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“And maybe Grayson could use someone to disentangle him from the gang, set him on the right path. Or, at least, a path that won’t lead him right into jail. And Amy, well…”

“Someone has to get her off the street.”

“I’m not saying it has to be you. If you don’t feel comfortable doing it, or you don’t want to reopen all that old stuff. But you could get in contact with the right people…”

“No. No, I want to do it.”

Because she’d been right that one time, when she called them my kids.

These were my kids.

And they needed me.

“I thought you might,” she said, giving me a tentative smile. “So you’re not mad, right?”

“Dunno if it’s possible to be mad at you,” I told her, wrapping an arm around her back. “And especially not for this. I think not knowing was a lot worse than knowing.”

I pulled her in close, sealing my lips to hers for one long, lingering kiss.

Then I was pulling away and grabbing my keys.

“Where are you going?”

“To find a homeless girl. And drag another one out of a gang. Maybe don’t wait up for me.”

Zoe - 2 years

“For the life of me, I can’t figure out what is so complicated about getting your underwear in the hamper,” I mumbled to myself, using the pair of tongs I kept in the bathroom for exactly this purpose to pick up the boxers and drop them into the hamper.

Against my chest, our son slept peacefully. Likely plotting his own devious plans to leave his underpants on the floor in fifteen years’ time.

“You talking to me?” Coast asked, coming down the hall as I made my way out of the bathroom.

“Myself. Our son. The cruel orchestrator of this world of ours where worn underwear gets left on the floor for someone who was not the wearer to pick up.”

Coast opened his mouth to say something, but there was a voice booming from somewhere downstairs.

“Ey, I brought breakfast burritos!” Eddie called.

The absolute last thing I wanted to do was make breakfast that morning. Eddie was practically a mind-reader, I swear.

By the time we made our way downstairs, the food was already spread out across the counter and three teenagers were already plowing into it as Eddie picked up Lainey and set her in her booster at the table.

“Hey, pick up your fucking drawers,” Coast said, lightly whacking Grayson on the back of the head as he walked past him.

“How’d you know it wasn’t Ryland?” Grayson asked over a mouthful of breakfast burrito.

“Because I lived in a box for two years where we couldn’t have a scrap of paper on the floor,” Ryland supplied.

“And apologize to Zoe,” Coast demanded.

“Sorry, Zo.”

“Boys are animals,” Amy said, dropping down next to Lainey at the table.

“Animals,” Lainey agreed with a firm head nod.

Basically, anything that Amy said, Lainey agreed with. It was like she realized that we girls were outnumbered in this house, and we had to stick together.