"What?" I asked, turning from the spaghetti on the stove. It was the only real dish I had in any way mastered. I was still pretty handy with a take-away menu when Paine wasn't in the mood to cook.
"Uncle Roman is taking me on his sailboat!" he declared, eyes huge, mouth open like it was the most amazingly shocking thing that had ever been uttered. To say Jack was an extrovert would be putting it mildly. He was an endless bundle of energy attached to a tongue that never struggled for words, and a brain that was way too curious and mischievous for any of our good.
"Oh he is, is he?" I asked, looking up over my son to Rome who stood in the doorway of the kitchen, his hair more mussed than usual, his pristine white shirt with the unmistakable splattered stain of a fruit juice box. I couldn't tell you how many times I had warned him to stick the straw in out of reach of Jack who was way too impatient to wait for you to finish and had a tendency to grab the box and squeeze, ruining one too many nice shirts with bright red stains in the process.
Rome gave me a smile, soft, familiar. "Come on, Mom," he drawled in a little-kid voice. "Don't say no!"
"Yeah, Mom! Don't say no!" Jackson chorused and I felt myself laughing.
"You know you stand no chance," Paine said, coming up behind Roman with eight-month old Willow (named after Lo), head to toe in pink, propped up on his hip. Whereas Paine's genes were strong in Jack, my genes were prominent in our daughter. She got my face shape, my nose, and my blue eyes. Her hair was just a whisp of a dark brown, unlike her brother's black.
"Come on. You guys could use a day off. Ship off Willa to Kenzi or Reese. Let me have Jack. You guys can have a whole day to yourselves."
"What a novel concept," I mused, smiling at Paine. It wasn't that we were ever short on babysitters. Between Roman, Enzo, Kenzi, Reese, Gina, Amelia and Shoot, Breaker and Alex, and even Cash and Lo, we never had to look far for someone to give us a few hours of quiet. But since the very unexpected appearance of Willow, we truly hadn't had more than an hour away from both Jack and her at a time. I had been breastfeeding and it was just too much of a hassle to pump and worry about leaking to leave for any extended amount of time. But since Willa started eating food a few months ago and my milk started slowly but surely drying up from disuse, a date night was looking more and more like a possibility.
"Okay, but listen, Jack... you do not, under any circumstances lean over the side of the boat. Do you understand me?"
"Man overboard!" Jack yelled, squatting, jumping, and pretending to crash down into the water.
"I hope you know what you're getting yourself into," I said to Rome with a smile.
"He'll have a life jacket and I know better than to take my eyes off him."
"Still mentally scarred from that time you lost him at the park?" Paine asked, moving into the kitchen to deposit Willow into my arms and take over at the stove to save the food I had already forgotten about.
"I didn't lose him," Rome objected, shaking his head. "He was hiding behind the water fountain."
"Don't let him fool you," I smiled. "He lost him in a clothing rack at the store. Twice."
"You staying for dinner, Rome?" Paine asked and Rome nodded, moving toward the fridge to grab a drink.
I stood back, kissing the side of my daughter's head as I watched Rome pop the top on a beer as Jack prattled on endlessly to whichever man would listen about his plans to be a pirate when he grew up. With a parrot and everything!
The goofy smile spread across my face, a smile I had found on my lips every single day for six years, a smile I knew I would never lose. Not when I had Paine and the evidence of our love in the form of a rambunctious almost-kindergartner and the, hopefully a sight less rambunctious, almost-toddler as well as the strong supporting cast of characters Paine had brought into my life. New friends in his guy friends, men I could always count on lounging around in the living room on game nights, pretending to watch the kids: Jackson and Willa, along with Shooter and Amelia's two little girls, Bri and Alexis (who got their names from Breaker and Alex), and Breaker and Alex's one and only blond-haired giant, Junior. His name was actually Johnnie, named after Shooter's birth name, but everyone called him Junior, though there was nothing junior about him. He was the only kid around the same age as Jackson who could give him a run for his money.