Chapter 12
Junie was in meltdown mode, the kind reserved for mornings when you had somewhere to be.
I stood in her bedroom doorway, holding what I thought was the right turquoise shirt, but had her stomping around in her pajamas. She still wanted to go to the rink with Beckett, and to make that happen before I left for work, we needed to leave soon.
She scrunched her face up, cheeks blotchy, hair sticking out in twelve directions. “That’s not the one,” she wailed. “I wanted the turquoise shirt with the hearts on it. That one’s plain!”
“They look the same,” I said, then immediately regretted it.
She flopped backward on the bed with all the drama her eight-year-old body could muster. “They’re not the same!”
Even without this morning’s meltdown, I didn’t need a reminder that grief could show up sideways.
I’d read the books, sat through the counseling, learned how kids her age reached for control when everything else felt unstable.
Some days routine helped. Other days, it gave her something to push against. Today was the latter.
And after yesterday, after hearing six more weeks spoken out loud in a courtroom, I wasn’t about to rush her through a rough morning to make my life easier. Junie came first, even when it made everything else harder.
Daisy was in the hall bathroom with the shower running, taking her time, and that was okay. This morning, having Junie with me felt like the right call. If Daisy needed a moment alone to fall apart, she deserved that too.
I dragged a hand down my face. “Okay. Let’s retrace our steps.”
Junie sat up, sniffling. “I wore it last week.”
“Right,” I said. “Maybe it’s in the laundry.”
She gasped, then bolted down the hall, Rowdy thumping after her. “The laundry room!”
Before I could follow, the shower shut off and Daisy’s voice called from behind the door. “Everything okay?”
“Wardrobe emergency,” I said. “We’re working on it.”
A moment later, the bathroom door clicked open behind me.
I turned, expecting a quick check-in, maybe a tired smile.
Instead, Daisy stepped into the hall on bare feet, a towel twisted around her hair. She wore tiny pink pajama shorts and a thin matching tank top; her skin still flushed from the heat of the shower. The sight of her like this—soft, real, and unguarded—hit me square in the chest.
This was supposed to be practical. Temporary. It was my idea to co-parent for the next six weeks of shared space and shared coffee, but apparently, I hadn’t thought through the logistics of sharing a house with a woman I was deeply, stupidly attracted to.
The house felt too small. Too intimate. Too easy to imagine this being my new normal.
“Morning chaos?” She tugged the towel off her head as she passed me. Her hair spilled down her back, still damp, and the smell of strawberry shampoo bloomed in the narrow hallway, sweet and impossible to ignore.
“Something like that,” I managed. My voice sounded like I’d swallowed gravel. My hands flexed uselessly at my sides, itching to burn off the sudden heat crawling under my skin.
Daisy walked into the laundry room where Junie was half-buried in a pile of warm clothes. She asked what Junie was looking for, unfazed by the little girl’s big emotions.
I stood in the doorway, watching her dig through the baskets of clean clothes I hadn’t folded or put away yet.
She bent to reach deep into the dryer, and my brain betrayed me with the sudden, visceral awareness of pink shorts and bare legs and the fact that I was not supposed to be noticing any of it.
But dammit, I couldn’t look away. Couldn’t stop myself from imagining what my big hands would look like on those hips.
Heat flooded my face and lower, sharp and unwelcome. I was thirty-seven—I should’ve had better control than this.
I looked away a beat too late, jaw clenched so tight my teeth ached.
“Found it!” she said, then pulled out the infamous turquoise shirt with the hearts. “Oh, it’s super cute. I can see why this was your choice for today.”
Junie wiped away her tears, then took the shirt from her aunt.
“You know what?” Daisy said, kneeling beside her. “I’ve got a shirt this same color in my bag. Want to be twins today?”
“Twins?” Junie’s voice wobbled.
“I don’t know how anyone will tell us apart,” Daisy said. “You just need to grow about a foot and a half.”
“That’s impossible,” Junie said, hiccuping a laugh. “The average growth spurt for an eight-year-old is two inches. Maybe two-and-a-half if I increased my iron intake.”
“Okay.” Daisy shrugged. “I’ll just have to stay down here on my knees then. Kinda weird, but I am weird, right?”
Junie grinned, a full smile I was more than happy to see. “A little, yeah. But I like it.”
“Me too.” Daisy tugged Junie into her chest, and my girl wrapped her arms around her aunt’s neck. Daisy gave her a quick squeeze, then kissed her forehead. “Now go get dressed. You don’t want to be late for hockey, hm?”
Junie ran by me, then down the hall to her room. I leaned against the doorframe, relief loosening something in my chest.
