Page 21 of A Man for Mia

"Wants to and will are two entirely different words, Pipe."

Piper ground her molars. "I know, but—"

"There’s nothing you can say that will sugar coat this. You’re wrong. You’re—"

"I’m in love with him!"

Mia closed her eyes and pressed her hand to her forehead. "Then wait until he has a license for divorce in his hand before you ever see him again."

"Oh, like that’s not going to hurt his wife and children if he leaves them for me."

Shaking her head, Mia turned away. "I can’t even talk to you."

"Mi Mi, you don’t understand. He and I—"

"I don’t want to understand this. I don’t want anything to do with it. What you’re doing is—"

Eyes filling with tears, Piper cried, "Stop. Just stop." Spinning away, she rushed from the room, her footsteps pounding down the hall until a door slammed.

Shaking with too many emotions to name, Mia crumpled into a chair and covered her mouth with her hands.

•

Sunday afternoon, Drew found himself sitting across a dinner table from his brother-in-law, eating pot roast. To his left, his niece Natalie rattled on about summer camp her parents were finally letting her attend. To his right, her sister Lucy begged to go too. And all the while, their little brother Felix was lost in his own world, making motor noises as he ran his fork through the mashed potatoes, causing gravy to spill and seep into a pile of peas.

"That’s enough," Jeff muttered, scowling at the boy.

Next to Felix, Mandy shot out an arm to catch her son’s hand. "Eat," she ordered quietly.

Drew glanced from Mandy to Jeff, unable to imagine their lives separate from each other. This right here was who they were. Not so interested in eating either, he glanced toward his nephew.

Felix, who’d gone right back to making a fort in front of his pile of peas, but was doing it silently, could be a holy terror sometimes. Drew adored that most about the boy though. Mandy and Jeff had let the girls name him, worried they would feel left out with a new baby around … and not just any baby, but Jeffrey’s long-wished-for boy. So, per Lucy and Natalie, he’d been aptly dubbed after Felix the cat. He seemed to take his mischievous namesake to heart.

As Mandy once again told her son to stop playing, Natalie blathered on. "And I’m going to get some stationery so I can write you guys every day."

"I want some stationary too," Lucy said.

"Honey, you’ll get to go to camp in two more years and you’ll get some stationary then," Mandy assured her second daughter as she ripped Felix’s entire plate away from him.

From the end of the table, Jeff caught Drew’s eye. "Always use condoms," he muttered.

"Jeffrey!" Amanda exploded, looking absolutely scandalized as she plopped the plate back in front of her son.

"What’re condoms?" Lucy and Felix asked together.

Narrowing her eyes on their father, their mother hissed, "I believe it’s your responsibility to answer since you’re the one who started the subject."

Husband and wife battled through a brief stare off before Jeff finally slumped with a defeated sigh. Drew, on the other hand, couldn’t be happier. This was exactly the nature of their marriage. He’d never understood it, but it worked for them, or at least it had always worked for them before. It felt almost comfortable to watch them snap at each other.

"You’re too young to know," Jeff advised his two youngest.

Amanda snorted. "Brilliant answer."

"Well, what did you expect me to say?"

"I know what they are," Natalie bragged as she lifted her nose, looking smug about being the oldest and so much wiser than Felix and Lucy.

"How do you know?" her dad demanded.

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