Aidan clears his throat and straightens up. “Just a little one.”
Isla sighs. “Ugh, grown-ups. Next time you should tell me first.”
He raises a brow. “Tell you?”
“So I can close my eyes,” she huffs before I hear her mutter, “grown-ups.”
Aidan’s hand finds mine again, his thumb stroking along my knuckles.
I lean in and whisper, “Sorry about that. Guess we’ll have to work on our stealth.”
“It’s okay,” he says. “I just need to talk to her about what this means.”
“You think she’ll be okay?”
He nods, squeezing my hand. “I think she’ll be more than okay.”
twenty-nine
AIDAN
There’s applesauce on my kitchen table.
Not a lot, just a little smear of it left behind from breakfast, a glint of sun catching in the sticky residue. Isla’s crouched beside her chair, using a sparkly hairbrush to detangle her doll’s synthetic curls, entirely unaware that I’m bracing for one of the most important conversations of my life.
I clear my throat. “Hey, little storm.”
She looks up immediately. “Yeah?”
“Can you come sit with me for a sec?” I pat the chair beside mine.
She considers it with one last tug on the doll’s hair, then she clambers up.
I take a breath. “Remember last night? When you asked Lucy if she was my girlfriend?”
“I saw you kiss.”
“Yeah,” I say, chuckling under my breath. “You did.”
She swings her feet under the table, winding up to a question, but waits.
“I wanted to talk to you about that. About me and Lucy.” Irest my forearms on the table and lean in a little, dropping my voice. “We like each other. And we’re going to be spending more time together. Probably with you, too. If that ever feels weird or if you have questions, I always want you to tell me, okay?”
She frowns, thoughtful. “Like if I feel yucky about it?”
“Exactly.”
She nods slowly. “I don’t feel yucky.”
My heart cracks open a little. “That’s good. You like Lucy?”
“She makes the best toast. With the swirly butter.”
“Swirly butter, huh? That’s serious business.”
Isla grins, then goes quiet for a beat. “She talks to me like I’m big. Not like I’m little.”
I swallow. “Yeah?”
