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“Was she a single mom like mine was? Before Hank?”

“She was married to Grandpa,” I said, jerking a thumb at my dad. “But she might as well have been.”

Then I felt a surge of guilt. That wasn’t totally fair—and I shouldn’t be badmouthing Sam’s granddad, especially not while sitting right next to him. “I just mean she was the one who spent the most time with us. Packed our lunches for school, dropped us off for all our sports stuff. Stayed with us when we were sick.”

“Mom stuff,” Sam said.

“Yeah, exactly.”

Sam gave a glance over to his mom who caught his eye. “You okay honey?”

Sam nodded.

My heart twisted. Casey was a great mom. So was my mom.

So was Michelle.

I wondered, for the thousandth time that day, what her family was doing right at that moment. And for the thousandth time that day, I thought about our last night together. How incredible it had been. HowwholeI’d felt.

Running around with Emma and Macy had been so pure, so perfect, and had thrown me right back to when my girls were young. It was the one thing I was really good at. And of course, I’d fucked it up. I hadn’t been able to keep that perfect family I had together. But I’d even managed to put that aside on that perfect morning.

Then I’d seen her face. Michelle, looking at me like she was… scared. Like I’d stepped into this image she had of her life and I was the wrong fucking man.

What was it she’d said when she’d first asked me to take those stupid pictures?

It could be any guy.

But it couldn’t. She couldn’t be with any guy, and she couldn’t be with me. Not when she was still living with a ghost.

Casey went back to whispering something to Hank, who threw back his head and laughed.

Anger roiled in my stomach. How could everyone be so happy? How had they figured it out?

“It’s girl trouble, isn’t it,” Sam asked.

Since when had this kid become so insightful?

With everyone else occupied, it was easy to keep our conversation just between the two of us. I decided to tell Sam the truth. “You know about girls?”

Sam nodded sagely. “A lot of my friends have problems like that.”

I suppressed a smile, nodding seriously along with him. “I’m impressed,” I said. “When I was ten my problems were all about trying to beat my personal best on a test and worrying about getting picked for the baseball team.”

“Oh, we have those problems too,” Sam assured me. “So, who’s the girl… I mean, woman?”

My heart squeezed painfully. “She’s a friend of Hank’s, actually.”

“It’s Michelle, isn’t it?”

My jaw fell open. “You know her? Also, how did you know?”

“Hank said you had a crush on her.”

“He what?”

“Not to her face or anything. I heard him tell Mom.”

I glared at my brother who seemed to sense my eyes on him.