’s the best part.”
“Fucking right it is.” He tugs my mom closer and wraps an arm around each of us.
I swallow hard, wondering for the millionth time in my life how I could possibly have gotten this lucky. With these parents. These people. This family. Most likely reading me perfectly, my mom squeezes my arm and starts to say something, but she’s interrupted by Riley, storming over waving her phone, Ethan on her heels.
“Maddy, we need you!”
“What’s up?” I ask.
“Dad’s about to go out for warm-ups and we have to send him a crazy-faced picture.” She rolls her eyes and wrinkles her nose. “Football players are weird. It’s a whole thing.”
I smile, remembering what Cam told me about this particular tradition. How much it means to him. “You want me to take it?”
Riley looks at me like I have ten heads. “No, you need to be in it.”
My mind goes entirely blank for a second, only coming back online when my mom nudges me in the side. “Oh…um….”Pull it together, Maddy. “I thought the tradition was that you and Ethan had to send one of you together.”
Riley shrugs. “I never asked him if it’s just the picture or the people in it, but I don’t really care. I want you to be in it, and I think my dad would too.” She looks at me with way too much knowing in her eyes for someone as young as she is. I have to force myself not to fidget under her stare.
“I want you to be in it too,” Ethan says earnestly. “And I’m keeping the jersey on even though it’s a hockey jersey and I usually wear my dad’s on his game days. It’s really cool.” He grins up at me, all messy hair and face flushed from his videogame battle and eyes that are so much like Cam’s.
“I think we should take it by the trains,” Riley says, referringto the Christmas train set in the entryway that Rachel always sets up every year right before Thanksgiving and leaves up until after New Year’s. “Meet us by the front door!” She turns and trots away, confident that I’m going to follow.
And I will. I swear. It’s just that my feet are feeling rather glued to the floor at this moment.
My dad squeezes my hand. “One day at a time,” he says quietly. “Family makes space.”
“How does she know?” I ask, not expecting an answer. I should have known better.
“Kids always know,” Dad says. “You did.”
“He’s right.” Mom takes my hand. “You saw what was between your dad and me before we completely understood what it was, and I suspect that even if Riley hasn’t seen you and Cam together all that much, the little she has seen is enough for her to understand. Sparks practically fly off the two of you, Mads. I saw it even before I caught your little…Halloween interlude.”
I close my eyes, dropping my head back with a groan. “I thought we agreed not to talk about that.”
“One hundred percent we do not need to talk about that,” Dad says with a grimace. “I do not need the visual of my baby girl doing…whatever it was you were doing up there.”
My mom grins and mutters something that sounds a lot like “boxing ring,” and I don’t know what that’s all about but suddenly Jeremy Wright, big bad former hockey player and full-grown adult, is blushing and pinning my mom with a heated stare.
