Page 131 of One More Chapter

“Not too much bigger. Do you want me to teach you?”

His eyes sparkle like lightning bugs.

“Yeah, that’d be cool.”

I show him the stash of yarn and let him pick the colors as I take my hat over to the finished pile.

“Here. You don’t even need needles. I’ll teach you how to finger knit.”

“You candothat?”

“Did Debbie seriously never show you guys?”

“I’m sure she tried, and I’m also sure I couldn’t sit still long enough to make more than a knot.”

I giggle at the thought—little Anthony Ellis using knitting needles as swords because sitting to make a hat took way too long.

“Do you still want a whole baseball team full of kids?” I ask, starting my next hat, this time with shades of yellow.

“Oh, I definitely want a couple. I’ve got five bedrooms in the house, and a basement where I can add more if I want.”

My skin tingles as an invasion floods into my thoughts of that red headed little boy giving a little girl with strawberry blonde hair a piggy back ride.

“What about you? You said you wanted a couple?”

“I did.” I tilt my head, focusing on this layer of yarn before switching my color. “I’d like at least four. Three leaves room for two to gang up.”

“You’re telling me,” he chuckles. “We left Grant out ofeverything. We used to lock him out of the treehouse.”

“You guys had a treehouse?”

“Yep,” he beams. “Had my first kiss up there. First other things, too.”

I roll my eyes and laugh at his eyebrow waggle.

“That’ll be my next project—after the house is finished. Although, part of me wants to wait until my first little one is big enough to sit there with a hard hat and help me and my dad.”

My eyes clench shut at that vision—the red hair sticking out of a toy hard hat—and I shake it out.

“You good, PJ?” he chuckles.

I shake my head. “I can’t believe you still call me that.”

“Ican’t believe you made it your pen name.”

I shrug, feeling my face heat.

“It worked.”

His laugh rumbles low in his chest.

“I can remember almost everything about that day, you know.”

“Me too.”

We were seven. I hadn’t seen Anthony or the Ellises since his dad came into the picture. Since Mom had Connor. We went down to Revere Beach for the day, just the moms and the kids. I remember Mom and Ms. Debbie talking about everyone’s daddies. Ms. Debbie said Anthony’s daddy had come back, and she had a toddler with her too. Mommy said Connor had a daddy, and she hoped he would come live with us because he had a lot of money.

I still didn’t know who my daddy was.

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