Recovering fast, I inch back from Matty so he can see me. “Guess what bud? You get to sleep in my bed.”

“Really?” His excitement brings a smile to my face. The only damn one in the last twenty minutes.

Backtracking to my bedroom, we step in and Paige peers around at the dirty clothes overfilling my hamper and the pile of dust on my dresser. She swipes her finger across my nightstand and holds it up in the air. “Hey, do you see a bald head?” I point to my forehead. “I’m not Mr. Clean.” She leans against the door frame as I tuck in Matty.

“Are your sheets clean at least? I mean, Matty won’t need to be disinfected tomorrow morning?” Tucking the kid under my comforter that, to her astonishment, I did wash last week, I glance back at her.

“Nah, he’s all good.” I can’t make a snarky flirtatious comment back because the guilt weighs heavy on my chest from leaving her alone. Why bother with the front that I just want in her pants? If that was the case, I wouldn’t be allowing her brother to sleep in my bed right now.

Her sympathetic eyes dig into my soul as she crosses the room. Ignoring me, a waft of her perfume hits my nostrils in her passing to my bed. She bends down and squeezes the comforter under his body. “Snug as a bug.” Matty smiles up to her. “Night, little guy.” With a quick kiss on his forehead, she stands up and I’m envious of the love she gives so freely.

“Paige?” Matty calls out when she steps back.

“Yeah, sweetie?” She gives her attention back to him, sitting down on the bed.

“Can I live with you?” Oh shit. I slowly step out of the room, wanting to give them privacy.

“Oh, Matty. I wish you could. Someday, I promise.”

“Why not now? Mommy forgets everything. I wanted to play baseball and she said she’d sign me up, but Zach already started playing.”

“Did you have fun today?” Paige distracts him and he nods with a huge smile on his face.

“I did. Tara’s a little bossy, but I had fun.” He moves to sit up, but Paige places her hand on his chest to keep him down.

“We’ll plan another day with them soon. I promise.” She’s trying to appease him and I agree with the kid, he’s better off somewhere else.

“Tomorrow?” Paige laughs and kisses his forehead again.

“You have school, but soon. Now, go to bed.” Another sweet brush of her lips on his cheek and she steps away from the bed. Anyone standing by can see how close their relationship resembles mother and son instead of sibling.

“Good night, Paige. Good night, Rob.” He rolls over on his side, probably about to fall asleep.

“Good night, bud.” I leave the room, moving down the hall to Paige’s.

I hear my bedroom door close and then Paige is in the doorway. She watches me start to set the drawers back in her dresser, placing clothes back in. “You don’t have to help.” Her arms cross over her chest as she leans against the wooden frame. It’s a knife to the heart finding her eyes devoid of the usual bliss. Instead, they’re dull as rocks.

“I don’t mind. Maybe I can see your unmentionables.” I lighten the mood, hopeful to yank her away from her crappy family life.

“Rob, you’re being too polite.” She breaks the threshold of her room and begins piling items in her arms.

“I can be a gentleman.” I purposely bypass her underwear drawer to one filled with a dozen composition books.

“Surprise to me.” The coy uplift of her lips as she peers over to me and my stomach flips. “But those.” She points to the books in my arms. “Are personal.” She snatches them from my hands.

“Your diaries?”

“Yeah . . . journals.” She places them in a bin and shoves them under her bed. “I’ll be changing that spot after you leave.”

“Am I in one?” I lean over her shoulder and she glares over to me.

“Nope.”

“Come on, I have to be in one.” My fingers tickle her ribcage and she squirms. “Not even a mention of how hot I am, or my eyes?” She turns in my arms and I flutter my eyes a few times. “People do say they’re my best quality.”

She shoves me off and I stumble back. “You’re so conceited.” In turn, her butt lands on her bed.

“It’s my best personality trait.”

“So you think.” Standing up, she makes her way to another drawer.

“You’re telling me you aren’t the least bit turned on by how confident I am?” I sit on her bed and watch her pick up some of her stuff as I straighten her nightstand.

“I think . . . no . . . I know it’s an act.” Her eyes never glance up; instead she focuses on the task of folding clothes. Not even a tremble of her voice. She’s the confident one and she knows a fake when she spots one. I’m the leopard with the big spots in the corner.

“Part maybe, but I do think I’m fucking hot and you’d be lucky to nail me.”

“Do you, now?” She turns around, props herself up against the wall and hugs her knees into her chest.

“Yep.” I let the ‘p’ pop out of my mouth and when my eyes move back up, hers are fixated at something on the floor. A lone picture catches my eye, and she reaches for it. As soon as it rests in her hand, her lips turn down. “Paige?” I break the distance, sitting next to her on the floor.

“It’s funny. How you go through life, never knowing the truth about your parents. You think you do, but once you get older, the things you assumed were good weren’t.” She’s losing me, but I’m certain she’s about to tell me something she doesn’t share with many. “Matty wants to live with me. Of course he does.” She shrugs her shoulder, sniffling although no tears have fallen.

“I can’t say I blame him. Your mom doesn’t—” How do tell someone, their mom doesn’t give a shit about him or her. I’m not one to dig into other people’s drama, because I have enough of my own.

“She wasn’t always like that. There was a time when I believed she was the perfect mom.” She flips the picture over and shows me. It’s a young girl in a big, frilly pink princess dress and from the amount of unruly curly brown hair, it’s obviously Paige. The woman next to her, a much younger version of Linda, with her arms tight around her as they smile at the camera.

“You were adorable. What were you, six?” I inspect the picture closely, spotting her one freckle that sits under her right eye.

She focuses on pieces of lint on the carpeting. “She took me on a trip to Disneyworld. Bought me that dress. We stayed a whole week and my dad met us there for the final night. I remember hearing my parents talking and being so excited because they were getting along. My dad held my mom’s hand as we strolled through the park and it was like my own fairytale come true. They were my live version of Cinderella and her prince.” Her voice shakes. “Then my dad came to say good-bye to me the next morning.” A tear falls from her eye and I inch closer, but she holds her hand up in the air and I halt. “For two days we stayed up in that hotel room. My mom would order me food from room service, but she never ate it herself. She just slept in bed, depressed for not having my dad while I watched television. Around twelve I realized what really happened during those times when I thought we’d be a happy family.”

At the age of twenty-four, it isn’t hard to figure out now. “Your dad used your mom.”

She huffs and crosses her legs. “They used each other. I blamed my dad for years, refusing to see him on his time. Blatantly yelling at him, telling him how horrible of a person he was. After I started downright refusing to see him, he never let my mom seduce him no matter how much she tried. And believe me, she tried.”

Here I figured she had a screwed up mom, but a decent dad who bought his princess everything. Picking up her head, her raw and tearful eyes, guilt me for being the man whore I’ve been. “She couldn’t let go of the fact he didn’t want her. She couldn’t accept the fact that she was a hot one-night stand turned nightmare clingy baby mama.”

“Shit,” I mumble. She could have given me a little warning before throwing that bomb out there.