Chapter 17
“You got any princess kittens?” Beckett asked from across my kitchen table on Tuesday evening. “I can’t tell if that’s a crown or a tiara, so maybe it’s a queen kitten.”
I stared at him. “Do you hear yourself?”
My best friend grinned, unbothered by neither the girly deck of cards in our hands nor the tiny pastel teacup painted with flowers pinched between two fingers.
He took a sip, the slurping sound ringing out through my quiet house.
“A man’s gotta adapt after retirement. Some guys golf.
You, apparently, traded your skates for tea parties.
Should we braid each other’s hair next?”
I slid him a card. “Fuck you.”
He took another sip from his tiny cup, pinky still out, tattooed forearms flexing with the little movement. “I’m flattered, but I’ll have to pass. Your sister, though? She—.”
“I could bury your body anywhere on this ranch, and no one would ever find you. So, think hard before you finish that sentence.”
A squeal coming from the laundry room that was half-Junie, half-Piggie drowned Beckett’s deep laugh out. My mustache twitched as I held back a smile at the delighted sound.
Raising a bottle-fed potbelly pig wasn’t on my bingo card, but Junie had thrown herself into learning and caring for Piggie over the last week. I knew it was her way of avoiding grief, but I couldn’t stop myself from doing anything that brought her an ounce of happiness.
“So.” Beckett laid down a set of sparkly princess kittens holding a donut. “How is playing house with Daisy going? Emmy was so excited she showed up to girls’ night tonight.”
“We’re not playing house.”
One dark eyebrow lifted to just below his backward hat. “You live together, you parent together, and you adopted a potbellied pig. That sounds pretty domestic to me.”
“I’m helping her,” I said, maybe a little too fast. “We both love Junie. That’s it.”
His chair creaked when he leaned back. “Uh-huh. Not awkward at all? No tension? No late-night ‘oops, our hands touched reaching for the milk’ moments?”
A deep sigh escaped me, and I tapped my cards on the table. As ridiculous as Beckett’s question was, I couldn’t help but replay Daisy’s and my conversation from a few nights ago.
Maybe I shouldn’t have admitted I’ve thought about her every day for the last three years, but damn, it was true.
Since then, she’d been polite. Careful. Always busy with Junie or Piggie or something that needed doing—never alone with me as we had been that night.
Maybe this was just what parenting looked like—everyone too tired to poke at feelings, too focused on surviving the day.
Or maybe I’d said too much, and she was already pulling away.
That thought pissed me off. “Do you want to play cards, or do you want to get punched?”
Beckett chuckled. “Buddy, I’ve been punched by you before. You don’t scare me.”
I grabbed my hat, readjusting it on my head. “I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.” He grinned. “But thanks for confirming I’m right. Something’s going on here.”
I flipped through my cards—unicorns, mermaids, and a dolphin wearing sunglasses—and decided I was too damn tired for this conversation.
Over the last several months, I’d thought about becoming Junie’s guardian logically, preparing my house and my life for a child. But nothing had prepared me for the emotional toll of being responsible for a little person.
Sure, I’d dealt with physical exhaustion as part of my job for years, but this was a different tired that sank all the way to my bones.
My brain was tired from overthinking every smile, every sigh, every shrug of indifference Junie had tossed out lately.
My heart was tired from worrying about her non-stop.
And my soul was tired from imagining a day she wouldn’t be mine to worry about.
But the laughter drifting through the house tonight was genuine, and I relaxed a fraction at the sound. We weren’t out of the woods, but I wasn’t failing yet either.
“Do you have any mermaids?” I muttered, and Beckett’s laugh filled the kitchen as he tossed a glittering mermaid my way.
“I like that Daisy girl,” Lori said from where she sat in the living room. “She was always a nice child, too. Maggie adored her.”
I looked at Beckett’s mom as I slapped the two mermaids on the table. “Nope. You’re not allowed to chip in to this conversation, Mrs. Conway.”
“It’s Lori.” She shook her head. “We’ve discussed this. I’m old. You’re old. We’re all on a first-name basis.”
Beckett brushed a hand over his beard. “Got any flamingos, Boomer?”
“Shut the fuck up,” I muttered. “Go fish.”
Lori came to join us at the table, her cane tapping on the wooden floor as she walked.
Beckett hopped up to pull back the seat next to him and helped her into the chair.
Her chin-length white-blonde hair framed a face still sharp with humor and command, even if her hands trembled when she brushed it from her face.
It was hard to see the untouchable, unshakable Lori Conway battle Parkinson’s disease, but she was still the same tough-as-nails woman I remembered.
“I swear, you boys and your dirty mouths,” Lori said once she sat down. “Like I didn’t teach you better.”
“Yeah, Ty,” Beckett said with a smug grin, right before his mom slapped him upside the back of the head. “Ow! What was that for?”
“Please, I heard you two at the grill earlier talking about the rink expansion. I just couldn’t get out there fast enough to slap you then.”
I looked down at my cards, glad the brim of my hat was hiding the amusement I was having difficulty holding in. “Have any unicorns?”
“Which color?” Beckett asked, staring at his cards. “There seems to be a lot of f—un unicorns in this deck.”
“Ask him for the purple one.” Lori stole a handful of chips from the bag still sitting on the end of the table, the last remnants from our burger night. “He has that one.”
“Mom.” Beckett sounded more than a little exasperated as he passed it over.
I didn’t have a purple unicorn in my hand—mine was teal—but I hated losing, no matter the game.
