Page 87 of Grumpy Ex-Military Brewmaster’s Secret

"I'm going," I say, already moving, already done running numbers on what could go wrong. For the first time in two weeks, in longer than that if I'm honest, I stop asking what I'm afraid of losing and ask the only question that actually matters.

What do I want?

I want her. I want all four of them, loud and complicated and permanent, every version of a future I've spent six years convincing myself I wasn't allowed to reach for. Gunny's still talking behind me, something about taking my own truck instead of his, and I barely hear him, already out the door and into the cold, already driving toward the only answer that's ever mattered.

43

JENNA

Derek's supervised visit is scheduled for eleven, thirty minutes in the yard with a monitor named Carol standing close enough to write down every word he says, and I've had the morning mapped out in my head since I woke up, the twins fed and dressed and reminded twice that this is one of the good, boring visits, the kind where nothing happens except a little stiff conversation and a wave goodbye.

I'm wrong within the first ten minutes.

I hear his car before I see it, that particular low growl of an engine he's always babied more than he ever babied his own kids, and when I check the clock on the stove it reads ten forty, twenty minutes early, no Carol in sight yet. Something in me goes cold and alert all at once, the exact feeling of a plan coming apart before it's even started.

"Mom, Dad's here," Eli calls from the front window, already halfway into his shoes.

"Wait for me before you go outside."

"He's just parking."

"Eli. Wait for me."

He waits, though not happily, and I've barely made it out onto the porch before Derek's already climbing out of his car, alone, no sign of Carol's sedan behind him, nothing but empty gravel drive and a man walking toward my kids like the last several months of court dates never happened.

"You're early," I say, keeping my voice level, keeping myself between him and the porch steps without making it look like that's what I'm doing.

"Traffic was light." He smiles, easy and reasonable, the smile he's always been best at, the one that used to make me doubt my own memory of the night before. "Figured I'd get a few extra minutes with them before the professional chaperone shows up to supervise my own children."

"The order says the monitor has to be present. That's not optional, Derek."

"The order says a lot of things. I'm their father. I don't think five minutes alone with my kids on my own property line is going to bring the whole system crashing down." He crouches slightly, aiming the smile at Josie now, who's drifted halfway down the porch steps despite my hand on her shoulder. "Hey, munchkin. You want to come see the car? I got the good air freshener, the one you like."

"I'm supposed to wait for Carol," Josie says, uncertain, looking between the two of us like she's trying to solve a math problem nobody's shown her the rules for.

"Carol's running late. It's just us for a few minutes. That's allowed." He holds out a hand, still smiling, still using the exact reasonable tone that used to convince me I was the unreasonable one every single time. "Come on. Both of you. Let's go wait in the car where it's warmer."

"They're not getting in your car, Derek."

"They're my kids too, Jenna."

"Not without Carol here. That's not a negotiation." I step down onto the top stair, angling myself so Josie has to move back toward me instead of forward toward him, and I feel Eli come up close on my other side, quiet in the way he gets when he's decided something is dangerous even if nobody's said the word out loud yet. "You can wait right there until she arrives. That's what the order says, and you know exactly what happens if you violate it."

Something shifts behind his eyes, quick and ugly before the smile smooths back over it, the exact transition I spent nine years learning to read from across a room. "I'm not violating anything. I'm standing in a driveway talking to my own family. Since when is that a crime?"

"Since a judge decided you needed supervision to do it safely."

"That's not what she decided, and you know it." His voice stays quiet, controlled, the same register he always used right before things got worse, and I feel Josie's hand find mine, small and cold. "She decided I needed a chance to prove I've changed. This is me proving it. Standing here, being patient, not making a scene, even though you're standing on that porch treating me like I'm something dangerous in front of my own children."

"Your mother likes to make things complicated that don't need to be." He says it to the twins now, not to me, like I've stepped out of the conversation entirely just by disagreeing with him. "That's just who she is. Always has been. I used to think it would get better and it never did."

"Don't talk about me like I'm not standing right here."

"I'm not talking about you. I'm talking to them." He doesn't even glance my way when he says it, and that, more than anything else this morning, is the thing that finally cracks something loose in my chest, the old familiar trick of him talking right through me until the room forgot I was there.

"Get in the car, kids." He says it lighter now, almost playful, like he's offering candy instead of asking two eight-year-olds to climb into a vehicle without the one adult legally required to witness it. "Five minutes. Your mom's just nervous. She'll get over it."

"No." Eli's voice cracks a little on the word, but he doesn't move, doesn't let go of my sleeve. "We're supposed to wait for Carol."