Page 55 of Scoring Eden

I ignore them both and swipe Salem off the rug to kiss her on the cheek. “Love you, Say-Say.”

She giggles, patting my cheeks with sticky hands. “Wuv you.”

I set her back down and turn to her sister, who’s already waiting for me expectantly with her arms outstretched. “My turn.”

Pulling her into my arms, I spin her around until she’s howling. “Love you, Trouble. Be good for your mom, but not your dad. Be very, very bad for him, okay?”

Leo huffs and rolls his eyes. But fuck him. He deserves it.

“Okay,” Ivy agrees with a giggle, and it’s the best sound in the whole damn world.

I love my nieces so fucking much, and to think that Leo and Brynn want to move them thirty minutes away from me.

Well, we’ll just see about that.

“This is certainly a new development. I didn’t realize you were considering a house move.” Dr. Sharma crosses one leg over the other as she adjusts her glasses on her nose. “And this has nothing to do with your sister’s decision to move out of the city?”

“Nope.”

“Oh?” She reclines back in her chair and taps her pen against her chin. “What was your reasoning behind the decision, then?”

I shrug, looking past her to stare at the trees waving outside the window. “The suburbs are safer. There’s more space out there. I could have a yard for the kids.”

I’m regurgitating all the reasons Brynn gave, but hey, it’s not like she was wrong.

“Whose kids?” my therapist asks, her gaze dipping momentarily to the notepad on her lap. “Are you planning on having children in the future?”

I hadn’t thought about it, which seems strange, considering my age and how close I am with Ivy and Say. I’m turning thirty soon. I should know these things about myself.

But I’ve been so focused on soccer, and it’s not as if I’m on the market for a serious relationship. Not that having children requires one—Leo and Eden have shown me that—but it would be the ideal situation if ever I was looking to procreate.

“My nieces.” I look down at my lap. “A yard would be good for when they come over to play.”

She nods thoughtfully. “You don’t want children of your own?”

“I’m quite happy with being an uncle.”Whatever she found in my answer gets scribbled onto the page. I wonder what it is that she wrote or what she thinks my answer divulged about me. Probably some bullshit about I’m a detached avoidant or whatever. Brynn could tell her as much. She’s been sending me self-help articles since diagnosing me from a TikTok video a month ago.

“Let’s go back to the move.”

Let’s not.

“With all due respect, Doc, I don’t think there’s much to unpack there.”

“What was your instant reaction when Brynn told you they were moving out of the city?”

Panic. Crushing disappointment. A weird heaviness on my chest that made me want to cry.

“I was happy for her.” My voice cracks. “I mean, of course I was surprised at first. Who wouldn’t be in that situation? Sure, they’ve mentioned a few times that the apartment isn’t best suited for children, but I wasn’t expecting them to move now.” I force a grin. “But they are, and that’s…great. It’s great. Good for them, you know? And they were telling me all about the neighborhood, and it just made me think…they’re right. The suburbs would be such a better place to live. I should move there too. But not because of them. Just because it’s better. It would also help with all the Purview stuff, and it would get Eden’s ex-husband off her back. So, as you can see, my move and their move are two entirely separate things. Not at all correlated. It’s just one big coincidence, really.”

Nailed it.

Dr. Sharma gives me something of a polite smile and scratches her pen over the paper again. “Who’s Eden?”

“Sorry, what?”

She glances back down at her notes. “You said moving would help get Eden’s ex-husband off her back. Eden is?”

Ah, fuck.