26. Jack
JACK
We’re still catching our breath.
The couch cushions are askew, a pillow on the floor, Parker’s hair wild from where Gavin had his fingers in it. There’s a print of her palm on the fogged window behind us, and somewhere in this room is a pair of my socks—no idea when I kicked them off.
Parker slips out from between us, grabbing the oversized shirt she’d tossed earlier. It’s Harrison’s. She buttons it with one hand while reaching for her hair tie with the other, a little off-balance and grinning like she can’t quite believe we’re really here.
Gavin leans against the back of the couch, watching her like she’s the whole world, while Harrison closes his eyes, arms folded behind his head like he’s finally letting himself exhale.
Parker tucks her hair into a messy bun and stretches with a groan. “You three exhaust me.”
Jackpot. I grin. “You didn’t look too tired five minutes ago.”
She laughs and then disappears into the kitchen. I hear cabinets open, the quiet sound of her starting a pot of coffee. And something about it punches a warm, solid hole right through my chest.
This—whatever this is—it feels like something we’re allowed to have now.
I stand and tug on my pants, looking around for the shirt I peeled off earlier. I find it half-under Gavin’s blazer and shrug it back on just as there’s a knock at the door.
Parker freezes mid-stir. We all go still.
Then she turns toward us slowly. “Okay, that’s probably my mom.”
Harrison groans softly. “You didn’t tell her we were here?”
“Exactly when would I have told her? When you surprised me by showing up or when we started kissing each other?” she whisper-hisses, setting down the spoon and hurrying toward the door, hair still sticking up slightly on one side.
“Just a minute!” She tries to run her fingers through her hair, but we tangled it pretty good, by the looks of things.
“That’s fine,” her mom says through the door. “I’m just holding a bunch of stuff, it’s not like it weighs more than the kids. I can stand out here forever, if you prefer.”
Gavin snickers as he pulls on his shirt. “Quality mom guilt right there.”
Parker opens the door once our naked parts are covered, and sure enough, there’s her mother—dressed like she’s ready to cook, bag of groceries over one arm, Tupperware in the other.
“Oh!” her mom says, pausing when she sees the three of us in various states of casual dishevelment. “Well. This is…unexpected.”
To her credit, she doesn’t miss a beat. Her eyes travel across each of us, then settle back on Parker, who shrugs helplessly.
“They showed up. We talked. We’re figuring it out. Don’t make a big deal?—”
Her mom hums. “Figuring it out with your shirts off, I see.”
Parker covers her face with her hands. “Mom.”
She laughs and steps inside, handing her daughter the grocery bag. “I was going to make dinner. But maybe you four need…some time.”
“No, stay,” Parker says quickly. “Please. It’s okay. Really.”
Her mom glances at the couch, then back to us. “Well, it looks like sin and victory in here, so I’ll just pretend I didn’t see anything.”
Gavin coughs into his hand to cover a laugh. Harrison doesn’t even try. Me either.
Parker walks her mom to the kitchen, and the three of us trail behind like we’re not entirely sure if we’re about to be scolded or recruited into helping peel carrots.
Her mom sets the Tupperware on the counter and unpacks the bag like she’s lived here for years—which, I suppose, in a way, she has.
“I just thought I’d stop by and make dinner for you and the kids,” she says, then pauses and lifts her brows. “You know. The ones who live here.”
Parker smirks. “It’s Wednesday. They have computer club after school on Wednesdays. They’ll be home in a little bit.”
Right then, my stomach flips—just a little. The kids.
“Wait,” I say. “They’ll be here soon?”
Parker nods, grabbing mugs from the cabinet. “I was going to make cookies later if they didn’t drive me crazy.”
“You’re not worried?” Harrison asks, rubbing the back of his neck. “I mean…us meeting them?”
She shrugs, smiling to herself. “You’re important to me. They’ll see that.”
The weight of those words hits me square in the chest. Important. To her. To them. God, I wasn’t ready for how much I needed to hear that.
The front door opens again—smaller voices, a scuffle of backpacks and shoes, and then Parker’s calling out, “Kitchen!”
Two small bodies thunder into the room, and there they are.
Levi and Lyra. Twins, yeah. But already different in a dozen ways.
Lyra with her wild brown curls and wide, assessing eyes.
