I close the shower door behind us, and we’re both under the spray. I brush her wet hair back from her face. “What’s wrong?” I ask. I turn so that my back takes most of the water.

She doesn’t talk. She just shakes her head against my shoulder and holds tightly to me. She sobs into my neck, and I just hold her. I don’t know what else to do for her. I’m as lost as Seth is when it comes to crying women. I think all men are. But she’s f**king miserable, and I think I just need to support her.

Finally, her sobs quiet, and I realize that she has rivers of mascara running down her face. I very gently push her back under the spray and wash it away, sluicing her face with my fingertips. I pick up a shampoo bottle and lather her hair. She gets really still in my arms, but she doesn’t fight me. She lets me take care of her. I rinse her hair and wash her with a soapy washcloth. I try not to look at her boobs, but it’s f**king hard. They’re boobs and I’m a guy, not to mention that they’re f**king perfect. I force myself to skim over them and pay attention to the rest of her body. She has dimples over her ass, and I want to lick them, but I don’t. Instead, I shut off the water, step out, and come back with towels.

She lets me wrap her up and dry her hair a little. I wrap a towel around my waist and pull her by her fingertips to her bed. She tugs the covers back like she’s exhausted and slides between the sheets. I move to pull the covers up to her chin, but she mewls a little protest when I try to leave so I slide in behind her.

She lets me wrap my body around her. But then she surprises me and pulls her towel off, tossing it to the floor. I follow with mine. We’re na**d between her sheets, and oh my God, I have no idea what to do with her. I thought when this time came I would be ready to make love to her. But that’s obviously not what she needs right now, not to mention that Seth is in the other room.

I brush her wet hair down between us, and she rolls to face me. “My dad came to visit today.”

I don’t say anything because I don’t think she wants me to. Her ni**les are little pinpoints pressed against my chest, but I force myself to lightly draw my fingertips down her arm instead of touching them.

“He bared his soul to me. He told me about all the awful things he and my mother did to one another and why.”

Her voice is soft but not weak. Not at all. She sounds a little nasally from all the crying, and she’s a little hoarse.

“He told me about how I came to exist.”

I hope he didn’t go into a shit ton of detail because that would just be gross.

“I wasn’t a mistake. But what I told him might have been.”

“What did you tell him?” I ask softly.

“I told him that it’s all his fault that I can’t fall in love with someone.”

I freeze. Where does that leave me? “Why?”

“I’m used to being alone. If I don’t count on anyone, I’ll never get let down.”

I can see that.

“But then you happened.”

I take her leg and draw it over my hip. My dick is hard, and she’s right there, but I can’t do that. “And?” I ask. I run my fingers from knee to hip and skim over her na**d bottom.

“And I think I fell in love with you. I’m not one hundred percent sure, but I know I like you a lot and I want to have you around. And now that I’m getting used to you, you’re going to break my heart because I kind of need you, Matt. I kind of need for you to love me, too.”

I roll her to her back and settle between her thighs. I balance myself on my elbows by her head so I can play the wet hair on her forehead, brushing it gently to the side. “Done,” I say.

Her eyes jerk up to mine. “Done?” she echoes.

I nod and kiss the tip of her nose. “I want to eat, sleep, and breathe you, woman,” I say. I drag my nose up and down the side of hers. She shivers in my arms.

I kiss her quickly, and she scowls. “Needing me and wanting me are not the same as loving me,” she says, chewing on her lower lip. Her eyebrows furrow, and I kiss the crease between them, then smooth it with my thumb.

“Are you in love with me yet?” I ask.

“Are you in love with me yet?” she asks me.

“Yeah,” I say softly. “I am.”

“Me, too,” she chirps. Then she giggles, and I can feel her belly rumble beneath mine. I really need to get off her or I’m going to be inside her.

“My mom is in rehab,” she says. I move over and bring her back to my chest.

“Really?”

She folds her hands on my chest and rests her chin on them. “Really,” she says.

