“Look at her. It feels like just yesterday we were talking about
whether she should get started on pads or tampons,” my best friend said with a sigh from her spot beside me.
I couldn’t help but snort as I looked down the table in the same direction, eyeing Lily at the head of it, surrounded by a handful of her friends and our two sisters. Apparently, at twenty-six, I was too old to sit on that end at the restaurant I had reserved months ago. On my half, there was me, my friend Lenny, her grandfather, her grandfather’s best friend, Mr. Cooper, and Lydia—the extended family we had made since I’d left San Antonio.
I’d been feeling pretty melancholic all day, and it had gotten worse when my sister had walked across the stage at the giant arena where her high school graduation was held. I loved all of my sisters, but Lily… Lily was the baby. She was the best of all of us.
I was happy for her, but it still made me sad that my little sister was growing up.
Fortunately, Lenny had snuck a blow horn into the arena despite going through security somehow—I wasn’t sure how, but I was going to ask later—and the minute that thing had gone toot toot and given everyone within a hundred feet an earache, I hadn’t been able to help but feel joyful, just freaking happy and proud.
My little sister had graduated high school, and like our other sisters, in the top 10 percent of her class, with a three-fourths scholarship to a public university in Lubbock.
That thought especially made my chest fill with pride when I watched her lean back in her chair and laugh her butt off at something someone close to her had said.
“Don’t remind me. I’ve managed not to cry, and I want to keep it that way,” I said to my closest friend.
Elena DeMaio, or Len or Lenny as everyone called her, snickered and swung her gaze over to my direction. In a button-down cotton dress she had borrowed from me because she still couldn’t lift one of her arms over her head after a surgery she’d had two months ago, she almost looked sweet with her sling on. Almost.
But we all knew she wasn’t, and we loved her for it anyway.
She was one of my favorite people in the entire world, and I had no idea why this three-time Judo national champion and one-time world champion had picked me out of a self-defense class she’d been teaching and decided to make me her friend eight years ago. Lenny had literally walked over to me while I’d been toweling sweat off and asked, “You wanna get something to eat?” Maybe she had seen the loneliness in my eyes, because I’d been pretty freaking lonely back then, or maybe she had just been bored, but going with her had been one of the best decisions I had ever made.
Because of her, I’d added more people to my extended family—her grandpa and his best friend. Getting to look at the hot guys at her gym was a nice bonus too.
“You never texted me back the other night,” Lenny decided to change the subject instead of reminding me that I had a reason to be a little sad. “How did it go? Did you see you-know-who?”
I eyed my siblings down the table then made sure Mr. Cooper was in the middle of a conversation and not listening. He wasn’t.
Plucking at a royal blue thread from my dress, I wrinkled my nose and whispered, “Yeah, I meant to call you, but I spent the rest of the day with Lily and worked all day yesterday.”
She leaned forward. “And?”
I moved my gaze back to my siblings down the table. “Let’s just say I went all Judo on my cousin and his elbow is going to be hurting for a while.”
She punched me. She literally punched me right in the shoulder, and I didn’t bother trying to pretend like it didn’t hurt because it did. “You didn’t!”
Rubbing at my upper arm, I nodded. “Yeah. Rip threatened to kick his ass, and that was the end of it.” I winced. “Damn it, Lenny, you need to keep your Amazon strength to yourself. That hurts.”
Lenny rolled her eyes and brushed my pain off. “Is that all that happened?”
I shrugged and glanced toward Mr. Cooper again. I had left that part of the story out when I’d told him. “Yeah, basically. My dad looks like
shit, and the girls’ mom looks even worse. Pretty sure she’s on meth now. It’s over with at least. I won’t have to see them ever again.” I smiled and tried to give her an enthusiastic “Yay.”
She didn’t “yay” me back or mutter a word, and that said everything. Beside me, Mr. Cooper was in the middle of a conversation with Lenny’s grandpa’s best friend. On Lenny’s other side, Lydia was talking to Grandpa Gus. We were all familiar with each other. Most of us had even had a few Thanksgiving dinners together when everyone was in
town.
They were everything I had ever wanted. Beside me, Lenny sighed, and I had to eye her. “What’s that sigh for?”
“No reason,” she lied. I made a face at her.
