Chapter 3
THREE
LARS
“Thanks for doing this,” Lars said as they walked closer to the playground. Chloe was already climbing. She’d run straight for the mini rock wall while Allie went to the stairs to use the slide.
“It’s really no problem.” Aaron quickly went to Chloe, standing behind her with hands out to catch her if needed.
Not that she was likely to fall. No, she was an expert climber at this point.
However, she did like to see how far she could jump.
Because she was determined to give everyone a heart attack, it seemed.
Lars put Maddie in one of the bucket swings. Clicking the seatbelt over her lap, he began gently pushing her. She giggled, smiling up at the blue sky above. “More!”
He pushed her a little higher, reveling in her contagious joy. Swinging had been her favorite activity since she was an infant. While she was occupied, he checked on the other two, but it wasn’t necessary. Aaron was keeping an eye on both, playing with them. He was so good with them.
“Unc Aaron, catch!” Chloe yelled right before jumping from the top of the platform.
Lars’s heart lurched, but Aaron caught her with a laugh. “You’ve got to wait until I say I’m ready, Little Monster.” He held her close. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I no get hurt ’cause you catch me all the times.”
With a sigh, he kissed her temple. “I’ll always catch you, but you still need to be safe. What if I’d been helping your sister?”
“You weren’t,” she said in a completely innocent voice, shrugging.
Aaron met Lars’s gaze, shaking his head. This girl was going to be the death of them. It was a good thing she was so cute. Carrying her to the monkey bars, he stood her on the platform once more and waited to help her across.
“Hey, guys,” a woman said behind Lars.
He turned to find Harper approaching with her son, Elliot. “Hey. What are you two doing way out here?”
“Elliot!” Chloe yelled, dropping from the monkey bars.
Aaron grabbed her again before she could hit the ground then set her down.
She ran to the little boy and basically tackled him in a hug.
Poor little guy didn’t know how to handle the three year old.
In all fairness, few did. He awkwardly patted her shoulder while looking to his mom for help.
“Let him go,” Allie said, reaching the bottom of the slide again.
Chloe pouted when Allie pushed between them, and Lars sensed a meltdown coming. Luckily, Aaron knew her just as well and quickly scooped her up, tickling her sides and making her giggle.
Allie smiled at her new friend once her sister was distracted and carried away.
Lars and Harper had been so happy to hear they would be in the same kindergarten class since they’d met each other over the summer.
They’d had a lot of playdates before starting school.
Allie loved going to Happily Ever Crafter, and since Elliot was frequently there while his mom worked, they’d bonded over art.
Harper had insisted they let Allie come hang out, especially after learning how much she enjoyed drawing.
The first time, he’d dropped her and Chloe off together, and they’d all learned the hard way that was a bad idea.
Chloe was… a lot to handle—unlike the other two, who were both well behaved and fairly quiet.
They were content sitting in the shop or the attached classroom with their art supplies for hours at a time, talking about their favorite cartoons and movies.
It wasn’t difficult to convince Chloe to do something with him, Mel, or Aaron instead.
On the days she really wanted to stay, one of them remained with her.
She just really could not be trusted to behave.
That first day, she’d come home covered in paint, glitter, and marker.
Lars could only imagine how much of a mess she’d made in the shop.
“The park in Perrington is under construction.” Harper moved to his side as Elliot and Allie started playing. “How’s it going?”
He continued pushing Maddie. “Pretty good. You?”
“Okay,” she said with a shrug. She moved to the closest swing that wasn’t a bucket seat and sat down.
“Vi and Charlie are covering the shop today and insisted I take the day off. Which honestly worked out well since the weather is so nice. Elliot’s been begging me all week to come to the park, but it was too cold. ”
Lars glanced at Chloe, who was now lying in the grass next to Aaron, pointing up at the puffy clouds. “I get it. Chloe has been begging too.” He pulled out his phone and took a picture of the two laughing over shapes they found in the skies. It was honestly adorable. “She’d live here if I let her.”
Harper chuckled. “I don’t doubt that. The girl has more energy than anyone I’ve ever met. Where does it all come from?”
He knew she was joking around, but he couldn’t help but remember how the doctor suggested getting her tested for ADHD because it was truly constant.
But she was three. He was pretty sure most toddlers were at least somewhat energetic and destructive.
Once she started kindergarten, if it was still an issue, then they would take her to get tested.
In the meantime, preschool was serving as a sort of trial run.
The doctor had given them various methods of helping her at home, like sticking to a routine and simplifying instructions when asking her to do something, giving her one step at a time.
They also put a fence around the backyard and expanded the playset so she could go outside and burn off some of her energy.
“Lars?”
His attention returned to Harper. “Sorry. Yeah, I don’t know.”
She smiled and started swinging gently. He couldn’t help but think about how similar their stories were.
She’d gotten pregnant in high school and married Elliot’s dad just after graduation.
She’d been a bit younger—seventeen when she had Elliot.
But where Lars and Mel were still friends despite working through a separation, Harper hadn’t been so lucky.
She’d left her piece-of-shit ex this past winter, moved in with her equally awful parents, who wanted her to go back to her husband, and then, ultimately, decided to leave it all behind.
She and Elliot now lived with Wyatt instead.
They’d adopted her into their friend group immediately.
Well, Charlie, Vi, and Aiden did. At the time, Aaron was still hiding out at Lars’s house, avoiding them, and Lars had stuck with him.
Mostly because he didn’t want to face confrontation, but also because he didn’t know what to tell them.