“How do you feel about that?” I ask. I trail my fingers up and down her na**d back.

“That’s the kicker,” she says. “I feel hopeful.” She heaves a sigh. “Sucks, doesn’t it? No matter what they do to me, I still want them in my life.”

“You want what could be,” I say. “That’s pretty normal.”

“I want to be the kind of mom she wasn’t.” She blinks her pretty blue eyes at me.

“I think you’re already succeeding at that.” I stay quiet for a minute. “I always said the same thing. I wanted to be the dad my dad wasn’t. He just took off. And I swore I would be better and do better.” I mentally shrug. “Now I can’t have kids, so I guess it’s a moot point.”

“I don’t want to jump the gun or anything,” she says. She winces. “But if we ever got to the point where we wanted to make this permanent…”

“I’m already there,” I blurt out.

She laughs. “Do you think you might want to be a father to my kids? Like an all-the-way kind of dad? They have dads, you know that, but they’re not active in their lives.”

My heart swells in my chest, and I have to blink hard. “Yep,” I say past the lump in my throat. “I’d adopt them, if they’d let me, and be an all-the-way kind of dad.” I roll her over and settle between her thighs again. But I just want to look into her face. “And you can be an all-the-way kind of mom, and we can be ecstatically happy with the three we were blessed with. I already love them.”

She brushes my hair back from my face. “You do, don’t you?”

“I think I fell in love with them around the same time I fell in love with you. On day one.” I laugh because I’m baring my soul here and it feels damn uncomfortable.

Sky rocks her h*ps under me, and I slide through her wetness. “Make love to me, Matt,” she whispers.

But then there’s a clatter, and the sound of screaming voices in the hallway. “Oh crap,” she says, scurrying to sit up. “Seth must have gone and gotten the girls early.” She pulls the sheet off me, leaving me bare on my back in the bed. She stops and looks down at my dick. “Um…” she says. She points to my manhood, and I swear it pulses like it’s putting on a show for her. “What’s that?”

“That would be my dick, and if you don’t stop looking at it, I’m going to lock the door and use it to do wonderful things to you.”

She scoffs. “I’ve seen a dick before,” she says. “I meant the piercing.”

“That’s for you to lead me around by,” I say. I chuckle.

She laughs and covers her mouth. “Does it, like, get in the way?”

I shake my head and go get my boxers. “You’ll love it. I promise. It has magical powers.”

She arches her brow. “All that from a piercing?”

“I was talking about my dick having magical powers.” She steps into her panties, and I heave a sigh. So close to the Promised Land. “I’ll show you one day when we don’t have kids around.”

“You mean like never,” she says with a laugh.

I laugh, too, and swipe a hand down my face. “Never say never,” I murmur. I put on my boxers and jeans, and then the door opens, and Mellie and Joey roll in just as I tug my shirt over my head. They jump onto the bed, and my moment with Sky is over. Or has it just begun? Hell, I can’t tell.

Skylar

I park my car in the parking lot of the rehab center and drop my forehead to the steering wheel. I don’t know why I’m here. Except for the fact that Dad asked me to come. I could have said no. I should have said no.

But I didn’t.

I approach the desk and ask for my mom’s room, but they lead me to the garden. The nurse leaves me outside the double doors and shuts them behind me. Ahead lies a large brick patio with deck chairs. It is littered with big, poufy furniture that looks really comfortable. I look around. I don’t see Mom. But then a woman gets up from a lounger, and I look closely. It’s my mother. Her face is stripped bare of makeup, and her hair is down around her shoulders. It’s held back from her face with a clip, and I can’t remember ever seeing her look so natural. Only it’s not natural for her all. It’s completely unnatural.

“Mom?” I say. She motions toward the nearby rocking chair.

She sits down and pulls her legs up, hooking her arms around her knees as if she wants to draw up inside herself. She doesn’t lean forward to give me those air kisses that don’t mean anything. I don’t know how I’m supposed to act without them. I sit down and grip my knees tightly.

