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Farrah turns off the oven and puts the oven mitts away in the drawer nearest the oven. She dusts the flour from the front of her pajama shorts, then messes with her bun.
I take a step closer to her. Bruce and Mom are distracted, fussing over the baby.
“You okay, Farrah?” I ask, keeping my voice low.
“Of course,” she whispers. “Does your, um, friend, want a banana nut muffin?”
My eyebrows scrunch together, unable to decipher why she’s acting so nervous. “No. He’s not staying,” I answer. Something inside me is telling me I need to get Bruce out of this house and away from my sister as soon as possible.
I clap my hands together. “Well, thanks for coming over to workout Bruce. I’ll see you at practice in the morning.”
He looks up at me, his bottom lip sticking out. “But I’m not done holding the baby. And I haven’t had coffee yet.”
Mom gives me a look full of motherly reprimand and moves toward the coffee pot, pulling a mug out of the cabinet above it and pouring it full of steaming coffee for Bruce.
Giving up, I walk into the kitchen and grab a mug and fill it with coffee for myself. Apparently, Bruce is the only one getting served in this house. He grins at me as Mom hands him his mug.
Not trusting Bruce to hold Nella and a mug of coffee, I set mine on the countertop and take her from him.
As she’s sliding out of his arms and into mine, he whispers, “You’re super territorial, I’m seeing a new side of you.”
I heave an exasperated sigh. Amber comes up behind me, looping her arms around my waist. I’m still sweaty from my workout, but she doesn’t seem to mind and rests her head on my bicep.
“Wow, you guys are adorable,” Bruce says, removing his phone from his shorts pocket and pointing it at us. “Cutest family ever. Let me take a pic to show the guys.” He sticks his tongue out in concentration, tapping on his iPhone screen to capture shots of us. “Remy, could you smile? You have a house full of beautiful women. Smiling should come easy, man!”
My mom playfully shoves his shoulder. “Oh, Bruce! You rogue!”
I glance at Farrah to see if she’s as charmed as our mother, but she’s gawking at Bruce like he’s a cartoon character come to life. Honestly, I’ve looked at him the same way once or twice.
My sisters made me watch Disney’s Frozen last Christmas, and the blond guy in that movie who sells ice looked eerily like Bruce. I think he had a moose? Or a deer?
I smile at the camera, and he’s right—it is easy to smile when my girls are with me. Speaking of Amber and Nella, of course. As much as I love my mom and sister, they’re not my girls.
Bruce flips through the photos he took with a satisfied smile, then puts his phone away and resumes drinking the mug of coffee Mom gave him.
My house is chaos.
Not for the first time since getting married, I crave normalcy. Not the normal I had before Amber married me, but the new normal we can hopefully find once we don’t have a house full of people.
I want Mom and Farrah to head back to Ohio, I want Bruce to go back to his own damn house, and I want the woman filling all my thoughts to have a successful follow-up appointment with her cardiologist.
But despite the chaos whirling through my usually very calm, very quiet home, I must find a moment to talk to Amber about Theo’s texts.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-SEVEN
AMBER
By the time Bruce leaves, it’s well after lunch. He’s quite the character, and he talks a lot. I know Ford loves his teammates, but he seemed irritated during the entire visit. Like a big angry bird ruffling his feathers.
After I’ve put Nella down for her afternoon nap, I head to our room to check my phone. It’s been such a busy morning, and I didn’t give it a second thought. Until I enter the room, and Ford is sitting on my side of the bed, looking like a child about to be chastised. I’ve seen that look before—when he was a boy. But it’s always been for teachers, or his parents. Never me. I don’t like it.
“I looked at your phone,” he blurts, telling on himself. Ford runs a hand through his short hair. “I picked it up to give it to you, but saw texts from Theo. I’m sorry for invading your privacy.”
My eyebrows shoot up. Not at Ford for reading my messages—I couldn’t care less about that. He can dig through my whole phone if he wants to, but he’s just going to find a bunch of balayage hair color videos I’ve saved.
What alarms me is that Theo texted me. My blood turns cold at that name. I have zero feelings for the man anymore, but what if this is something about Nella?
