Page 542 of The Winslow Brothers

It’s only when the crowd in front of the balloon clears enough to reveal the holder—Remy, of all people—that my smile turns into a guffaw.

Oh, what the heck?

With Izzy in the carrier on his chest, he’s holding the string of the balloon and a bag with a goldfish in one hand, and a huge stuffedanimal in the other. Painted animals cover one of his cheeks, and he’s wearing a smile the size of Texas.

What in the land of holy water is going on here?

His face lights up even further as he spots me standing in front of the Capital Grille, and he lifts the arm with the fish and balloons to wave.

I shake my head in laughter as he approaches, hardly able to come up with words.

Remy comes to a stop in front of me, and he shifts his body so I can peek at Izzy inside the baby carrier, her little self still too small to be front-facing just yet, and that’s when I see the baby-sized sunglasses on her teeny, currently sleeping face.

He waves Izzy’s tiny hand at me. “Hi, Mommy.”

The moniker is new, one I haven’t really used myself for fear that it’ll drum up some sort of impostor syndrome, but I’m pleasantly surprised to find out it feelsgood. She might not be mine biologically, but she’s mine in the sense that she has my whole heart.

Our relationship is complicated—but that doesn’t mean it’s not special. And I’m working on finding a way to be okay with that.

“My God, Remy!” I say now that I’ve had a chance to take full inventory of their display. It’s not one fish, it’s two, the animals on Remy’s cheek are glitter butterflies, and Izzy’s fingernails are painted with a clear-coated bright-pink sparkle polish.

He laughs, completely unfazed by both the ridiculousness of their appearance and my reaction to it. “We had a good day.”

“Where did you go? A carnival?”

He smiles and nods. “Yeah, actually. Downtown. They were having a big street-fair-style party, and Flynn and I decided to give it a shot when we had a scheduling issue with story time at the library.”

“Scheduling issue?”

“Flynn forgot to check if they have one.”

I grin.

“Couldn’t help but think a carnival might be more fun than story time anyway—sensory-wise, at this age, I mean—and well…when we do something, we do it big.”

“Remy, you’re holding fish. That’s not big. That’s gargantuan,” I tease him out of pure joy. “Not sure if you realize, but Izzy girl here isn’t going to provide an ounce of assistance in keeping them alive.”

“Eh,” he says, waving me off. “Fish are easy and take up no space. It’s about the only pet you can get in Manhattan without typing up a fifteen-page manual of logistics for your landlord. And if it’s a problem at your place, I can take them to mine. No big deal.”

“They’re…fine,” I find myself saying, not wanting to be a wet blanket. “I just wasn’t expecting your day with Izzy to end with new aquatic friends.” I glance at his handsome face covered in glitter and reach up to touch it softly. “This is a bit of a surprise too.”

He smiles again, this time unabashedly. I can’t help but melt into it, right there on the busy sidewalk. “I didn’t want to do Izzy’swithout knowing yet if her skin gets irritated easily, so we settled on a little bit of baby-safe nail polish.”

“Please tell me Flynn has glitter butterflies on his face too.”

Big, silent, mysterious Flynn with face paint. I swear I’d pay money to see that.

“Nope.” His face breaks with humor. “He got glitter monster trucks to match the twins.”

I cackle. I can’t help it. “Wow. Big day for the Winslow Brothers’ Daddy Day Care, huh?”

A quick, unexpected pang of weirdness hits me at the idea of calling Remy a daddy in this scenario. The truth is, I don’t know what he is. Or what we are, for that matter. We had sex last night—twice—after drinking an entire bottle of tequila, and he practically lives for taking care of Izzy and me, but beyond that, I have zero clue. Hell, I haven’t even been to his apartment yet.

“Oh, Ri, you have no idea. We got into this battle with another dad until Jude scorched him in the hot dog eating contest.” He waves with one hand in front of him. “It’s a long story that I’ll have to tell you later, but I’ll be damned if the dude didn’t end up shaking our hands in the end.”

Remy is still laughing when I come back from my momentary lapse with reality, me having only half heard his story with something about hot dogs and Jude, and he’s started to move us toward the front door of the restaurant with a fish-filled hand to the small of my back and the other still holding Izzy’s hand in the carrier at his chestandthe ribbons of the balloons.

“Flynn went buck wild, to be honest. I think he partied harder with the twins today than he did at any of the Winslow bachelor parties.”

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