It was impossible to miss the way she shrugged her one good shoulder, the one that wasn’t in a sling. “You got me thinking about how when I was little, I used to cry over how much I wished my mom would have stuck around, and how I probably got lucky that she didn’t.” She didn’t need to say what her words really meant. I understood.
She could have had a family like mine. She could have ended up with my dad. Or with the person I had called Mom for too long. Or my brother, who hadn’t necessarily been bad but had never been good either. Or any of the rest of the Millers.
She had heard enough bits and pieces to know I wouldn’t have wished them on anyone.
As I looked down the table again at three sisters who I had busted my ass for everyday for years, this tiny part of me wept silently that I hadn’t had the same opportunities as them. It was selfish and I knew it, but I knew more than anything that if I had to, I would never switch positions with any of them. Never.
I couldn’t help the words that I whispered over to my best friend as I thought about how I never got to experience so many things other people took for granted. At least I had gotten a dinner the day my GED diploma came in. Mr. Cooper and Lydia and taken me to this very same restaurant to celebrate that day.
“I used to tell myself that I’d gotten switched at birth with someone else and my parents were off raising somebody else that looked just like me,” I told Lenny quietly, keeping my gaze down the table on the two blondes and the one light brown head of hair. “I would think about how
they took her to Disney and gave her ballet lessons and had dinner around a table every night… and how she was probably super happy.
“And at first, I’d want to cry, thinking about how she got lucky and how I’d ended up with them, and one day, after my dad had grabbed my arm so hard I thought he had broken it when he was drunk… I thought about how I was glad she had gotten the better parents because at least one of us could be happy. Maybe she—that girl—wouldn’t have been able to deal with them. But I could, deal with them I mean, so it had worked out for the best.”
I pressed my lips together as I tipped my head back and looked up at the ceiling. Not because I didn’t want Lenny to see me cry—she had plenty of times in the past—but because I wouldn’t even want to look at myself right then. I didn’t want to remember that I was the same person who had dreamed those things. A part of me would probably always hate that I’d had to, and that was pointless and dumb because I was over it.
But still.
When you want to survive, your body and your brain will convince themselves of anything.
I wished I could have protected Little Luna from all of that. I could have stopped the “Fucking Luna,” and the “Why are you always bothering me?” and “Don’t you have somewhere else to be?” and “You stupid little shit” and “Leave me alone” when all I wanted was attention or affection from my dad or the only mom I had physically ever known. I could have stopped all the times my dad had called me useless and told me he regretted I was the one who had made it instead of my real mom. I could have deafened Little Luna’s ears from hearing all the arguments and the fights that had nothing to do with her but ate her up all the same.
I mourned that.
I mourned for that girl like I couldn’t put into words. I sucked my bottom lip into my mouth and blinked.
I grabbed onto that knowledge deep in my heart that it was better late than never. I was loved, I had a home, I had money, and I had a job now. I was safe. I was happy. I had so much more than I might deserve—so much more than the people who should have loved me would have ever wished for me.
I packed up those thoughts, shaped them into the size of a basketball, and three-pointed that ball into an imaginary net far, far away from me.
I was here. I was fine. It was a beautiful day, and I was around people who gave me more love and happiness in a month than I’d had for seventeen years.
I would never have to see those jerks again. And today was going to be a good day, damn it.
So I got it together and finally looked back down at my best friend to ask, “Did I tell you I stole a bottle of Visine once because I wanted to put a few drops into my dad’s coffee, but I always chickened out?”
Lenny snickered. “No. Psycho. Did I tell you that one time I asked Santa to bring my mom back?”
I made a face. “That’s sad, Lenny.” I blinked. “I pretty much did the same thing.”
“Uh-huh.”
I raised my eyebrows at her. “Did I ever tell you that I wanted to have like ten kids when I was younger?”
The laugh that came out of her wasn’t as strong as it usually was, but I was glad she let it out anyway. It sounded just like her, loud and direct and so full of happiness it was literally infectious. “Ten? Jesus, why?”
I wrinkled my nose at her. “It sounded like a good number.”
The scoff that came out of her right then was a little louder. “You’re fucking nuts, Luna. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten-ten?”
