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His eyes twinkled. “Of course.” We held eye contact for a minute—a minute that sent a shiver down my spine. “All right,” he said, breaking it and looking around the full garage. “I have no idea where to start.”
I picked my way between boxes, going up onto my tiptoes and balancing so as not to knock over a precariously balanced stack. “Well, usually I’d be snarky and say we should start at the beginning, but there doesn’t appear to be one. Or a middle. Or an end.”
His laugh echoed off the walls. “You’re not wrong. I wouldn’t recommend moving with twins. In hindsight, I wish I’d left them with my parents while I moved everything here.”
“I can imagine.” I smiled and straightened a pile of boxes. “Okay. Let’s just shift some stuff around and see what room we can make.”
“That’s exactly what I was hoping you’d say. Let me check on the twins, then I’ll start at this end.”
“It is suspiciously quiet,” I said over my shoulder.
“Exactly.” Brantley’s laugh lingered when he stepped back into the kitchen.
I had no idea how he did it.
I got started on moving the boxes. Some were light, so I stacked those first. They were labeled the most random things—towels, baby clothes, pillows, stuffed toys. It was chaos, to put it simply.
Mind you, if I were him, it’d be chaos, too. I guess keeping tiny humans alive was more important than unpacking stuff.
I shifted a box against the wall, hitting another in the process. I just about managed to grab it before it fell, and something clinked inside. This one wasn’t taped like the others, and my awkward grab of the box had the top gaping open.
I set it down on top of another. More clinking came from inside it, and I paused.
A part of me wanted to check it, but at the same time, it felt like a bit of an invasion of their privacy.
I peered over my shoulder. Brantley was still in the house, so if I looked quickly…
I opened the box before I could question myself. It was full of unwrapped photo frames and a couple of vases. Pulling the vases out to check over them, I dislodged the frames. One fell flat forward where the vases had been.
I put them both on the floor and straightened the frame. Then, I paused. A young woman was in the photo, clutching two babies in her arms. I felt no recognition at looking at her face, so I pulled it out and looked at it properly.
The babies were dressed in pink and blue, and as I looked over the photo, it dawned on me. This was the twins as babies—with their mom.
She was beautiful. Short, honey-blond hair showed where the twins got their now-golden-brown locks from. Big eyes, a round face, light freckles on her nose.
Yet, the twins looked nothing like her. Except for the freckles and the tint in their hair, they were both the double of Brantley.
“Right, I can help now. Sorry. It’s like being a referee sometimes.”
I jumped, dropping the frame. Thankfully, it fell into the box and not on the floor.
“Are you okay?” Brantley asked, peering over the garage at me.
“Yeah. I—” I stopped. “You, uh, you have frosting on your nose. Just here.” I rubbed the side of mine.
“Shit.” He wiped his hand over his face. “Did I get it?”
I nodded. “Should I ask?”
His lips curled to the side. “Barbie and Iron Man got married. Apparently, Superman started a cake fight, and Batman took offense to it. Rainbow Dash tried to save her, and that’s apparently how frosting ended up all over the sofa.”
“You had me up until Rainbow Dash.”
“My Little Pony. Stupid names,” he murmured, then shook his head. “Thanks. For the frosting.” He tapped his nose. “How are you doing over there?”
“Oh, I…” I paused. “I almost knocked this one over, then something sounded like it smashed, so I was just checking it over.”
He frowned. “Did anything? Smash?
“Oh, no.” I bent down and picked up one of the vases. “All fine.”
He picked his way through the boxes the same way I had and joined me. I hesitated, holding the vase close to my chest as he reached for the top and opened it.
Hesitantly, he picked up the photo. I peered up at him through my lashes, watching as a slight smile toyed with the edges of his mouth. “You’re probably wondering why there’s a whole box of photos of her, right?”
“No,” I lied.
He looked at me, one eyebrow raised.
“I didn’t know all of them were of her, so I didn’t, but now I am,” I admitted.
He laughed quietly, setting the frame back in the box. He took the vase from me, replaced it, and did the same with the other. Then, he folded the box flaps so it was completely closed.
