Taking a long swig of beer, I watch the Indians score a double until the two small girls come through the patio door and Kailey comes down with the little boy in her arms and brings him over to us after stopping at her sister briefly. “So, this is Drew,” she introduces me to the drooling baby, who fixates on the stud piercing under my lip. As his hand reaches to touch it, Kailey swings her hips to keep him away. I wouldn’t mind the little guy playing with it, especially if it makes him like me. Chloe and a smaller blonde girl rush over, clasping onto Kailey’s legs. “This is Tara. Tara, can you say hello to my friend Trey?” The small girl just continues to hide behind Kailey. “She can be kind of—.”

“Shy,” Chloe finishes. “Do you want to play with us?” she asks me, and I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do, so I do what comes natural.

“Sure,” I say, and she grabs my hand, taking me to the corner. Pulling a game from one of the shelves, she tugs my arm until I sit down on the ground. Tara and she sit on either side of me, while scrambling to get the game put together. Kailey sits Drew down on the floor with a pile of toys in front of him and smiles down at me before walking into the kitchen to join her sister.

“Pretty, Pretty Princess,” I mumble, reading the box on the floor.

“Don’t you girls think Trey has enough earrings,” Caden jokes from his seat and everyone starts laughing. I really hope he’s one of those guys that makes fun of the people he likes.

“They’re all gray, now you can have pink or purple,” Chloe picks up a pink plastic earring and widens her eyes as though I should be amazed.

“How about blue?” I counter, and she relents, giving me the blue board piece.

“I’m purple,” Tara softly says, but grabbing the pink piece, and Chloe just smiles and takes the green. Not sure what I’m supposed to do, Chloe explains the game, and Tara spins first since she’s the youngest.

Once we’re done, I have two blue earrings, a ring and a necklace. Tara won by collecting all her jewelry and the crown. Kailey comes over and snaps a picture. “For class,” she adds, turning back into the kitchen.

“Alright, girls, put the game away, it’s time to eat,” Jen says from the kitchen.

I help the girls put it all away, and when I stand up, Tara grasps my hand in hers. I stare down in astonishment, since she’s said maybe two words to me the whole time I’ve been here. The same matching green eyes as Kailey and Jen stare up with a wide smile on her face. “I made dessert,” she tells me.

“Really? I can’t wait,” I say with excitement. She leads me to the table and stops me right next to her chair.

“You sit here,” she points, “and I sit here,” she points to another chair with a purple foam cushion on it.

A giggling Jen comes over and sits across from me, smiling at Tara, who has now grabbed my hand, while beaming up at me. “You might have some competition, Kailey,” she hollers to her sister, who’s getting the food ready to serve.

“I thought he liked brunettes,” she jokes, bringing a salad to the table. I scoot my chair out to help, but she waves her hand down, signaling me to stay put.

“It’s the green eyes, they entrance me,” I chime into the good-hearted conversation, focusing only on her. A slight pinkness hits her cheeks, and she turns back around.

“Charmer,” Jen raises her eyebrows at me.

Damn straight almost escapes my lips, but there are children present. Caden puts Drew in his high chair, and Jen places some puff things from a can on the tray with a cup. Drew picks it up immediately, tilting his head back, like he’s taking a shot. Man, that kid’s gonna be fun when he’s older. The cup slams down on the tray table, and he’s all smiles. Yep, future life of the party sitting right there.

Laughter fills the small table, even with kids’ whines and complaints, it’s fun hanging out with Kailey and the Campbells. They remind me a lot of my own family. I finally began to ease up, making jokes back, and it seemed to make them like me even more. Here was a family after my own heart. Even with the underlying tone of death, they’ve embraced it and decided to live normally until they’re pushed into facing the inevitable.

Kailey and I do the dishes while Caden and Jen watch the rest of the game. Once we finish, Kailey leans in asking me if I’m ready to leave. “I want you alone, Trey Michaels,” she murmurs against my lips.

Adjusting myself a little, I follow her into the family room and notice Drew is asleep on Caden’s chest and a sleeping Tara lays by her mom’s side on the recliner with the blanket wrapped over them. Chloe’s busy in the corner coloring, but turns and smiles at us when we enter.

“We’re gonna get going,” Kailey whispers to her sister. “Don’t get up. I’ll be back tomorrow.” She kisses her cheek, and then walks over to Chloe.

I say my good-byes, shaking both their hands and thanking them for the meal. “Anytime, Trey. You’re welcome anytime,” Jen says and winks at me, “isn’t he, Caden?” She raises her eyebrows at him.

“Of course, our home is always open.” He smiles at me before turning toward the television again.

Chloe surprises me with a huge hug around my legs, and I bend down giving her a high five again. “Come back, you can be pink next time,” she tells me, and I chuckle, nodding my head.

“Yeah, I’ll be pink next time,” I tell her, ruffling her hair like Kailey did earlier.

We leave the house happy, and I’m relieved to have the whole dilemma of meeting the family over with. But for the first time, I realize, there’s a certain part of Kailey I don’t know. “Kailey?” I stop on the porch. She turns my way, curious. “Where are your parents?”

Her green eyes lose their happiness. “They’re dead,” she says and turns around to walk to the cars. Crap, my heart tightens.

Chapter 9

Kailey

I purposely didn’t tell Trey about my parents. How many horrible things can you inform someone about your life before they cross you off, thinking you’re bad luck? Starting a conversation with ‘I lost my parents when I was ten due to drunkenness, and, no, it wasn’t someone else’s fault but my fathers’, isn’t the best way to keep someone around. There was no one to blame, except the first man I ever loved. The same man that taught me to ride a bike and fly a kite. He’s the one who left me an orphan due to a careless decision to drink too much at a holiday party and wrap his car around a pole with my mother inside.

Lucky for me, my parents had Jen and me so far apart; I didn’t go into foster care, but was able to live with my sister. She turned her life upside down for me, leaving the college she had been attending and coming back home to care for me. We made it work, though. She transferred to Western, and during the first few summers I stayed at Aunt Holly’s while she took a full course load to try and graduate early. She got a part-time job in the library. That was how she met Caden. He’s was in the reference section of the library, doing research for his thesis, when he stumbled across my sister looking a little bewildered. He smoothly asked her if she knew where a certain reference could be located, knowing it didn’t exist. But the wild goose chase turned into coffee, which turned into dinner, and the rest is history.

After that first summer at Aunt Holly’s, I got off the plane to find Jen waiting with Caden by her side. She’d mentioned him briefly on the phone, but to find him there with his arm wrapped around her was surprising. A small giggle hits me remembering how mean I was to him. Jen would hire a babysitter for them to go out, and I would answer the door telling him she was gone, or sometimes just slamming the door in his face. My sister was all I had left, and he was interfering. If I was being truthful, I was scared she would leave me like our parents. Oh poor Caden, what a trooper he was.