Chapter 15 #2
She holds Annalise like she was made to hold a baby.
Like mothering isn’t something she’s ever had to learn.
Which I know isn’t true, because I’ve seen the tears and heard the calls to Ethan where she sounds like she’s breaking in half.
But right now, she makes it look effortless.
Which is something I never managed to do.
I wanted to. God, I tried. I read the books. Took the classes. I made the schedules and tracked milestones and still cried in the bathroom late at night because I couldn’t figure out how to get Sarah to sleep. I felt like I was failing and that my failure would be permanent.
I didn’t wear dresses like that. I wore spit-up stained hoodies and fear.
And maybe my situation was different because of the support I didn’t have. And because I didn’t know how to ask for what I needed, but I still look at Maddie sometimes and wonder if I missed a class. If there was a secret meeting where everyone else got handed a manual I never found.
Callan shoots Ethan a look, half-smug, half-amused. “Huh. Could’ve sworn you just said Lissy was boycotting sleep. She looks very much asleep now.”
Kristen rolls her eyes at him before looking at Madeline with a smile. “Maddie’s a baby whisperer.”
Ethan takes Annalise into his arms, cradling her while gently brushing his thumb across her cheek. Ignoring Callan’s smartass comment, he glances at Maddie with love and says, “Yeah, she is. I’d be screwed if I had to get The Sleep Thief to bed every night.”
Tim, who left the kitchen for a minute to take a phone call wanders back in as Ethan is speaking, a breadstick in his mouth that he got from god knows where.
With zero regard for the moment, he stares at Madeline and throws out, “Okay, but like, can you explain why you get to look like a literal blessing from the gods? I’ve had three espresso shots, two meltdowns, and one existential crisis today, while you just walk in looking like—” he gestures wildly toward her with his breadstick “—that. It’s actually offensive how good your skin looks.
You’re glowing. I look like I just got pulled out of a vending machine. ”
Madeline laughs. “I’m taking that as a compliment, Tim.”
I just shake my head at my brother.
Tim Sinclair, emotionally spiraling about beauty and skincare since puberty.
Gage gives him the kind of look you reserve for people you’d die for but only after telling them to sit the fuck down first. “You’ve sent at least six skincare crises to the group chat this week.
I never want to hear about exfoliants again.
” Then, after a beat, he adds, “To be fair, your skin’s never looked better.
Whatever panic routine you’re on, keep it. ”
Tim grins like he just got knighted. “Thank you. I call it ‘moisturize and emotionally unravel.’”
Everyone laughs.
Not me, though. I just look at Gage. My intense, controlled, emotionally regulated husband.
The only person I’ve ever known who can balance the line with Tim between “I love you” and “I’m begging you to shut the fuck up about this.
” And do it in a way that gives my brother the kind of backhanded praise I know he’ll treasure forever.
God, I love this man.
His phone buzzes from the kitchen counter behind him and he turns to read the text. After thumbing out a reply, he looks back at everyone. “Mom and Dad are running late. They said to go ahead and eat.”
Olivia walks in from the side door as he says this, looking like she’s coming off a legal victory.
She had to come later than Callan due to work keeping her back.
Her laptop bag is slung over one shoulder, her sunglasses are still pushed up in her hair, and she has that look on her face that says she just finished emailing someone into submission.
“Okay, who did the lunch table outside?” she asks before even getting fully inside. “Because it looks like a magazine shoot out there and I need to know who to book for the next dinner party I host.”
Marin lights up immediately. “Me and Maddie.”
Madeline shakes her head while looking at Marin with awe.
“It’s all Marin. I just did what she told me to.
Marin made those gorgeous flower bundles all by herself.
Like, she literally just found foliage and flowers from the garden and threw them together with some twine.
Then she gathered candles and mismatched brass holders and vintage glass bud vases and just, like, scattered everything over the table without even having to think about it.
And created that.” She grins. “She’s terrifyingly good at decorating. ”
Olivia grins too and sets her bag on the table. “Good. I love terrifying women.”
I look around the room.
At Tim, dramatically monologuing about olive oil to Ethan and Colin.
At Liv and Maddie laughing while Marin rewrites the laws of centerpiece physics.
At Kristen teasing Bradford and Callan while Callan reaches for his wife.
At Hayden, quietly checking emails like he always is, saying nothing, just happy to be with us, steady and easy.
At my husband, who is single-handedly managing an entire Sinclair-Black lunch with one hand on a serving platter and the other on my heart.
This kitchen—this family—feels like a living, breathing thing.
Not just held together by blood or marriage, but by choice.
And somehow, I’m a part of it.
Somehow, this is my life now.
“Hey,” Hayden says quietly beside me.
I turn and find him watching me. Gentle and present. Like he’s listening before I’ve even spoken.
“You okay?” he asks.
I nod. Too quickly. Too automatically.
He doesn’t push. Just watches and waits for me to find my words.
I exhale. “This is a lot. In the very best way.”
And it is.
It’s loud and warm and kind of dizzying.
My chest feels full. Like if I tried to speak too fast, I might cry for no reason other than the fact every person in this room feels like home in a different way.
And maybe that’s what’s making me feel all these big feelings. That everyone here has brought me in fully, lovingly, and without asking anything from me but to be exactly who I am.
This is all real. Chaotic, yes. But it’s mine. And I don’t always know how to hold that without breaking a little on the inside.
He nods once. “Good.” That’s all he says, but it carries more than most people manage in a whole speech. His way of caring is quiet, but loud in all the ways that matter.
“Alright,” Gage says. “Let’s get the food outside before Tim eats all of it.”
People start moving. Plates get lifted. Wine bottles passed down. Tim grabs his espresso brownies he brought. And then, everyone’s heading outside, laughing and talking. The screen door’s swinging shut behind Tim’s dramatic exit. And Gage and I are the only ones left.
I look at him. The calm in my storm. The one thing that’s always holding.
He steps in close, runs a knuckle down my arm. “You good?”
I nod, but I know that doesn’t come anywhere near close to covering it. And since Gage and I always do raw honesty, I give that to him now.
“I don’t know how I got here,” I whisper. “Not just here to Blackbriar. But to all of this. Us. The girls. This whole—” I motion at the kitchen, toward the door everyone just walked through “—life.”
His hand slides to the small of my back as I keep talking.
“I think part of me is still waiting for someone to tap me on the shoulder and say I overstayed. That this kind of love and family doesn’t belong to me.”
Gage’s eyes don’t soften. They go sharper.
Fierce in that quiet way he gets when something matters.
“You think this happened without you?” His voice is full of conviction.
Not one single doubt. “None of this works without you, Amelia. You didn’t just walk into this life.
You shaped it. Made it with me. Every damn part of it. ”
He pulls me in close.
My hands find his shirt and I grip it. The place I always reach for when I need to feel anchored.
And he lets me.
Just breathes with me. Holds me in the way he knows I need.
I don’t say thank you.
I don’t need to.
He knows.
“Come on,” he murmurs, his lips brushing the top of my head. “Let’s go eat with our people.”