She lays her head back against the seat and tilts toward me. “I’m glad you came,” she says quietly. “Surprised, but glad.” She smiles.

I’m immediately jarred because there’s no malice or artifice. And instead of looking at my clothes, my makeup, or my hair, she’s looking at my face. I purposefully didn’t dress up today because I wanted to give her plenty to pick on, with the hopes she would leave my kids alone.

“Why are you surprised?” I ask.

She shrugs. “If I were you, I wouldn’t have come.” She looks into my eyes, and my heart leaps into my chest, and then it gathers in my throat. I have to swallow hard to move past it.

My mother’s feet are bare, and I see fuzzy slippers lying beneath her on the pavers. They have Oscar the Grouch on them, and my mind is blown. “Nice slippers,” I say.

Mom smiles. “Your dad brought me those.” She snorts. I have never heard any such noise come from my perfect mother’s nose. “They’re kind of fitting for the situation.”

“Are you okay?” I ask.

She puts her feet down, sliding them into those crazy slippers she normally wouldn’t be caught dead wearing, and runs her hands up and down her arms. “I’m better today. The first week was kind of hard. A lot of puking my guts out and even more time spent wishing I could.”

My mom just said the word puke.

She narrows her eyes at me. “What’s on your mind, Sky?”

I shake my head. “Nothing.” If I could verbalize it, I still wouldn’t. She’s been fragile my whole life, and just because she doesn’t seem fragile right this second doesn’t mean she’s not.

“Your dad comes by every day,” she says quietly.

“He told me.”

“Glad you two are talking,” she says quietly. She’s looking at me, really looking at me, and it makes me a little restless.

“Why did you want to see me?” I ask. I heave a sigh. I feel like all the air has been sucked out of me.

“I’m supposed to make amends to all the people I have wronged,” she says with a shrug. She reaches over and picks up a pack of cigarettes. She shakes one free and lights it. My jaw falls open. I can’t help it.

“When did you start smoking?” I ask.

She smiles and lays her head back in that lazy way again. “You can’t take all my bitterness, betrayal, and hatred, and my alcohol and drugs from me and leave me with nothing,” she says with a laugh. But there’s no mirth in the noise. “I’ll quit. I just need to get through this.”

I nod because she may as well have slapped me.

“Your dad told me that he had a talk with you,” she says. She blows out a long puff of smoke that seems to go on forever. “He told you about our history.”

I nod. “He told me about the baby and Kendra’s mother.”

She doesn’t say anything. She just smokes, letting the cigarette dangle from her lips for a second with one eye closed.

“He said you told him to go to hell, pretty much,” she says. She smiles. It’s cheeky and so beautiful.

A grin tugs at my lips. “I didn’t say that in so many words.”

“You told him that his choices affected the way you look at life. Men, in particular. Or did he get that wrong?”

“He got it right.” I nod.

“Your dad wasn’t alone in that. I am just as much to blame, if not more so.” She shrugs, and a sad smile crosses her lips. “I was a terrible mother, too deeply mired in my own addictions and my own problems to parent you.”

“I don’t need apologies.”

“Too bad,” she bites out. “You’re going to get them.” She leans over and smudges out her cigarette. Then she touches my knee. “I’m sorry I didn’t do better. I always said I would when I could, but I never got to that point. I’m sorry.” Her eyes flit around, and then they land on me. “I kept telling myself that tomorrow I would change. But tomorrow never came.” She blinks back tears. I have never seen emotion on my mom’s face before. She’s usually a vacant shell.

“What do you want me to say?”

She shakes her head. “There’s no right thing or wrong thing to say. You can tell me how you feel. You can tell me to go to hell. Do what’s right for you because I never did.” She points a finger at me. “You’re responsible for your happiness and taking care of your heart. Only you. Other people contribute to your happiness, certainly, but you can’t wait for anyone to make you happy, Sky. Nobody is going to do that for you.”