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He blinked. Then he grinned, unaware of how relieved I was that I’d made the right move. He swept one of the rosettes onto his finger and stuck it in his mouth. I took one too, and we shared a conspiratorial chuckle.

“You’re just learning, too,” I reminded him. “You don’t have to be good at something on the first try. Most people aren’t.”

He sighed, peering at the remaining rosettes.

“You know I used to watch your dad play hockey as a kid, right?”

Zane looked at me. “Yeah?”

“Do you think he was as good then as he is now?”

Zane’s eyes widened, as if he’d never imagined his dad being less than incredible at hockey. “He wasn’t?”

“Of course not.” I shrugged. “I mean, he was good, but if he’d tried to play for the Rebels back then…

” I grimaced and shook my head. “It’s a tough sport, and it took him a long time and a lot of work to get where he is now.

And I guarantee you when he first started skating, he fell down a lot more than he stayed up. ”

Zane shifted his gaze to the frosting blobs.

I squeezed his shoulder. “It just takes practice. That’s all.” I paused. “Sort of like the games you’ve been playing. You didn’t beat them all on the first try, did you?”

He sighed. “No.”

“Exactly. So just keep at it. You’ll get there.”

He eyed the frosting, then nodded and held up the bag. “Can you put a little more in it?”

“Of course.” I spooned some more frosting into the bag, then handed it back to him.

He was hesitant at first, as if he were afraid to make a mistake.

I touched his shoulder. “Go ahead and make a mess. The more you do it, the easier it’ll be. I promise.”

Zane peered up at me uncertainly. Then he looked down at the waxed paper in front of him, shrugged, and…

made a mess. One squeeze of the bag, and the frosting overshot the place he’d been aiming for and landed on the rosette next to it.

I had a split second to panic, thinking he was about to have a meltdown, but the giggle stopped me.

He adjusted his grasp on the bag and tried again, this time with a bit less force. A few more blobs happened, but then…

Then one of the rosettes came out looking like a rosette.

Still messy and not quite what Marci had effortlessly done, but it was enough of a proof of concept that it seemed to sharpen Zane’s focus.

He shifted around, steadying himself on his elbow, and carefully squeezed out another novice rosette.

The next few were significantly better, and one was actually damn close to what his instructor had showed us.

I had to wonder if he’d just been putting so much pressure on himself, expecting it to be as easy as Marci made it look, that he’d psyched himself out.

I could relate.

When Marci had the students apply what they’d learned to some cupcakes, Zane moved in with the focus and precision of an assassin. Carefully, he pointed the tip at the cake, gave a little squeeze and a turn, and…

“Look!” He sat up and pointed at the rosette. “I got it!”

“You did! Want me to get a picture?”

“Yeah!” He carefully held it up next to his gap-toothed grin, and I snapped a photo on my phone.

Of course, I sent it to Trev.

This kid’s a fast learner.

By the time Trev responded, Zane was already eating the perfectly rosette-ified cupcake.

Wow! Tell him I said great job!

I did, and that prompted a big grin with crumbs gathered at the corners of Zane’s mouth.

This kid was something else, just like his brother.

Just like their dad.

God, no wonder I’m so stupid for Trev.

I focused, though, and continued helping Zane practice the various techniques he was learning.

The class broke for lunch in the middle, and we both happily ate the sandwiches I’d packed.

I’d worried briefly that Zane might not be hungry, but like me, he seemed to love the switch from something blindingly sweet.

The turkey and cheese sandwiches were a nice balance to the steady stream of sugar we’d both been eating since the class started.

As we reconvened after lunch, Marci chirped, “Now I’m going to show you how to make a filled cupcake.” She held up a melon baller. “Step one… scoop out the middle.”

I worried that Zane might balk at that part, since he wanted to be decorating larger cakes instead of cupcakes, but he was actually quite into it.

Like me, he probably hadn’t given a ton of thought to how the filling got into a cupcake.

He seemed fascinated, and when Marci turned the kids loose to fill a couple of cupcakes, he was excited as he tried to decide between the different fillings.

He ultimately settled on raspberry for one and chocolate cream for the other.

The first cupcake broke apart when he used the melon baller, but he didn’t get discouraged or upset this time.

He just went a little slower on the second one, and the center came out without much fuss.

Using the bag to add the filling went smoothly enough; he’d had enough practice with it so far that he seemed to understand just how much would come out when he squeezed it.