“That’s what ten means.” I grinned at her. “I said that was back when I was younger, not any time recently. I can’t afford ten kids.”
“Still. How about… none?”
I glanced down the table again when I heard Thea’s sharp laugh. “Okay, Only Child.” I laughed. “I think four’s a good number now.”
My friend beside me groaned before reaching forward to grab a chip, dipping it into the tiny bowl of guacamole beside it. “Look, Grandpa Gus was basically my brother, my dad, my uncle, and my grandpa all rolled into one, and I had a bunch of kids to play with,” she claimed. “Whatever makes you happy, but I think I’m fine with zero kids in my future.”
I reached over and grabbed one of the pieces of fajita from her plate and plopped it into my mouth. “Watch, you’ll end up with two,” I told her, covering my mouth while I chewed the meat. “You’ve already got that ‘mom’ vibe going on better than anyone I know.”
That had her rolling her eyes, but she didn’t argue that she didn’t, because we both knew it was true. She was a twenty-seven-year-old who dealt with full-grown man babies daily. She had it down. I was friends with my coworkers. Lenny was a babysitter for the ones she was surrounded with regularly.
“Like you’re one to talk, bish,” she threw out in a grumpy voice that said she knew she couldn’t deny it.
She had a point there.
She picked up a piece of fajita and tossed it into her mouth before mumbling, “For the record, you should probably get started on lucky number four soon. You aren’t getting any younger.”
I rolled my eyes, still chewing. “Bish.” “Bish.”
I smiled at her, and she smirked right back.
“Since we’re on the topic of kids, and you can’t have any on your own…”
The smile fell right off my face. This wasn’t the first time we’d had a similar conversation. “I don’t want to talk about it right now.”
She ignored me. “Maybe it’s time you started dating again.”
I glanced down the table. Thankfully, no one had decided to start paying attention. “I don’t want to talk about it,” I insisted.
Still, Lenny ignored me. “How long has it been since you dated that silver fox?”
“Do you have to talk so loud?” I glanced around again before whispering, “And three years, you know that.”
“So it’s been how long since that one guy who wanted you to call him Daddy?”
And she’d gone there.
I burst out laughing, which I knew was the last thing I needed to do when every person at dinner was nosey. “Shut up, Len!” I tried to whisper, but it really came out as more of a laugh, damn her.
I had almost forgotten about the one and only “rebound” in my life.
The thirty-six-year-old to my back-then twenty-three.
Of course, she still ignored me as she thought about the dates before answering her own question. “Three years too, right?”
“Can we talk about this later?” I basically begged her, even though I was still cracking up over the memory of that short and weird relationship that I’d gone into with almost no expectations.
Lenny’s snort told me we weren’t going to talk about this later. We were going to talk about it now. Because when Lenny DeMaio wanted something, she got it.
It all went to hell the moment Mr. Cooper turned and smiled over at us. “What are you two cracking up about?”
Oh hell. I started to shake my head. “She’s being—” It was too late.
“I’m trying to tell Luna that she needs to start dating again if she wants to have four kids someday, and we’re going down the list of her exes.”
“There’s only been one and a half, and that half was debatable,” I said, but I knew it was pointless.
Still, she ignored me. “And I reminded her about the first one.” Mr. Cooper’s face instantly fell. “I didn’t like him.”
At least she hadn’t brought up—
“Was that the one who wanted you to call him Daddy?” Grandpa Gus, who had been in the middle of a conversation when I had looked at him two minutes ago, asked out of nowhere.
It was my turn to punch Lenny in the shoulder, and I never did that.
Unfortunately, she didn’t flinch or even act like she’d felt anything as she nodded in agreement to her grandpa’s question.
I didn’t even know why it surprised me she had told him about him.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Mr. Cooper flinch. The man was for all intents and purposes, my adoptive dad. There had been a reason why I had told him that we had broken up after a month because things weren’t working out. Not because me and the man I had briefly dated had wanted me to call him freaking Daddy.
“I didn’t like him either,” the man, who was right around Mr. Cooper’s age, if not a year or two older, agreed. “Now the silver-haired one I did like, Luna.”
I had too.
