“He would never,” Shayla says, the corners of her lips tugging up, staring deeply into her husband’s eyes.
“Never,” James echoes with a whisper. “I only have eyes for my angel.”
“No wonder you have six kids,” I mutter, though they aren’t paying me any mind. I’m surprised they don’t have more, actually.
“Cannonball!” yells a soccer team’s size of older kids, doing a running jump into the pool at the same time, sending the water cascading over the edge like a tsunami.
I have just enough time to curl around Sebastian to protect him from the mountainous splash, but Autumn yelps and thrusts Benjamin high into the air, holding him above the surface when the water slams into her, knocking her over and under toward the deeper end of the pool.
I lunge and throw an arm around her back, lifting her against my side. “Are you okay, angel?”
“Yeah,” she says after sputtering out water, taking a gasping breath, and drawing Benjamin between us. She wraps her legs around my waist, locking her ankles, sluicing the water from Benjamin’s and then Sebastian’s faces. “Are you?”
My voice is raspy as the rebounding waves rock her against me when I tell her, “Better than okay.”
“Forest and Auntie A sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G,” Lainey and Ivy sing, giggling as they tread water. Josephine wears a gleeful expression as she watches us. “First comes love,then comes marriage.” The girls are practically screaming when Josephine joins them, and they finish singing, “Then comes a baby in a baby carriage!”
Autumn’s lips brush my cheek when she says sarcastically, “Yeah, right.” Then she unlocks her ankles and shoves me away.
The disappointment is crushing.
As the sun begins to set, the Fischer group moves to Bailey and Isaiah’s new house. It’s one of the larger, more recently updated homes within our neighborhood, sitting a few houses down from the cul-de-sac. They don’t have as much traffic on their street as I do, so I’m not nearly as worried about Sebastian making a break for the street, though I’ll never, ever let my guard down where he’s concerned.
Everyone in attendance has brought a dish to the party, so the expansive kitchen island and the long quartz countertops are laden with enough food to feed a small army. After singing the birthday song to Autumn—secretly wondering if she’d let me give her twenty-one love taps when I get her alone tonight—Miranda divides up the honey berry sheet cake she’d made.
Heading toward the front door with my first of many planned servings of cake and dinner to share with Sebastian, we pass the open double French doors just off to the side. I poke my head inside when I hear some of the Fischer ladiesoohingandahhing. The former formal dining room has been turned into Bailey’s sewing room, with a central, counter-high table taking up the majority of the space. One wall is dedicated to custom shelving and cabinets that house a craft store’s amount of fabric. An impressive array of colorful bobbins of thread hangs from pegs beside several dress forms and a metal rack, from which hang multiple dresses at various stages ofcompletion. In front of the picture window facing the front yard is Bailey’s undoubtedly expensive sewing machine.
“This is for me?” Josephine squeals, lovingly gazing at the pale purple sundress Bailey takes from the rack. It’s similar to the ones Lainey and Ivy have, each holding their dresses up in front of them as they look at their reflections in the full-length mirror positioned in the corner.
“That’s right,” Bailey says with a prideful smile. “Just need to double check your measurements to make sure it fits you perfectly.”
Josephine bounces up and down excitedly, then throws her arms around Bailey as far as they’ll fit. “Thank you, Aunt BeeBee!”
“Aunt BeeBee?” I mouth to Autumn, who’s wearing a soft expression as she gazes at Josephine.
Autumn strides over to me, her towel tied across her chest since none of us has changed out of our swimsuits yet. “It’s what the kids call their Aunt Bailey—even Brady, by accident, since he’s their age and not ours.”
“And Bailey is okay with Josephine calling her that?”
“Sure,” she says with a shrug, then frowns. “Are you not?”
I shift on my feet. “Well, she’s not her aunt,” I say quietly, my stomach twisting.
Autumn puckers her lips. “Right,” she says, before moving away at Sebastian’s whine, wanting to go outside with the other kids.
The Fischer siblings, their spouses, and I take up residence on the front lawn, sitting on plastic folding chairs gathered near the sidewalk, balancing our paper plates on our laps beneath the canopy of an old, sprawling oak tree. The youngest of the kids are having a picnic on the towels laid out on the grass. At the curb, where Bailey and Isaiah have positioned a standing basketball hoop, Josephine and her friends play H-O-R-S-E after scarfing down their meals.
“Come onnnnnn, Auntie A,” Lainey complains, trying to goad Autumn once more into playing with them.
“Please, please, please,” Josephine says, pressing her hands together like a prayer. It doesn’t escape my notice that she doesn’t call Autumn “Auntie A” like the rest do.
“Okay, okay,” Autumn finally says, making the girls cheer. Standing, she sets her plate and fork on her chair, opens her towel, and lowers it to tie it more securely around her hips.
I groan audibly at the view of her heavy, shapely tits and the mouthwatering nip of her waist. Some of the heavy-duty concealer she’d applied to the hickies I’d intentionally left around her navel has smudged. All I want to do is drag her into a bedroom, lock the door, then finish the job of wiping the concealer off while adding a few more hickies so everyone knows she’s taken.
“Stop staring,” Autumn says under her breath.
“Make me,” I say with a smirk.
