Page 127 of Knocked Up By the Silver Foxes

“But it’s your dad,” I say, because that’s the part that’s been sitting in my chest for months, the part I couldn’t figure out how to say, and apparently the way I say it is just like that, flat and direct and slightly tragic.

Sophia’s smile softens but it doesn’t go away. She squeezes my hands and looks at me with the directness she saves for things that actually matter to her.

“Yeah,” she says. “And he’s a single grown ass man who doesn’t need my permission to fall head over heels for my most favorite person in the world.” She holds my gaze and doesn’t let me look away from it. “He makes you happy. That’s what matters to me. That you’re happy and that my dad is finally getting out of his own way and not burying himself in work and wine groupies.”

“Wine groupies,” I repeat.

“Don’t ask, it was a phase, we don’t discuss it.” She waves her free hand. “The point is, you with him and Maddox and Asher? It makes sense to me. You got Uncle Mad Max to slow down. To stay in one place longer than a playlist. Do you know how many times that man has canceled on us over the years because he had somewhere else to be? And now he’s here, like actually here, all the time, because of you.”

Something in my chest does a thing I wasn’t expecting it to do and I have to look at my salad for a second.

“And Uncle Asher,” she continues, gentler now, like she knows this one lands differently. “He’s himself again. Not the version of himself he was with Monica, that stiff, walking-on-eggshells version that used to show up to family dinners and make everything feel like it was being performed for someone who wasn’t even in the room. Like, the man cooks with his whole body, you know? He leans into it, he tastes as he goes, he feeds people because it’s how he loves them, and with Monica he was asking permission before he did anything. That’s not Asher.”

“No,” I agree quietly, thinking of every midnight kitchen, every plate that appeared without being asked for. “It’s not.”

“And not the version after either,” she says, “when he was just this quiet existential whatever, going through the motions of his own life. He’s him. The real one. And that’s because of you, Harper.”

I look up at her and my throat is doing something inconvenient.

“And you,” she says, and her voice goes soft in the way it does when she’s being completely serious, which with Sophia is rare enough that I feel it land. “Harper. You’re my ride or die. You’re the person I called when my life was a disaster and you showed up every single time without making me feel like a disaster for needing you. And now you’re the mother of my little nugget.” She squeezes my hands again. “This is good. This is real happiness and you deserve this. Every messy, complicated, infuriating part of it.”

I laugh and it comes out wetter than I meant it to. “I’m not going to cry in your stockroom.”

“You’re absolutely going to cry in my stockroom and I’m going to let you because I also might be crying a little and it’s my stockroom so the rules are mine.”

We sit there for a moment, both of us pretending we’re not doing exactly what we’re doing, and it’s the most normal and complete I’ve felt since all of this started.

“I was so scared to tell you,” I admit.

“I know.” She tilts her head. “Dad told me, by the way. A while ago. He didn’t exactly have a choice, but he also didn’t fight very hard to keep it from me, so I think he wanted me to know.”

“Yeah, I heard about the ultrasound frames situation.”

“They’re framed in my suite and the boutique and I have one in my bag at all times.”

“Sophia.”

“Big Sis Sophia is a whole identity and I’m stepping into it fully.”

I laugh for real this time, the kind that comes all the way up from somewhere, and she laughs with me, and for a long minute the stockroom is just us, the sandwich wrappers, the little lamp, and about six months of a conversation we should have had sooner.

Enzo knocks on the doorframe, wearing the expression of a man who has been waiting very patiently for two women to finish something he couldn’t interrupt.

“Um. Sorry. There’s a customer out front and she wants to know about the strappy set versus the lace set and I just. I don’t have the vocabulary for that conversation.”

Sophia stands immediately, brushing crumbs off her lap with the efficiency of someone who has been waiting for a reason to go back and fix the display. “I’ll handle it. You two can finish eating.”

She’s gone before he can respond, heels sharp on the floor, and Enzo steps fully into the office doorway and watches her go with the expression he gets when she’s not looking at him, which is the most honest expression I’ve ever seen on his face.

“So,” he says, turning back to me, hands in his pockets, something in his posture shifting into a version of himself that isn’t the Lorenzo who manages logistics and refers to wine by its terroir. “You’re pregnant by Killian, Asher, and Maddox.”

“One of them,” I say. “But yes, we’re raising them together.”

He nods slowly, taking that in the way he takes in most large pieces of information, steadily, like he’s checking it against a mental framework before responding. Then he steps a little further into the office and lowers his voice.

“Do you mind if I ask you something? And I need this to stay in this room.”

I straighten slightly. “Of course.”