A soft thump and a squeal from the hallway had Beckett glancing up, and I followed his gaze.
“About time,” he said as Jace stepped out of the laundry room. His shaggy hair stuck out from under his hoodie, and the bored expression he usually wore had more than a few cracks in it.
Right behind him was Junie in purple unicorn pajamas, Piggie Smalls in her arms. She held out the pig like a proud show-and-tell exhibit. “She needed goodnight kisses.”
“Well, how could anyone sleep without that?” Lori asked. She leaned forward to scratch Piggie’s ear as the piglet snorted happily. “Goodnight, cutie patootie.”
Jace rolled his eyes in full teenage fashion, though the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth betrayed him. “Did you know Mom wallpapered her kennel in the laundry room? It might be nicer than mine.”
Beckett grinned. “Yes, well, your room looks more like a pigsty than Piggie’s, so that makes sense.”
Junie dissolved into giggles, then put Piggie down on the floor. The piglet’s wet nose sniffed along Lori’s ankles, and she let a delighted laugh loose. Even my grumpy nephew chuckled as he shoved his hands into his hoodie pocket.
I leaned back in my chair, taking in the mess of it all—laughter, noise, Piggie’s squeals, Junie’s wild hair, Beckett’s shit-eating grin—and wondered how I ever thought I preferred quiet nights alone to this.
“Speaking of bedtime”—I stood and stretched—“it’s your turn, kiddo.”
Junie groaned, but she scooped up Piggie and headed down the hall. Beckett and Jace helped Lori up, their voices soft and familiar as they gathered her things and said goodbye. I started clearing the table—cards, chip crumbs, half-empty glasses—while the house quieted around me.
When the door closed behind them and only the hum of the fridge and faint giggles from the laundry room remained, I glanced at my hands resting on the sink full of dishes and smiled to myself.
“Okay,” Junie said as she skipped down the hall toward her bedroom. “I’m ready for bed!”
“Brush your teeth, kid,” I said loud enough she stopped and looked over her shoulder at me with enough sass to tell me her teen years would be a trip.
She rolled her eyes, then went into the bathroom first. I went into my room to change from my usual jeans into a pair of gym shorts and an old Storm tee, then followed her to her bedroom.
Junie’s room had a faint purple glow, the star projector she loved painting constellations across the ceiling. Tiny galaxies spun above the bed she’d filled with stuffed animals, books, and one very smug pig-shaped pillow Stevie found for her.
“Alright, kiddo.” I leaned against the doorway. “Did you brush your teeth?”
She nodded, glasses on her nightstand now, then pointed to the farm animal encyclopedia we’d gotten from the library. “Did you know pigs dream when they feel safe? All day today, I watched Piggie nap to see if I could tell. She’s very twitchy, so I think it’s true.”
I smiled, crossing the room to sit on the edge of her bed. “Sounds like you’re doing a great job then. She must be happy here.”
Junie climbed under the blankets, her shoulders slumped more than before. “Maybe. I think she misses her mom sometimes, though.”
My throat worked as I tried to find the right words. “Yeah,” I said. “I bet she does. Maybe she always will, and that’s okay.”
She was quiet for a long time, tracing a little pattern on her blanket. “What happens to people when they die?”
That one hit square in the chest.
I rubbed the back of my neck, watching the stars crawl across her ceiling.
“I don’t know for sure,” I said. “Some people think they go to heaven. Some people think they’re still around us in ways we can’t see.
But”—I pointed to the bright scatter of lights above us—“I like to imagine they turn into stars. That way, when we look up, we can still find them.”
Junie tilted her head back, eyes reflecting the twinkling starlight. “Do you think my mom’s up there?”
“Yeah,” I said, the word coming out rougher than I meant. “Yeah, kiddo. I think she’s shining pretty bright.”
She scooted over and patted the pillow beside her. “Will you look with me?”
I hesitated for a moment, then lay down on top of the covers, careful not to jostle the mountain of mascots Junie had neatly arranged. Rowdy curled up on the rug, and for a while, we just breathed—two heartbeats syncing under a galaxy of blinking stars.
Junie pointed at one of the moving constellations projected on the ceiling. “That one looks like Piggie.”
“Yeah? Where?”
“Right there.” She drew her hand through the air. “See her funny nose?”
I chuckled. “Yeah, bug. I see it.”
She turned her head toward me as her little hand wove its way into mine. “I love you, Ty.”
My chest squeezed so hard it hurt, and I reached over to kiss the top of her head. “I love you too, bug.”
She nodded once, then her eyelids fluttered closed, hand still in mine. I rolled onto my side to face her, watching her for a long time—this little girl who’d lost everything and still managed to find wonder in pigs and stars—and felt something twist deep inside me.
Loving Junie was the easiest thing I’d ever done. What wasn’t easy was admitting that somewhere along the way, I’d started needing her just as much as she needed me.
And Daisy… that was worse.
Wanting her wasn’t simple. It was complicated and messy and maybe even a little selfish.
It wasn’t just that my body was craving her—though that was getting hard to ignore.
But I liked who I was with Daisy.
She didn’t make me feel reckless. She made me feel alive.
But how the hell did I ask for anything from them?
They were doing their best to put one foot in front of the other, surviving the shitty hand life had dealt them. So what right did I have to say, don’t forget about me?
Lying there in the dim light, Junie’s small hand in mine, I had to face the truth.
I didn’t just want to keep them safe.
I wanted a place in their world.
And wanting that felt dangerous.
Because if I ever lost it, it wouldn’t just hurt. It would break me.