“That’s what ten means.” I grinned at her. “I said that was back when I was younger, not any time recently. I can’t afford ten kids.”

“Still. How about… none?”

I glanced down the table again when I heard Thea’s sharp laugh. “Okay, Only Child.” I laughed. “I think four’s a good number now.”

My friend beside me groaned before reaching forward to grab a chip, dipping it into the tiny bowl of guacamole beside it. “Look, Grandpa Gus was basically my brother, my dad, my uncle, and my grandpa all rolled into one, and I had a bunch of kids to play with,” she claimed. “Whatever makes you happy, but I think I’m fine with zero kids in my future.”

I reached over and grabbed one of the pieces of fajita from her plate and plopped it into my mouth. “Watch, you’ll end up with two,” I told her, covering my mouth while I chewed the meat. “You’ve already got that ‘mom’ vibe going on better than anyone I know.”

That had her rolling her eyes, but she didn’t argue that she didn’t, because we both knew it was true. She was a twenty-seven-year-old who dealt with full-grown man babies daily. She had it down. I was friends with my coworkers. Lenny was a babysitter for the ones she was surrounded with regularly.

“Like you’re one to talk, bish,” she threw out in a grumpy voice that said she knew she couldn’t deny it.

She had a point there.

She picked up a piece of fajita and tossed it into her mouth before mumbling, “For the record, you should probably get started on lucky number four soon. You aren’t getting any younger.”

I rolled my eyes, still chewing. “Bish.”

“Bish.”

I smiled at her, and she smirked right back.

“Since we’re on the topic of kids, and you can’t have any on your own…”

The smile fell right off my face. This wasn’t the first time we’d had a similar conversation. “I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

She ignored me. “Maybe it’s time you started dating again.”

I glanced down the table. Thankfully, no one had decided to start paying attention. “I don’t want to talk about it,” I insisted.

Still, Lenny ignored me. “How long has it been since you dated that silver fox?”

“Do you have to talk so loud?” I glanced around again before whispering, “And three years, you know that.”

“So it’s been how long since that one guy who wanted you to call him Daddy?”

And she’d gone there.

I burst out laughing, which I knew was the last thing I needed to do when every person at dinner was nosey. “Shut up, Len!” I tried to whisper, but it really came out as more of a laugh, damn her.

I had almost forgotten about the one and only “rebound” in my life. The thirty-six-year-old to my back-then twenty-three.

Of course, she still ignored me as she thought about the dates before answering her own question. “Three years too, right?”

“Can we talk about this later?” I basically begged her, even though I was still cracking up over the memory of that short and weird relationship that I’d gone into with almost no expectations.

Lenny’s snort told me we weren’t going to talk about this later. We were going to talk about it now. Because when Lenny DeMaio wanted something, she got it.

It all went to hell the moment Mr. Cooper turned and smiled over at us. “What are you two cracking up about?”

Oh hell. I started to shake my head. “She’s being—”

It was too late.

“I’m trying to tell Luna that she needs to start dating again if she wants to have four kids someday, and we’re going down the list of her exes.”

“There’s only been one and a half, and that half was debatable,” I said, but I knew it was pointless.

Still, she ignored me. “And I reminded her about the first one.”

Mr. Cooper’s face instantly fell. “I didn’t like him.”

At least she hadn’t brought up—

“Was that the one who wanted you to call him Daddy?” Grandpa Gus, who had been in the middle of a conversation when I had looked at him two minutes ago, asked out of nowhere.

It was my turn to punch Lenny in the shoulder, and I never did that.

Unfortunately, she didn’t flinch or even act like she’d felt anything as she nodded in agreement to her grandpa’s question.

I didn’t even know why it surprised me she had told him about him.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Mr. Cooper flinch. The man was for all intents and purposes, my adoptive dad. There had been a reason why I had told him that we had broken up after a month because things weren’t working out. Not because me and the man I had briefly dated had wanted me to call him freaking Daddy.

“I didn’t like him either,” the man, who was right around Mr. Cooper’s age, if not a year or two older, agreed. “Now the silver-haired one I did like, Luna.”

I had too.

“He was all right,” Lenny sort-of agreed but then shook her head. “But it’s been more than three years, and I think it’s time we found ‘someone’ a new boyfriend.” As if the someone wasn’t obvious enough, she had the nerve to point at me.

I just shook my head, my gut telling me this was spiraling out of control too fast. “I’m fine,” I tried to insist, even though… well, even though I did want someone in my life.

Joining in on the conversation now, Lydia leaned forward from her spot two seats down and reached across to pat my hand. “Lenny’s got a point, Luna. You would be happy by yourself, but life is always better with other people to share it with, don’t you think?”

I blinked.

“I know a few nice men I could set you up with,” the woman kept going, her face thoughtful. “Let me make sure they aren’t in relationships, and I’ll get back to you.”

I was going to kill Lenny.

“That’s all right, you don’t have to—”

“ARE YOU TRYING TO START DATING AGAIN, LUNA?” Lily basically shouted across the table.

Scratch that. I was going to drag out her torture. For years.

I shook my head at my sister then

forced myself to smile. “Lily, why don’t you show everyone pictures of the house you’re going to be living in while you’re at school? It’s pretty nice—”

My traitor-butt little sister pretended like she didn’t hear me as she kept going. “MY P.E. TEACHER THOUGHT YOU WERE REALLY CUTE, AND HE JUST BROKE UP WITH HIS GIRLFRIEND.”

Did she have to shout that? But how she knew he thought I was cute, much less why she knew he’d broken up with his girlfriend, was beyond me.

“Nope, that’s all right—” I started to say before Lenny’s bish self cut me off.

“There’s a guy or two at Maio House who aren’t total pieces of shit I could introduce you to.” She was referring to the mixed martial arts gym where we had met. The same gym that her grandfather owned and that she worked part-time at. Someday, when Grandpa Gus finally decided to retire, she would end up taking over running it.

I could already imagine how her fixing me up with someone from there would go. That idea probably caused me more panic than Mr. Cooper knowing some guy—the second man I had ever slept with—had wanted me to call him Daddy while he’d been… doing it. God. He was probably scarred for life now. I really was going to kill Lenny. I really was. I would miss her for the rest of my life, but it had to be done. It really did.

“Or you could not. Just throwing that out there,” I told her, focusing on that for the time being instead of Mr. Cooper’s future nightmares.

She gave me a face I knew too well. “I know other people not from there I could set you up with. My people know people. It’d be easy. Right, Grandpa?”

My people know people.

These were my loved ones.

This entire conversation was my fault. I should have never brought up wanting to have kids someday. If I would have just kept my mouth closed….

“I’ve got a couple men in mind….” Grandpa Gus trailed off, getting a distant and way too thoughtful look on his face.