Dad can’t make the game? No worries, they got to see their uncles.
Mom burned dinner? It’s fine, they preferred cold cereal, anyway.
Her parents didn’t have a substantial relationship with them? Eh, who needed two sets of grandparents?
She blew out a breath and gnawed at her lip, hoping they’d hang on to this kind of resilience. Hoping she could be enough for them.
The children ran back and forth between two small orange cones—she had no idea where they’d found the cones and did a quick scan of the street to ensure there weren’t any missing from a construction project.
There weren’t.
“Where’d they get the cones?” Rachel asked.
“There’s a stack by the bathrooms.” Sadie gave a pointed look to the aforementioned stack. “They asked first.”
“I said it was okay,” April added.
The children began kicking and spiking, yes, spiking the balls.
Yes, balls. This version of the game came with four balls. A soccer ball, of course. A volleyball because, why not, and two tennis balls.
God help her if her children did decide to become politicians.
“I’ll be their campaign manager when they run for co-presidents.” Sadie said, offhandedly. “That way they don’t wind up in prison.”
“Can we go back to talking about the margaritas?” April scooped up a handful of Goldfish crackers and placed most of them back in the single-serve package so her daughter could dump them again. “The Travis margaritas.”
She kept a few and tossed them into her mouth.
Rachel shrugged. “He read my welcome sign. It’s not a big deal.”
Though it was the nicest thing anyone had done for her in a while.
“Except he makes you blush,” Molly replied. “All the brothers are handsome—even Gavin, though I hate him and wish tonsil scabs on his throat.”
“Why do you hate him so much?” April asked. “I mean, aside from the whole buying the dogs and then refusing to let them come to his house, he doesn’t seem that bad on the big scale of jerkwad.”
“Honestly?” Molly looked at the women. “He doesn’t treat Rachel with the respect she deserves. She does the work. He reaps the rewards. She keeps doing the work and he’s still over there reaping. That pisses me right off.”
“And Travis and Dane don’t piss you off?” Sadie picked up the baby and did the sniff test on his bottom like a pro. Yeah, she fit right in with their group.
“Travis and Dane step up for Rachel and the twins whenever she asks. Even when she doesn’t ask.” Molly stared pointedly at Rachel. “She should ask more often. Especially when it comes to all things Travis.”
Baby still in her arms, Sadie turned to Rachel. “I don’t think she’s going to let up about him.”
No, Rachel didn’t expect she would.
“Maybe you’re right,” Rachel said, falling back onto the blanket to study the sky, thinking of the game she and her mother used to play when they’d search for shapes in the clouds.
“Of course I’m right,” Molly said, perky as ever.
Sadie snickered before blowing a raspberry against baby Luke’s tummy.
“Maybe I need to meet someone. Have someone to look forward to seeing.” There. That cloud right there looked like a lopsided version of Chris Pine with an extremely long…right…yeah…she was a mother and should not be evaluating the cloud version of Chris Pine’s… ahem…
“I recommend it,” Sadie said, giving the baby’s neck kisses that made him laugh like an unhinged hyena. “Roman’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“You think you two will have kids?” Rachel asked, checking out another cloud that looked like Blippi…again, with the third leg thing, which she was heretofore going to pretend was simply an extraneous cloud that Bob Ross had painted in the sky and accidentally placed in an unfortunate locale.
