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“Yes.” Tori pinned Siena with her stare. “Do you think I’m completely blind about everything, Siena?”

Siena opened her mouth and shut it again. “No, I suppose not.”

“And yet you think I haven’t been able to figure out the complications of our past?” Tori put her hand over Siena’s once more and squeezed lightly before pulling back. “I know you loved me, and I know you still do. But we were never truly in love with each other. You weren’t the only one convinced that near enough was good enough.”

Siena blinked and tried to fit this information into her own world view, of both her own actions and of Tori.

“Of course, I was upset and angry when I first realized, but I know you, Siena. You believed in love, and you believed the love we had for each other was enough to get us what we both wanted. Not just you, but I wanted it too. I still did even after we got divorced. That’s the difference. You gave up on it, and I didn’t. Not our marriage, but the dreams of family.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t excuse me. That doesn’t mean I’m not making the same mistake that I made with you again.”

“Then do something different,” Tori snapped out before Siena could continue further down the self-flagellation road.

The doorbell rang, and Tori was on her feet and heading out of the kitchen before Siena had taken in her words, let alone her tone.

Throughout their marriage and subsequent friendship, Tori had so rarely used that tone with Siena that she genuinely couldn’t remember the last time or the reason for it.

It did its intended job, though. By the time she returned to the kitchen, pizza in hand and Aili and Harley in tow, Siena was ready to talk properly, and to ask Tori for her help and guidance.

“Hey there.” Hugs and kisses were exchanged.

Once the pizza had been put onto plates, Aili led Harley away, pretending to tiptoe in secret as she took the food out of the kitchen. Harley’s giggle filled Siena’s body with a lightness that had gotten her through more days than she could ever count.

“Nothing that brought her into our lives could ever truly be a mistake, Siena,” Tori said.

Siena turned from where their daughter had disappeared and watched as Tori pulled her own eyes from the same place to look back at her.

“I could never see her as a mistake.”

“And our relationship wasn’t either. It was precisely what we needed, for as long as we needed it to be.”

“Love’s made you an even bigger sap,” Siena joked, smiling at Tori.

“Yep. And what are you going to let it do to you?” She took a bite of her pizza slice as she nodded and waited for Siena’s answer.

“She doesn’t want me like that, Tori. I can’t stop thinking about her. And she doesn’t even want me like that.”

“Oh my God,” Tori exploded as she slapped her pizza slice back onto her plate. “Are you kidding me?”

“What?” Siena took a big bite of her own slice, havingrealized how hungry she was only when the smell of grease and cheese had made her stomach growl.

“Siena, I love you. I will always love you. As the mother of our daughter and as someone I’ve shared my life with.” Tori leaned back already, shaking her head. “But for the love of God, would you finally stop overthinking every single little thing in your life?”

“Just because I don’t like rushing into things?—”

“There’s taking things slowly, and then there is becoming a sloth with your emotions.”

“I’m not a sloth.”

“Yeah, you really are.” Tori chuckled and picked up her pizza again. “You might get naked easy enough, but not with your heart.”

“You want me to get naked with my heart?”

“Yep. And sooner rather than later.”

“Yeah okay, let me just schedule that in.” Siena’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “My first free time would be in three years’ time.”

“You’re impossible sometimes. You know that.”