Page 83 of Beautiful Secrets

There’s a knock at the door, and the sudden, unmistakable wail of a small child.

Derek opens the door.

A young woman comes through the door. She has a child on each hip, and a third in tow while somehow managing to tote around a large diaper bag. Her black hair is long and slightly disheveled—as if it has had its fair share of sticky hands grabbing onto it since she last brushed it—and pretty gray eyes that sweep through the room and seem to immediately know what’s going on.

They turn to slits when she sees me, and she stops walking so suddenly that the little girl behind her bumps into the back of her legs. “What’s going on?”

The toddler who’d been wailing outside the door now has a thumb in his mouth.

It takes a moment before I realize they’re twins, because the other boy had turned to stare at Derek as the woman walked through the door.

“It’s complicated,” Derek says, on top of Sarah’s, “I don’t think we can babysit for you—”

“What? Of course we can!” My voice is too tight, too high, too excited, but I go with it anyway. “Look how precious!” I rush over to the woman and reach out for one of the boys on her hip. “Here, let me help.”

“I’m sorry, who the hell are you?” she says, staring warily at me.

“I am friend,” I tell her brightly. “I babysit for you.”

It is probably the most ridiculous plan I have yet, but just like this woman, I at least know how to weigh up a situation like this and make some assumptions. They might not all be correct, but it is better than sitting on my bruised buttocks and just letting shit keep happening to me.

“Uh, that’s nice, but—”

“Meisie, this is Mika. She’s Cole’s, uh—”

“Girlfriend,” I blurt out.

“Really?” She scans the room again. “Is he here?”

Why does it sound like Cole is the last person Meisie wants to see?

I reach for the child again. “I take little boy, you relax.”

Meisie still seems very reluctant, but when Sarah gives her an encouraging nod, the woman finally lets me take one of the boys. Sarah takes the other, holding him up and making babbling noises as she hoists him into the air. The boy giggles at her, sticking a thumb in his mouth as he gazes down at Sarah.

I juggle the boy I took from Meisie, doing my best to put him on my hip like she was doing. But the boy stares up at me with grumpy eyes, his pout becoming more and more pronounced.

And then he bursts into tears.

“Shh, shh!” I cradle him in my arms, my muscles already burning from his weight. “Don’t cry. Mika take good care of little boy.” God, I can’t even speak English properly anymore.

What would Cole think if he saw me trying to calm down a screaming child? Would he laugh at how ridiculous this is?

I glance at Meisie. How the hell did she manage to carry two of these around so effortlessly? She is just as small as me.

And these boys look big for their age.

How on earth did she give birth?

I feel sick to my stomach at the thought of how much pain she must have gone through. Twice in a row!

And then I just feel plainsick.

“Okay, good boy,” I tell the wailing child in my arms as I hand him back to his mother with an apologetic grimace. Meisie takes him back, her frown deepening a little as she scans my face.

“Everything okay? You look a little pale.”

Why everyone always feels the need to point that out, I don’t know. It just makes matters worse.