“But I wanna play with them,” he whined.

“I’ll go tell them to let him play,” Trip offered.

Louie just shook his head against my cheek, embarrassed.

“They’ll let you play,” Trip kept going. “Promise.”

“I don’t wanna,” the little boy whispered, changing his mind all of a sudden. His arms slipped around my neck. His body went soft in resignation.

“I got an Xbox at my house. I can bring it over and we can play.” Dallas’s suggestion had Lou and me both glancing over at the man still leaning against the counter.

“You do?”

“Sure do, buddy.”

I remembered seeing a couple of game consoles at his house and his massive TV, but I couldn’t really picture Dallas—this muscled mountain of a man who had been so serious every other time we’d spoken—sitting on his messy couch playing video games, at all.

Lou took a step away from me. “What games do you have?”

“Louie,” I hissed at him.

Dallas smiled, his entire face bright and welcoming. I narrowed my eyes, taking in the way he went from good-looking to more like stunning by using the muscles around his mouth. What kind of trickery was this? “A lot of them,” he told him. “What do you like to play?”

The little boy said the name of a game I wasn’t too familiar with, but Dallas nodded anyway. “I got it.”

That seemed to perk Louie up because he looked at me for approval, and I smiled at him.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” the older man explained.

“Can I come with you?” Louie blurted out.

“Louie, come on, you can’t invite yourself places,” I told him softly. Plus, he didn’t even know this guy. What the hell was he doing?

Dallas glanced at me with a shrug, a partial smile on his face courtesy of the five-year-old in the room. “I don’t mind. We’ll only be a minute.”

Did I trust this practical stranger with Louie at his house?

“Please, please, please, please, please.” That was Louie.

Our neighbor met my gaze evenly and lowered his chin. “I’ll leave the front door open.”

“One minute, Tia,” he begged.

I hesitated for a moment. This man spent hours with boys. Lou looked so hopeful… Damn it. I met my neighbor’s gaze. “If you don’t mind holding his hand.”

“Nope.” He was back to smiling down at Lou, resembling a different person with that expression on his face. Had he really been so serious and distant because he thought I was coming on to him? Really?

“Okay. Then go with Mr. Dallas and don’t steal anything.”

Louie’s face went red. “I don’t steal!”

I couldn’t help but grin at the other man, grateful at his kindness and still slightly unsure about him taking Louie somewhere. But I reminded myself I let this man spend a whole lot of time with Josh and so did plenty of other people. “He’s got little butterfingers. Watch him.”

“I’ll make him empty his pockets before we leave my house,” he said dryly, as he extended one of those big hands toward the little boy. “You can help me cross the street.”

I watched Lou and Dallas walk out of the house hand in hand and it sent this terrible bittersweet grief straight through me. All I could think about was my brother and how I would never get to see him do that with Louie. How Louie would never get to experience that with his dad who had loved him very, very much. This knot formed in my throat and didn’t seem to want to go anywhere despite how many times I swallowed in the time I kept facing the direction they had gone, even though they were out of the house.

Before I knew it, I had reached up to wipe at my eye with the back of my hand.

How was it possible that I lived in a world where my brother didn’t exist anymore?

“You all right?” Trip asked, reminding me he was in the room.

I nodded at him, distracted and sad at the same time. “Yeah, I just…” I forced myself to clear my throat. “I just remembered his dad, is all. Does he have kids?” I forced myself to ask, not able to explain what had gotten me so upset in more detail. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d somehow found out that the boys weren’t my biological kids or not, but I didn’t want to bring it up right then.

“Dallas?”

“Uh-huh.”

Trip shook his head, his mouth going firm for the first time since I’d met him. “No.” He took a swig of his beer and stayed quiet for a moment. “Why, you interested?”

“No.” God, why did everyone seem to think I was trying to—

“I’m fuckin’ with you.”

I got mad all over again, remembering Dallas admitting he thought I was flirting with him all because of some polvorones and a few phone calls. My panties needed to get out of the wad they were in and remember he’d realized how stupid he’d been. Because he’d been real stupid to think that.

“Don’t take it personal, honey. His ex, or soon-to-be ex, whatever the fuck she is now, did a real number on him. It doesn’t have nothin’ to do with you,” he explained.

I was being sarcastic when I asked, “What? She was a single parent too?”

“Uh, yeah, she was,” was the remark that suddenly had me feeling like a giant schmuck. Shit. I guess I couldn’t blame him for being hesitant with me. “Don’t worry about it though. He knows he ‘isn’t your type.’” He chuckled at that last bit, and I frowned. “You actually got a type?”

“Yeah, from the sound of it, I do now,” I said, facing the cast iron skillet popping on the stove once more. “High school virgins.”

Trip and I laughed so hard it filled the time until Dallas and Louie came back with two plastic grocery bags filled with a console, two controllers, and multiple games. I hadn’t bothered ordering Josh and his friends pizza yet. The last time I had checked, the cupboard’s two bags of chips, one container of cookies, and six sodas had already gone missing. I could force food on them later. Trip disappeared into the living room as I finished cooking the first two steaks.

While I kept an eye on the meat and checked the potatoes in the oven, I thought about Dallas and his single-mom-ex for all of a second before starting a mental list of what I needed to get done before Josh’s official birthday party. I was in the middle of flipping the steaks again when I heard the distinct sound of glass shattering from the living room.

“I’m sorry!” That was Louie.

The response was so low I couldn’t hear it. I flipped the flame off the stove, ready to go and make sure everything was okay. I’d barely turned around when Trip appeared in the kitchen. “Louie’s all right, but you got a vacuum or something? There was a glass cup on the coffee table…”

And it got knocked over.

Reaching under the sink, I pulled out the little handheld vacuum my parents had bought me years ago and started toward Trip, but Dallas appeared behind him, his attention focused downward. It wasn’t until he shouldered past the blond man that I saw his hands. They were cupped together and in them were shards of glass along with a decent amount of blood pooling in those wide palms.

“I got it,” Trip said, taking the vacuum from me as I watched Dallas make his way toward the trash can.