“I’d love to bring the twins. Do you think ten months is too young?”
My heart melts at the thought of my nieces. “Are you joking? They’d be our guests of honor. I can’t believe how fast they’re growing.”
“Too fast,” Juliette sighs. “They’re starting to pull themselves up on everything. Knox caught Maisie trying to climb a bookshelf yesterday.”
I laugh, already imagining the twins crawling around, their matching rompers bunching at the knees. “I was hoping they could come. I’ve got a special corner planned with sensory toys and those soft picture books they love. I also found the sweetest little star-shaped teething biscuit recipe.”
“You’ve thought of everything. The parents will adore you for this.”
“I just want to create something special, you know?” I say, fiddling with the edge of the flyer.
Something lasting. Something that matters.
It might be silly to care this much about a kids’ night at a café, but when the doctor’s explanation of my endometriosis is still lodged in the back of my mind with warnings about lower odds, you start searching for other places to pour all that hope.
So, I’m trying to make this a place where kids will laugh and grow. Somewhere my heart can live, even if the family I dreamed about stays just that. A dream.
I push the thought away before it can get its claws in too deep.
“Everything okay, Lou?” Juliette’s voice breaks through my thoughts.
I look up quickly, pasting on a smile. “Aye, just thinking about all the details.”
Juliette studies me with those perceptive eyes of hers. She has this way of seeing right through people and is one of the few people who knows what I’ve been dealing with. “You know you can talk to me about anything, anytime, right?”
I busy my hands, straightening the flyers into a too-perfect stack. “I’m all right,” I say, a little too quickly.
Juliette doesn’t push. She just watches me with that quiet patience she’s so good at, her hands cupped around her mug.
I clear my throat and force a smile. “Anyway, I was thinking we could set up a cookie decorating table.”
Juliette gives me that soft, knowing smile of hers that tells me she sees right through the pivot but loves me enough to leave me be. “That sounds perfect.”
I latch onto the topic like a lifeline, because right now it’s easier to be just the girl who loves her café and her town, and not the girl who’s terrified her life might never look the way she always dreamed.
“Are you volunteering as the cookie supervisor?” I ask, trying to sound brighter than I feel. “The twins can eat the rejects.”
Juliette lets out a genuine laugh. “Knox will thank you for that. He’s already convinced they’re going to be master chefs by age three.”
“MacKenzie delusions strike again,” I say, and we both giggle, the sound chasing the tension out of my shoulders for a heartbeat.
I let my gaze wander around the café. The mismatchedchairs, the worn wooden tables that have seen a thousand first dates, heartbreaks, and celebrations.
It’s not perfect. Nothing ever is. What it is, though, is alive, messy, full, and golden in its own way. Just like life, just like family, just like this small corner of the world I’m lucky enough to call mine.
two
AIDAN
The last two weeks have been a blur of twelve-hour shifts, endless solitude, and weather that chews you up and spits you out. The grind’s become second nature over the years, and fatigue hardly even registers anymore. Just part of the deal. The work’s relentless, but that’s the life I chose. Right now, I’m counting down the days until I can get the hell off this rig.
I moved closer to my mum recently. She downsized into a smaller house in a quieter town, and since she’s the one who looks after Isla when I’m working out here, it made sense for us to follow. Our new place is only ten minutes from her and thank god for that. I couldn’t do this without her.
It’s getting harder every day, though. Isla’s growing up too fast, and I hate missing it. Every giggle I don’t hear, every scraped knee I don’t patch up—it digs under my skin. The two weeks I’ll be at home coming up is something, at least. Seeing her face again is what keeps me going.
A sharp clang of metal drags me from my thoughts. The wind howls, thick with oil and salt spray. My jacket might aswell be tissue paper for all the protection it offers, but I pull it tighter anyway, scowling at the chill.
“Oi, Aidan!” Jack’s voice cuts through the hum of machinery, barely audible. “We’ve got a situation with pump three. Need your eyes on it.”