Levi with a mischievous smile and an armful of markers that he’s clearly not supposed to be carrying near white furniture. They stop short when they see us.
Parker drops to one knee and opens her arms. “Come say hi, babies.”
They crash into her like a wave.
And I stand there watching them—her kids—and suddenly, I can’t move. Once they’re past toddler-hood, all kids look alike to me until they hit around ten years old. But these two, even at six, they…
Six. They’re six.
Parker and I hooked up seven years ago.
All the breath flees my lungs. I look at her.
She’s already looking at me.
My throat dries up, but I force the words out, “Am I…?”
Her eyes well. She nods. “Please don’t hate me.”
Hate her? The thought doesn’t even compute. I’m not even sure what I feel yet—except that I’m full of it. Full of something too big for my chest. My hands feel too empty. My legs feel unsteady. And yet, somehow, it’s the clearest moment of my entire life.
I look down at the two kids on either side of her, still wrapped around her legs, glancing up at us like they’re trying to make sense of our strange faces. Levi’s chewing on the end of a marker, and Lyra has already pegged Gavin as the tall, mysterious one worth studying.
And they’re mine.
My throat closes, and I crouch down slowly, keeping my voice steady. “Hey, you two. I’m Jack.”
Lyra tilts her head like she’s sizing me up. “You’re the one with the funny shoes.”
Levi nods in agreement. “They look like Lego bricks.”
I blink. Then laugh. I glance at my sneakers. “You know what? You’re not wrong.”
Parker chuckles softly, brushing a curl out of Lyra’s face. Her fingers tremble just slightly.
I look back up at her. “How long have you known?”
Her expression shifts, equal parts apology and exhaustion. “There was only you at that time. I’ve always known.”
My heart clenches. “And you didn’t tell me?”
She stands up slowly and walks to the counter, giving herself space. The twins follow her, settling in at the kitchen table.
“I didn’t tell anyone,” she says finally. “Not even my mom.” She winces at her mother. “Sorry for that.”
“It’s complicated,” her mother says, nodding.
“I couldn’t tell Phil,” she continues. “Just…said I’d hooked up with some guy on my graduation cruise. Called him Zack.”
“You told everyone it was some rando?” I ask, stunned.
She nods. “Because I was terrified. Of Phil. Of you. Of what it would mean. I thought if I told the truth, I’d ruin your friendship, maybe his career. So I made up something easy to digest.”
“Jesus, Parker.”
“I was a kid,” she says, and there’s no anger in her voice—just quiet grief.
“I’d just gotten back from that cruise. The one I’d saved for since I was fourteen.
My ex–best friend, Amber, decided that was the perfect time to hook up with the one guy I liked.
And I was done. Emotionally fried. I had that fake ID I used during the trip, and I was stupid enough to use it at a bar near campus. ”
“That’s where I saw you,” I say, the memory clicking into place.
She nods again. “You stepped in when some drunk guy wouldn’t leave me alone.”
“You looked like you were going to break a pool cue over his head.”
“I wanted to.” She smiles faintly. “You told me to take his drink and dump it on his lap. Thought the bouncer was going to toss me out for doing it, but I’m glad he didn’t.”
“And then we talked,” I say, memory sharpening with every sentence.
“We talked for hours. About colleges, about work, about what happens when you do everything right and still get kicked in the teeth.”
I remember it vividly now. Her eyes were red, but not from crying. From being so angry she couldn’t. She was too young to be drinking there, too smart to be ignored, and too sad for someone who hadn’t lived much life yet. I didn’t know what I was doing. Only that I couldn’t let her walk away.
“And then we went to the bathroom,” I say.
Parker flushes. “That stall was tiny. I freaked out. Claustrophobia.”
“So we went to my place.”
She nods. “And nine months later…”
I glance at the twins again. They’re now arguing softly about who gets the blue bowl if they have cereal later. Levi. Lyra. My kids.
I lean against the counter and exhale slowly. “Why didn’t you say something later?”
“Because you moved on,” she says, almost too fast. “Phil would tell me things. About your dates. Your travel. I convinced myself you were happy and successful and unattached. I didn’t want to throw my problems into the middle of that. I didn’t want to be the complication.”
“I would’ve wanted to know.”
“I know that now,” she says. “But back then, I didn’t know what I could trust. Or who. I was scared, and I was in it alone, and by the time I felt strong enough to maybe reach out…too much time had passed.”