The rest of the class went smoothly. Zane had a few frustrating moments, but talking him down was even easier now that he’d seen himself get the hang of things after a few tries. He was still determined to have perfect results, but he was giving himself grace while he learned the various movements.

In the end, he had half a dozen elaborately decorated cupcakes placed carefully in a cardboard carrier, which he asked me to show his dad. The congratulatory “those look awesome—save one for me, okay?” text from Trev lit up Zane’s whole world.

I’d worried that a four-hour class might be too much for a seven-year-old.

I’d been prepared to bail early if I thought he’d had enough, or we could step out for a few minutes if he needed a breather.

It wasn’t like this was an SAT prep class or something; if he missed a segment, someone would probably fill us in.

By the time we left the art center, though, Zane probably would’ve happily sat through another four hours. Marci raved about how much she enjoyed having him in her class, and two of the moms mentioned that he was amazingly focused and well-behaved.

“I’ll pass the word along to his dad,” I said on the way out.

Zane was all smiles, carrying his carton of finished cupcakes down to the car, and he chattered excitedly about all the ideas he wanted to try on a bigger cake.

“The cupcakes are fun, though,” he admitted as I pulled out of the parking lot. “Do you think we can make some?”

“Sure, yeah, we can make some. Not today, but maybe this week?”

“Okay.” He was quiet for a moment, and then, as I was sitting at a red light, he said out of the blue, “I wish Dad could’ve come.”

I glanced at him in the rearview. He was gazing out the window, a touch of sadness in his expression. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. I know he’s gotta go with his team. But sometimes I wish he didn’t have to miss stuff.”

I winced. “That has to be tough. I know he misses you guys a lot while he’s away.” I flicked my gaze to the mirror before refocusing on the road. “He says the highlight of his day is FaceTiming with you and Zach.”

“He does?”

“Of course. And he knows it’s tough on you and your brother.” I paused. “Marci said she has more classes like this during the year. Maybe we can see if your dad wants to do one with you after hockey is over.”

Zane looked up, meeting my gaze in the mirror. “Yeah?”

“Sure. Would you like to do that?”

His smile warmed my heart. “That would be fun!”

I nodded, fixing my gaze on the road as the light turned green. “I’ll talk to him about it.”

Hopefully I hadn’t just put my foot in my mouth and committed Trev to something he wouldn’t enjoy. Though I really struggled to imagine him objecting to doing something that one of his boys enjoyed. Especially something they wanted to do with him.

Besides, he made me to go soccer, so he could live with cake-decorating.

I picked up Zach from his friend’s house, took the boys home, and fed them dinner. After hearing his brother talk about the class, Zach was suddenly interested in it himself, so I made a mental note to mention it to Trev later.

Then we packed their schoolbags into the car and I drove them over to Bryan’s condo. At least Tim was on the road with Trev. He was probably driving Trev nuts, but he could handle him better than I could handle two-on-one. God, I hated that guy.

Bryan let us in, and the boys hugged me goodbye before wandering into their bedrooms. Alone in the kitchen, Bryan and I managed a cordial conversation, which was a lot easier without Tim lurking nearby.

I brought him up to speed on homework; Zach was struggling a little with the latest math unit, and Zane was having a hard time with the reading module.

“Reading?” Bryan eyed me. “This kid basically taught himself to read. What’s he struggling with?”

“Honestly? I think he’s bored with the story. He comprehends the sentences and words just fine, but he’d rather eat glass than read it. I had him read something else that was about the same level, and he blew through it like it was nothing.”

Bryan chewed his lip. “That doesn’t bode well for reading textbooks later.”

“Probably not.”

“Great. Well, I’ll talk to Trev about it. We’ll figure something out.”

I nodded. “Maybe we can each take him to the library. Let him pick out some books that interest him. He’ll have to slog through stuff he doesn’t enjoy later, but we might as well encourage him to read what he does enjoy.”

“True.” After we’d touched base on a few more things, Bryan walked with me to the front door. As I put my shoes back on, he asked, “So how is it, working for Trev?”

I shrugged. “It’s been great. The kids are a lot of fun, and he got me out of a really bad spot.”

“Yeah, seems like a pretty sweet deal for you, isn’t it?” There was an odd edge to his tone that hadn’t been there earlier, and it brought me up short.