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This was so different from any life I’d known before. But there was something beautiful about it, too. The brotherhood, the love.

I’d never been around large families, but I’d always devoured movies and shows about them, loving their dynamic, the way you always had someone to talk to, to rely on.

It had only ever been me and my mom.

And now, me and my daughter.

It was nice to cosplay part of a big found family for a while.

By the time the dishes were done, Coast was making a bottle for a sleepy Lainey.

“Here, let me take her.”

“Make us some coffee then meet us upstairs,” he suggested, resting the side of his face against Lainey’s head. It was such a sweet, soft thing to do. And it made my heart tug hard.

“Will do,” I agreed.

When I got up there, Coast was on the bed, Lainey had finished her bottle, and she was snoozing in the crook of his arm.

With his free hand, he patted the space beside him.

And I wasted no time joining him.

Them.

And there was that little feeling again.

The rightness of it.

The heart tug.

“Coast?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“How are you so good with kids?”

Coast exhaled hard; a muscle ticked in his jaw.

I didn’t think he was going to tell me.

But then, as he absentmindedly ran a finger over Lainey’s soft, pudgy hand, he did.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Coast

“Ask me again about the tattoo.”

“The tally marks?” Zoe asked, glancing up from Lainey to look at me.

“No.”

“The arrows?”