Page 178 of Lose You Twice

“Good, well, as good as it can be,” he says, and I get the feeling that he still doesn’t really love school.

“That’s good. How’s baseball going?”

“Way better than school.”

I chuckle. “Fair.”

“The twins are going to freak when they see you. They’ve been talking about you nonstop since you’ve been around again.”

He didn’t mean for his words to hit the way they do, but guilt pricks at me nonetheless. “Is that right?”

Justin nods. “Oh yeah. I think it drives Wren crazy that they seem to like you more than her.”

“Wren’s amazing. You’re all crazy lucky to have her.”

“Definitely,” he agrees. “But still. They missed you a lot. We all did.”

I look at him then, and he’s genuine. I clear my throat, shoving down the emotion threatening to block it. “What time do they come out?”

“Uh…” He checks his phone. “They should unlock the doors in about two minutes. They’ll stand with their teacher until they see us, then they’ll just come to the car.”

I nod. “Perfect.”

A couple minutes later, the doors open, and the first people out the door are two little girls pulling their teacher by her hands.

I grin. “I think they might be excited.”

Justin rolls his eyes, opening his door to hop out. “Told you.”

Squeals and chaos take over as the twins hop into the backseat of my car, sitting in their boosters and buckling while Justin gets back into his seat.

“Hockey Kai! You’re driving us to our home!” Daisy squeals.

I smile at her in my rearview, making sure they’re both buckled before making my way through the parking lot. “I am.”

“Can we get milkshakes?” she asks. Justin shakes his head, hiding his smile by looking out his window.

“Would Wren say yes?”

Lily cuts in before Daisy can answer. “That would be a no.”

Daisy glares. “You are no fun.”

Lily shrugs. I shake my head and pull out onto the road.

“How was school today?”

“It was artist day, so we all got to be artists,” Daisy says, clapping her hands together. “It was so much fun.”

“Everyone got paint everywhere. It’s going to take them forever to clean it up,” Lily tells me, a lot less enthused than her sister.

“Was it fun at least?” I ask her.

“Yeah, it was fun.”

“Kai!” Daisy basically yells. “Can we listen to Justin Bieber?”

Justin groans, and I shake my head.