“He was all right,” Lenny sort-of agreed but then shook her head. “But it’s been more than three years, and I think it’s time we found ‘someone’ a new boyfriend.” As if the someone wasn’t obvious enough, she had the nerve to point at me.
I just shook my head, my gut telling me this was spiraling out of control too fast. “I’m fine,” I tried to insist, even though… well, even though I did want someone in my life.
Joining in on the conversation now, Lydia leaned forward from her spot two seats down and reached across to pat my hand. “Lenny’s got a point, Luna. You would be happy by yourself, but life is always better with other people to share it with, don’t you think?”
I blinked.
“I know a few nice men I could set you up with,” the woman kept going, her face thoughtful. “Let me make sure they aren’t in relationships, and I’ll get back to you.”
I was going to kill Lenny.
“That’s all right, you don’t have to—”
“ARE YOU TRYING TO START DATING AGAIN, LUNA?” Lily
basically shouted across the table.
Scratch that. I was going to drag out her torture. For years.
I shook my head at my sister then
forced myself to smile. “Lily, why don’t you show everyone pictures of the house you’re going to be living in while you’re at school? It’s pretty nice—”
My traitor-butt little sister pretended like she didn’t hear me as she kept going. “MY P.E. TEACHER THOUGHT YOU WERE REALLY CUTE, AND HE JUST BROKE UP WITH HIS GIRLFRIEND.”
Did she have to shout that? But how she knew he thought I was cute, much less why she knew he’d broken up with his girlfriend, was beyond me.
“Nope, that’s all right—” I started to say before Lenny’s bish self cut me off.
“There’s a guy or two at Maio House who aren’t total pieces of shit I could introduce you to.” She was referring to the mixed martial arts gym where we had met. The same gym that her grandfather owned and that she worked part-time at. Someday, when Grandpa Gus finally decided to retire, she would end up taking over running it.
I could already imagine how her fixing me up with someone from there would go. That idea probably caused me more panic than Mr. Cooper knowing some guy—the second man I had ever slept with—had wanted me to call him Daddy while he’d been… doing it. God. He was probably scarred for life now. I really was going to kill Lenny. I really was. I would miss her for the rest of my life, but it had to be done. It really did.
“Or you could not. Just throwing that out there,” I told her, focusing on that for the time being instead of Mr. Cooper’s future nightmares.
She gave me a face I knew too well. “I know other people not from there I could set you up with. My people know people. It’d be easy. Right, Grandpa?”
My people know people. These were my loved ones.
This entire conversation was my fault. I should have never brought up wanting to have kids someday. If I would have just kept my mouth closed….
“I’ve got a couple men in mind….” Grandpa Gus trailed off, getting a distant and way too thoughtful look on his face.
All right. This had gone on long enough. “Thank you, everyone, even you yelling over there for the entire restaurant to hear that you can fix me up, but I can find my own dates.”
I didn’t even believe that myself, and by the silence that responded to me, neither did they.
I was going to take it as a compliment that none of them laughed.
“I know people too,” I told them then stopped. “Stop looking at me like that. I do know people, and I get hit on sometimes. Thank you for your optimism.”
Still, none of them said a word, and that felt nice. Not.
“I’m not that ugly. I can find someone to date me if I want,” I told them, dryly.
It was Lily who chose to ignore I’d said anything. She slapped the flat of her hand against the table before yelling, “SO HOW ARE WE GOING TO DO THIS? I CAN SEND EVERYONE A LINK TO A GOOGLE FORM WHERE WE CAN SIGN UP LUNA FOR DATES ON CERTAIN DAYS OR WE CAN DO A GROUP MESSAGE.”
Oh hell.
Lydia reached over and set her hand on top of mine, giving me a big smile. “Let us do this for you, Luna, honey. Maybe it’ll be fun. You can trust us. What do you say?”
What did I say?
What did I say?
I held my breath and took a look at the way too eager faces around the table. All of them. Faces of people I loved. Faces of people who loved me—with the exception of Lily’s friends, of course.
But the rest of them….
Lenny punched me in the arm again, just as hard as she had a moment before. “Do it, Luna,” said the woman who had never dated anyone in all the time we had been friends. Not once.
But that was another story. They wanted me to trust them?
I glanced at the faces again, and I said two words I was worried I might end up regretting big-time. “I guess?”
