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Joe shot Piper a look she had no idea how to interpret and decided she never wanted to.
Dylan’s sisters were confused, standing there looking like he’d just broken out a few ballet moves.
“Since when do you like children?”
“I like children,” he said to Charlie. “Ava was one, remember, and we liked her most of the time. But this one is extra special because I spent some time with her, plus she knows a stud when she sees one.”
This made everyone but the Howard sisters hoot with laughter. Piper wasn’t sure they even knew how to relax and just have fun with other adults. Uptight was what they were, just like Dylan was.
“She’s cute,” Ava said, moving closer.
Charlie took the other side. They were closer, Piper realized, watching them. Sure, they weren’t exactly relaxed, but they’d begun to be a family. She wondered if they realized that yet.
“She must remember you,” Jack said, looking from Piper to the Howards. “Fancy that.”
Piper was pleased there wasn’t the usual animosity in his tone. Not that it mattered, because Dylan would be leaving Ryker soon; in fact she’d thought he would have by now. But it was important to her that her cousins liked him because while there may not be anything in her future that linked her to the man, he still needed friends. Piper knew her cousins made excellent friends.
“What can I say, I have a winning personality,” Dylan drawled, taking Grace with him to a seat at the counter.
“Must be that,” Charlie said, joining him.
“Mr. Goldhirsh get to you, bud?” Joe said.
The Roadies, as they were known around town, were all now seated outside, as they always did when it was fine. They’d order coffee and toast with a side of eggs, and not much else.
“So coffee and a side of eggs?” Piper said, leaving the coffee machine. “That’s what the Roadies all order routinely.”
Charlie and Ava nodded, and Dylan shuddered
“You ate toast and oatmeal,” he said to his sisters.
“And just ran for an hour, so we get to eat now too, and you have to pay,” Ava said, ticking Grace under the chin.
She looked almost happy, but those smudges under her eyes hadn’t gone away yet.
“That’s not fair.”
Piper took their order and went back to the coffee machine after taking it to the kitchen. She listened as the Trainers and Howards interacted, and couldn’t stop the smile as she thought how far they’d all come.
The Trainers had fought their battles and come out the other side, and it seemed maybe the Howards were doing that too.
“You say she just got sick without warning?”
“Yeah, just doubled over, and Dylan had to pick her up and carry her to bed. She’s home from hospital now but still pretty sick,” Charlie told Jack. “They think it may be food poisoning.”
“Who’s sick?” Piper handed Dylan his coffee, and the sisters herbal teas.
She dug her toes into the soles of her sneakers as he looked at her, those blue eyes running over her face and back to her eyes.
“Mom. She has some kind of illness. Doctors are running tests, but it was violent and points to poisoning of some kind.”
“That’s not good.”
Grace was playing with the face of his watch now, running a small pudgy finger around it.
“No, it’s not. And while she’s not everyone’s favorite citizen, it’s not easy to see her in pain.”
“Dylan—”
