I used the other hip to slam the door and walked to the garage door panel.

“Hit it, bud,” I said.

Brooks reached out and hit the button.

The garage door went down.

I took my son inside.

Dapper Dan greeted us.

I set down my kid, who walked on much steadier legs to the area under the stairs where there was a low, wide chest.

I bent and gave Dapper Dan some scratches behind his ears before I moved to the back door, opened it, and Dapper Dan rushed out.

I closed the door and walked to the chest where Brooks was, flipping it open.

He reached in and pulled out some toys.

Me and the pumps I was wearing avoided crashing to the floor as Barbarella rubbed against my ankles, and I skirted the massive dining room table that now sat in what had been a massive open space in the middle of his great room, but Toby had filled with that table.

With the leaves in, it sat ten.

Right now, without the leaves, it sat six. This meant there were four chairs under plastic covers as well as the two leaves (also under cover) on hooks on a wall in the garage.

I argued a table that huge was overkill.

Toby told me when all the Usual Suspects were together, we already had seven people, counting Brooks’s highchair. His argument was that for that table to be useful for years to come, considering the fact Deanna had shared the week after Valentine’s Day that she was pregnant, he should have bought one that seated twelve.

He had a point.

I’d given in.

I dumped my purse and the mail on the island counter, opened up my bag and pulled out my phone.

I engaged it and made my call.

“Hello, child,” Dave answered.

“Hey, Dave. You good?” I asked.

“All good, Addie. You good?” he asked back.

“Yeah. Need anything?”

“No, darlin’. We’re fine.”

“You and Margot coming to the festival tomorrow?”

A pause before, “I don’t think so.”

Shit.

“You up for company after we get done eating our way through it?” I asked.

“We’d love that,” he answered.

A garage door could be heard going up.

“Daddy!” Brooks shouted and started running toward the garage door.

This was new, and probably had a lot to do with his friends and their fathers at daycare.

I’d discussed it with Toby. I’d then discussed it with Eliza. Toby and I had finally discussed it with Margot and Dave.

And we’d decided to let it stand.

In the time since getting the news that Perry had changed phones, I’d called his friends repeatedly and then Toby had worked some magic on his laptop and found his address.

I’d sent a letter, heard nothing.

So I’d sent a registered letter, which was received.

And heard nothing.

I then sent another registered letter, which was refused.

In the first two letters I made no demands, just shared about Brooklyn, sent him some photos and told him the door was open if he wanted to see his son.

The final refusal said it all.

So everyone agreed that Toby Daddy was the way to go.

If Perry ever came back, he’d have to figure that out.

But Toby had helped teach Brooklyn how to use a spoon and fork. He was helping Brooks learn his ABCs. He was helping to teach him colors and shapes. Not to mention the difference between Dapper Dan, Ranger, Dempsey and Swirl being dogs, Barbarella, and Iz and Johnny’s Sabrina, Jill and Kelly being cats, Iz’s birds, Wesley and Buttercup being canaries and Serengeti and Amaretto being horses.

If Perry wanted in, he would have to catch up.

And he could be Daddy number two.

But for me, that ship had sailed, and as far as I was concerned, he was just Perry.

“Toby’s home,” Dave said in my ear, obviously having heard Brooklyn. “I’ll let you go.”

“Okay, Dave. We’ll text and give you time before we show tomorrow.”

“That’d be good, child. See you then.”

“See you, Dave. Love you.”

“Love you too, Addie.”

We hung up about five seconds before the garage door could be heard going down and the door to the house was opened.

“Daddy!” Brooks cried again.

Then he was swung up in Toby’s arms.

“Hey, bud,” Toby greeted.

“Ay!”

“Good day?”

“Yah!”

Tobe grinned at him, kissed his neck, Brooklyn laughed (our boy liked the beard too), then Toby walked him to the mess he’d made with his toys on the floor by the chest, set him on his feet and started to me.

Those toys would be scattered all over in about fifteen minutes. They were only tidy because that was housecleaner day.

Toby’s decision.

Before Brooks and I had moved in the month before, Toby and I sat over beers at Home and made the decisions that worked for us both.

He dealt with the mortgage. I bought all the food.

We traded monthly paying utilities.

And Toby paid housecleaners to come in every other week to clean because he hated cleaning. I was considering going to an online school to become a paralegal, and if I did, I wasn’t going to have a lot of time, and the renovations at the shack were in full swing. So most weekends we drove down there to check the progress and have family time.

He got the short end of that deal.

But . . . whatever.

“Hey,” he said to me.

“Hey,” I replied.

His eyes moved the length of me, lingering at my ass in my tight skirt and at the high-heeled pumps on my feet.

He made it to me, and his hand glided over that ass and his beard went into my neck where he said, “Love it when I get home before the pumps come off.”

“We’re so totally playing boss and secretary,” I replied.

His beard came out of my neck, I turned my head, and he looked into my eyes.

His were smiling.

“Tease. You keep offering, all I ever got was one night with the sexy cop.”

“Your bed doesn’t have any way to handcuff you to it.”

His smiling eyes got closer as his smiling lips hit mine.

He gave me a peck, then moved to the fridge.

“Beer?” he asked.

“I’m all classy in pumps and skirt,” I returned. “Wine.”

“Gotcha,” he muttered. “Call Dave?”

“No on the festival. Yes on the ‘they’re okay.’ Yes on a visit after the festival.”

“I’ll call Johnny,” he said, coming out of the fridge with a bottle of beer and a bottle of white.

“Daddy, we’s ‘av peezza,” Brooks called.

Tobe shot a smile to our kid then looked to me. “Pizza?”

“I hadn’t decided, but that works for me.”

“I’ll get out the breadmaker,” he muttered.

Suffice it to say, the living together and the dining room table were not the only indications of our budding domesticity.

There were toss pillows on the couch (Toby picked them out at Pottery Barn). There was a lamp on an end table by the couch (that was me). There was a his and hers reading nook tucked in the corner with two comfy chairs that shared an ottoman, table and a standing lamp, plus a smaller chest filled with Brooks’s toys (totally Toby). And upstairs, the master bedroom had been kitted out with some throws, toss pillows, two kickass armchairs, and a spindly-legged table with a small lamp on top (that was me, with help from Margot).