The second Aaron showed up with bags of belongings the night after the failed wedding, the entire story burst from him.
Being a crap liar, Lars hadn’t wanted to face the rest of their friends and pretend to be clueless.
They’d deserved the explanation from Aaron himself.
“Is everything okay?” Harper asked, standing and moving closer.
He cleared his throat with a nod. “Yeah, just have a lot on my mind.”
“Anything I can help with?”
Looking down at Maddie, who seemed to be falling asleep mid-swing, he thought about his conversation with Mel the other night. It would be nice to talk to someone who knew what he was dealing with, what he’d been through the past year and a half.
Lowering his voice so the other girls wouldn’t hear, he said, “Mel and I are separated.”
“Oh my God. I’m sorry.”
“We have been for over a year,” he added, shaking his head, waving off her concern. “But we’re still living together for the girls.”
Harper leaned against the frame of the swing set, crossing her arms. “That’s gotta be hard.”
“It’s not horrible, actually. We’re friends and still care about each other.
Honestly, the hardest part is not telling anyone.
The only person who knows is Aaron, and that’s because he lived with us for like four months.
” Yet, even as Lars said the words, he knew that wasn’t the full truth.
He would’ve told Aaron regardless. He’d been struggling to keep it from him for as long as he did.
Aaron could read him too well; he’d known something was going on, just not what exactly.
“That’s good at least,” Harper said with a smile. “Staying amicable can be tough, so I’m glad it’s working out for you two. I get how hard it is to hide something though. Believe me.”
“I know, that’s why…”
She let out a soft chuckle. “Why you told me instead of the friends you’ve known most of your life?”
Nodding again, he said, “It feels easier to tell someone who doesn’t know me as well. Our friends are the best, but I’m worried they won’t understand. Or worse, they’ll try to get us back together.”
“Vi and Charlie would definitely go all Parent Trap on you,” she said.
“I love them, but Vi doesn’t know how not to meddle in people’s love lives.
” He smiled, remembering the stories of her making Charlie get on the Love Hunters app after Aaron left.
Once they’d all forgiven each other and started hanging out again, Charlie had told them of the horrid dates she’d been on because of that.
“Mel and I had barely been dating when she got pregnant senior year. We’d been friends for years, but we’d only just started hooking up.
Like it was so early that I questioned whether I was even the father. ”
Not his proudest moment. He’d been sure there was no way it was him, not when they’d used a condom every time. But then, she confessed she hadn’t slept with her previous boyfriend, and being close friends, Lars believed her.
“I quickly realized that it didn’t matter,” he said, glancing over to where Allie and Elliot played tic-tac-toe on the lower part of the playground.
“I was in love with Mel and wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt, and I decided even if I wasn’t the father, I would be there for both of them. ”
As if sensing his attention, Allie looked over and waved with a big grin. She jumped up and ran to him. He turned from Maddie, who was now fast asleep, and lifted his eldest daughter into the air as she told him, “I won!”
Hugging her, he said, “Good job.” He kissed her cheek and held her close. She rested her head on his shoulder, like she knew he needed this moment. To Harper, he said, “She’s my baby.”
Harper simply smiled at him, and he knew she understood.
It was impossible to deny their resemblance now.
Allie had his green eyes, his facial features.
He had no doubts she was his; he’d seen the truth the moment she was born.
But he’d meant what he said, even if she hadn’t been biologically his daughter, that wouldn’t have changed a thing.
He loved his girls more than anything in the world, which was the real reason this situation with Mel was hitting so hard.
The last thing he wanted to do was hurt any of them.
“Can me and Elliot paint?” Allie asked.
He chuckled and shook his head. “We didn’t bring that kind of stuff. Maybe another day.” When she frowned, he asked Harper, “Maybe he can come over to paint for a while when we go home?”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, he can stay for dinner. You’re more than welcome to join us too.”
She grinned. “Thanks, but if you’re really offering…”
“Go do something adult-y,” he said with another soft laugh, understanding perfectly. He lowered Allie. “Let your sister play a little longer, then we’ll go home and Elliot can come with us.”
As if on cue, Chloe squealed and ran from Aaron, who seemed to be acting like a monster chasing her. Once Allie was out of earshot, Lars turned back to Harper. “Speaking of adult time, where’s Colby?”
She narrowed her gaze. “Why does everyone think we’re together? We’re just friends.”
“Friends who spend most of your time together.” When she didn’t respond, he added, “Hate to break it to you, but friends don’t look at each other like that.”
“We don’t look at each other,” she said quietly, glancing down as she kicked at the ground.
They definitely did, but if she was still in denial, he wouldn’t push it.
Colby watched her like she hung the damn moon, and he adored Elliot.
Lars had known the man since junior year of high school; he could vouch that Colby’s kindness was genuine.
After hearing bits and pieces of Harper’s past—more so from Wyatt than her—Lars knew her ex was cruel and controlling.
Colby was the complete opposite. He would be good for her when she was ready to open up again.
“Moving on is hard,” he whispered, glancing at each of his three daughters. Eventually, he and Mel would be divorced and they would start dating other people. Right now, that seemed impossible, so he understood her hesitation.
“It really is,” she said, meeting his gaze. “Most people don’t really get it. It’s nice having someone to talk to about this.”
“It really is,” he echoed her words. Their conversation had lifted a weight from his shoulders that he’d been carrying for a long time.
And the first thing he wanted to do with this newfound discovery was share it with Mel.
It was time to start telling people the truth.
They couldn’t hide this forever. No matter how difficult it was to explain.