I hadn’t really seen him before.
And now I was.
I had never believed in love at first sight. It was silly. Love, real love, was knowing someone and understanding them. Or at least that’s what I’d thought.
Now, I knew it was real, because looking at that tiny face, with the bowed lips and the dark brown eyes and the high cheekbones, I fell wholly and irrevocably in love with a child I’d never spoken a word to. In an instant, I was fully in his thrall, willing to do anything to keep him safe and happy.
“Who that?” he asked shyly, pointing at me.
I took a step forward, then stopped as I saw his hand clench on Brenna’s sleeve.
“That’s Lily,” Brenna said, smiling. “That’s Charlie’s older sister.”
“Charlie?”
“She’s at school, baby. Maybe we’ll see her later.”
He continued to stare at me, his eyes wide and thoughtful, then lost interest and laid his head on Brenna’s shoulder, popping his thumb in his mouth.
And the world started to spin again.
“Cute, huh?” Rose said groggily, coming up behind me in pajamas, her hair a rat’s nest and her breath something out of a horror movie.
“How are you just waking up?” I asked as she pushed around me to get to the coffee pot.
“She’s still on Connecticut time,” Hawk said dryly.
“Right,” I said. “Which means it’s almost four o’clock.”
“I’m a night owl,” Rose muttered, making a shooing motion at me behind her back.
“Or a vampire,” Molly said. “Ugh, don’t talk until you’ve brushed your teeth.”
“So much hostility.” Rose shook her head as she reached for the creamer sitting on the counter.
We migrated toward the living room once everyone had their lunch and drinks, and I somehow ended up on the floor in front of a couch, squished between my mom’s legs and Aunt Callie’s.
“It’s so nice having a day off from the hospital,” Molly said, taking a bite of her food. “We’ve been short staffed for a month.”
“Oh, that sucks,” Hawk replied.
I watched as Brenna put Gray down on the floor and fed him tiny bites of her sandwich. He was like a baby bird. He’d take a bite, walk away a few steps to pick up something on the coffee table, then set it back down and go back to Brenna when he was ready for another bite.
The conversation flowed around me, with everyone talking about kids and husbands and work, but I ignored most of it as I watched Gray. He wasn’t all Leo, the way I’d originally thought. I could see parts of his mom in there, too. When he tipped his head back and I saw his face in profile, and when he smiled, that was all Ashley. Leo’s genes were dominant, though, and there wasn’t any mistaking them for anything but father and son.
“Is there going to be a service?” Amy asked, catching my attention. “I kept waiting to hear, we didn’t want to miss it.”
“No,” Brenna said quietly, her mouth tightening. “Her mother had her cremated without saying a word to Leo, and she said she’s not having a memorial or anything.”
“Daddy,” Gray said, nodding.
“Figures,” Hawk mumbled.
“She doesn’t owe him anything,” Trix said reluctantly. She glanced at me and quickly away. “They weren’t together. But it would’ve been nice to know what her plans were before she made them. At least for the little you-know-who.”
We all glanced at Gray, who was taking the rarely used coasters out of their little holder and then putting them back in one-by-one.
“We could still have something small at the club,” Aunt Callie said.
“I’ll talk to my son,” Brenna replied. “But I’m not sure he’d want that. He’s pretty overwhelmed as it is.”
“I can imagine,” my mom said, finally joining the conversation. “None of this can be easy for him.”
“He doesn’t talk to me,” Brenna admitted.
Conversation came to a standstill as Gray wandered toward me and handed me a coaster, a shy smile on his face.
“Thank you,” I said with a smile.
“Elcome.”
Then he walked away and the conversation resumed.
The next time he brought me a coaster, the chatter stayed constant, but I knew without looking up that everyone was watching us.
He brought me all of the coasters, then came back for each, one-by-one, as he put them away again. That happened over and over, and each time he said a few more words to me. I couldn’t understand most of it, but I nodded my head seriously and replied anyway, and that seemed to appease him.
Lunch was over and everyone had settled in to drink coffee and chat when Gray plopped down, straddling my lap, and stuck his thumb in his mouth. His head was resting right over my heart, and without hesitation I reclined a little and put my arm around him so that he’d be more comfortable. It only took a few minutes before he’d fallen asleep.