My heart aches. Not just for me. For her. For every night she sat up alone with two infants. For every doctor’s appointment she braved by herself. For every lie she had to repeat just to keep things from falling apart.
“Let me be clear. I’m not mad at you,” I say quietly. “I just wish I could’ve been there for you. For them.”
“I wish that too.”
She walks to me and rests her hand over mine.
Jack Myers. Father of two. In a kitchen that smells like coffee and family and years I’ll never get back. But I’ll get the ones that come next.
“I never stopped thinking about that night,” I say. “Even when I tried to. I thought I was crazy. Thought it was just a good hookup I’d romanticized. But it wasn’t. I know that now. I’ve been chasing that feeling for years, Parker. You’re the only one who ever gave it to me.”
Her eyes soften. She leans in. “So what now?”
“Now?” I squeeze her hand. “Now we build something weird and wonderful and ours.” I lean in for a kiss.
“Ew!” Levi balks, while Lyra giggles. We’re still holding hands when her mom clears her throat behind us.
I turn toward her slowly, expecting something between a lecture and a raised eyebrow. But she’s just standing there at the kitchen island, arms folded, a faint smile on her face like she’s been watching the two of us all along.
“Well,” she says, “that explains the resemblance.”
My brows lift. “You knew?”
“I didn’t know,” she says, stepping around the counter to retrieve a coffee mug, “but I suspected. Same unusual shade of green in your eyes. They’re our good luck charms, thanks to that green.”
I huff a laugh, wondering about that. How two kids brought into a family with very little money could be considered good luck charms . But then I feel the warmth in the room, the genuine love that shoots in every direction here, and I get it.
“I was going to make dinner,” she says. “Still could.”
“You don’t have to,” Parker says.
Her mother shrugs. “Well, we should have a family meal, all things considered.” She tips her head toward us.
The word hits me harder than I expect. I’m still standing there, trying to absorb the fact that I have children— children, plural—and now the word family is being dropped casually into the air like it’s always belonged to me. Like it didn’t just reshape everything I thought I knew about my life.
Gavin and Harrison find chairs while I sit at the end of the couch, still trying to make sense of the kids talking at full speed.
Lyra’s now explaining the plot of a show I’ve never heard of while Levi asks Harrison how many push-ups he can do.
Harrison starts demonstrating with a straight face, dropping to the floor and knocking out ten like it’s nothing.
Levi’s jaw drops. “Whoa. You’re like a real superhero. ”
Harrison smiles and winks. “Just don’t tell anyone. Can’t betray my secret identity.”
“I won’t,” Levi says seriously, then pauses. “Unless they ask really nicely.”
That gets a laugh out of all of us.
Parker’s mom looks over her shoulder. “It’s fate, you know.”
I blink. “Sorry?”
“That night. You and Parker. That wasn’t just coincidence. That was timing. That was the universe saying, ‘Now.’”
Parker rolls her eyes but doesn’t disagree.
“I mean it. You think you just happened to be at the same bar as a girl you were always a little too fond of? The night she needed someone most?”
“You knew I…had a thing for Parker back then?”
“Honey,” she says with too much sympathy and a smirk. “I have eyes.”
I snort a laugh, wondering how obvious I was with other things too.
The kids are now trying to stack couch pillows on top of Harrison’s back while he continues his push-ups.
Gavin sips his coffee like he’s watching a very strange boardroom presentation.
Parker’s seated at the edge of the armrest beside me, head tilted toward the chaos, her fingers brushing mine.
I look at her and ask, quietly, “What’s this going to look like?”
She doesn’t hesitate. “However we make it.”
“And Phil?”
She lifts a brow. “You already know.”
I grin. “Fuck Phil?”
She grins back. “Louder for the people in the back.”
The night settles in slowly, soft and warm.
The windows glow gold with the last of the sun.
Dinner turns out to be delivery Chinese, courtesy of Gavin.
Parker’s mom sets down plates like she’s been feeding a crew of grown men her whole life, and Lyra gets sweet and sour sauce on her nose while arguing with Levi about whether Blue’s Clues is better than some other show I’ve never heard of.
I sit at the table and can’t stop staring.
It doesn’t feel like I’m intruding. It doesn’t feel like I’m pretending to fit. I just do.