Page 6 of Roundabout

What else have I been missing?

My boyfriend calls over his shoulder, telling his best friend, “We’re good!”

“Good for what?” I ask, following him out of the kitchen.

“Here.” He turns to grab Jace, then takes the stairs two at a time with me right behind them.

My steps slow when I see the light on in Brittni and Makya’s room while my heart speeds up like I’m on the final lap of a marathon.

“What’s going on?” comes out in a voice desperately trying to seem even and natural.

I’m desperately trying to seem even and natural.

We pass the bathroom, and seeing Marc inside, fitting the hose to the bathtub faucet with some kind of adapter on the end, I pause.

“Marc? Can you please tell me what’s happening right now?” I ask by signing since Blaze is next to him, waving innocently. She may be innocent, but the rest? I’ve known these knuckleheads long enough to know better. They’re doing something I won’t like and they almost never ask for permission beforehand. Not when asking for forgiveness afterward is an option.

Marc’s usually the voice of reason…when he feels like using it. Coty’s most serious counterpart has really settled into his role of husband and father. Not even over time either. It was pretty instantaneous. From day one, he took on Hunter as if Bentlee’s son was his own, and nobody’d ever guess Rebel isn’t his biological daughter the way he cares for her. One look at Blaze while she’s in her daddy’s arms, you can tell how good he is with all his kids. He loves each one deeply but equally, and they all know it.

Despite his many responsibilities though, Marc never passes up taking part in his best friends’ shenanigans. He’s the definition of ride or die. Approaching thirty-two, he still carries the same swagger he did from our Creekwood days. In casual joggers, a gray tee, and a red hat that matches his high-tops, nobody should be able to make such a plain outfit look smoking hot, yet Marc’s doing exactly that in my cramped bathroom.

Just like his daughter, he tries playing the innocent card, too, shrugging with one of his scowls etched on his face. Those scowls don’t affect me as much these days, only because now I usually have his wife to decipher them. Since she isn’t here at the moment, I’m not sure what this one means, just that it has me worried, especially when the severe expression disappears a second too soon as I’m turning away.

Rushing into the hallway, Terra says, “Aunt Angie,” giving me a hug in her…bathing suit? “You’re the best.”

“Go, go, go,” Beckett whispers before Terra’s twin brother, wearing a pair of swim trunks as well, hurries from the girls’ bedroom to give me an almost identical hug, saying, “I love you, Aunt Angie.”

Okay, now I’m really suspicious.

I pat both their heads, asking, “Did your dad put you up to this?” Beckett would absolutely use his kids to butter me up. He’s done it before.

The seven-year-olds pull away from my middle, looking at each other with matching guilty looks. Busted.

“Oh, neighbor girl, is that you?” I hear Beckett ask from inside the girls’ room. Inside? What the hell?

His twins and I go into the room that isn’t technically the girls’ room anymore but still feels like the girls’ room; my gaze going straight to the two beds pushed together before I can even notice anything else.

Softly, Coty says, “Angela?”

I tear my eyes away to glance at him. I don’t say anything though. I can’t. Then he’d know just how bad it’s gotten. How bad I’ve gotten.

“We’ll see them again,” he whispers, and I try to smile but the act gets lost somewhere from my brain to my lips, all my energy being used to stave off the tears threatening to fall instead. Will we? I’m not so sure. Some parents are happy to let us keep in touch with the kids that’ve stayed with us, but Brittni and Makya’s mom, Nora, was never very friendly to us. Or her daughters.

My shoulders slump and my nose stings. I know exactly how women like Nora operate. I was raised by one.

“Ready?” Marc calls from the bathroom.

Beckett echoes him, asking Coty, “Ready, bro?”

Without taking his mocha-swirl eyes from mine, Coty says, “Ready.”

The sound of water running fills the silence, and I finally look around the rest of the room. Taking up the middle of the floor is a rectangular inflatable pool with the other end of the hose draped inside, with Beckett already sitting in it, sporting a pair of colorful board shorts.

“Do I mind water?” I repeat more to myself than anything because water we now have, directly from the bath, filling the kiddie pool with what I’m thinking is warm…

I return my eyes to Coty’s. “For Jace?”

He shrugs a shoulder. “It’s worth a try.”