“Need anything while I’m down here?” Daisy said.
I looked back at her, and any relief I’d felt flew right out the window.
She was still on her knees, pulling clothes out of the dryer and into a basket nearby.
The question was innocent. Practical. But the position—her looking up at me, damp hair on her shoulders, thin tank clinging in all the right places—sent a jolt straight through me. My stomach muscles locked. My breath snagged somewhere behind my ribs.
Dark eyelashes framed the brightest blue eyes before she seemed to realize what she’d said and the position we’d found ourselves in. Her pupils dilated and her cheeks flushed, her gaze drifting down my body as if she couldn’t help it. And holy shit, I couldn’t either.
My blood roared in my ears. I could feel the exact spot where my pulse hammered at the base of my throat, could feel the inconvenient heat pooling low in my gut.
Bare legs.
Soft skin.
Nipples pebbled in the cool morning beneath that tiny little shirt.
“Do we have more pancakes?” Junie called from the other room, and I snapped my gaze up to the wall above Daisy’s head, forcing oxygen back into my lungs. “I don’t want yogurt.”
When the tension finally snapped, Daisy scrambled to her feet and rushed down the hall, her shoulder grazing mine as she passed. The brief contact burned like a live wire. A second after she disappeared, I remembered to breathe again—shallow, but steady.
I pressed the heel of my hand against my sternum, trying to slow the frantic thudding.
This was my idea. My practical, temporary, torturous idea.
And I was already in way over my head.
“Ty?” Junie called again. “Pancakes?”
I scrubbed a hand over my face, then spun on my heel toward her. “Yeah, bug. They’re in the oven.”
By the time I got Junie situated with her purple plate, pink fork, and pancakes the way she liked them, the opening notes of Safety Dance drifted through the ceiling speakers.
Junie’s head popped up just as Daisy slid into the kitchen in pink socks, cutoff denim shorts that weren’t much better than her pajamas, and a shirt the same turquoise shade as Junie’s. Her hair was up in a messy bun now, and she held a hairbrush like a microphone.
She didn’t hesitate—she sang, loud and off-key and unselfconscious, like nothing in the world hurt.
Junie tried to hide her grin behind her fork, but Daisy caught it.
“Oh, come on,” she said between verses, pointing the brush at her like a mic. “I know you know this one.”
Junie shook her head, giggling.
Daisy kept going anyway, hips swaying, committing so hard it was impossible not to get swept up in it.
I leaned against the counter, arms crossed, unable to look away.
When Daisy broke into a terrible robot—arms stiff, knees jerking—Junie finally cracked, laughter spilling out of her like it had been trapped behind her ribs all morning.
Daisy clutched her chest. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a smile. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again—almost anything can be solved with a dance party.”
I adjusted my hat, not to grin. “Almost?”
She flashed me a look. “Almost.” Then, grinning, she jabbed the brush toward me. “You’re next.”
“Hard pass.”
“You don’t dance?”
“Not like that.”
“Then you’re no friend of mine, Huddy.”
Junie hopped down to join her, and the two of them started spinning in circles around the kitchen, laughter echoing off the walls. It was equal parts adorable and terrifying, and I couldn’t look away.
Daisy shone so brightly that it took a second to notice the cracks. Her smile stretched a fraction too wide, her eyes flicking up toward the ceiling before she wiped at her cheek and looked back down at Junie, smile already back in place.
She was holding herself together with noise and movement and sheer willpower, and it only made me want to protect her more.
By the time we made it to the front door, shoes on and Rowdy waiting, Daisy held her palm up.
“Good work, partner.”
“Partner?”
“Yeah.” She nodded. “You’re the bedtime whisperer. I handle morning meltdowns. Teamwork makes the dream work.”
I huffed out a laugh and smacked my hand against hers.
The warmth shot straight through me.
Junie darted out to my truck humming Safety Dance, and Rowdy hopped in the truck with her.
“Will you be okay today?” I asked from the porch steps. “I need to catch up on some paperwork at the hardware store, but…”
But I didn’t want to leave.
Daisy’s grin snapped into place like armor, but it didn’t quite meet her eyes. “Let me guess—a tiny little mom-and-pop store that was going out of business before you saved it?”
When I didn’t answer, her eyes widened.
“Wait, seriously?” she laughed. “You did.”
I exhaled through my nose. “You probably shouldn’t ask about the rink either.”
She laughed, shaking her head. “You can’t be this nice and have a mustache.”
“Is that a rule?”
Her gaze dipped to my mouth and lingered there for a beat too long. “It should be.”