Page 27 of A Love Song for Dreamers

“It was kind of a dick move, but my heart was in the right place. I wasn’t sure I could get you both here with your guards downotherwise.”

I drop four strips of bacon into the pan. “I shouldn’t have lied to him—to both of you—about school, but he overreacted when he foundout.”

“I get why you feel that way. I do. But if you look for evidence to be angry with someone, you’ll always find it. What kind of place would the world be if we stopped weighing and measuring mistakes, and using those measurements to define our relationships? Maybe we’d be able to choose how we want to feel about other people from love instead ofjudgement.”

I crack eggs into the remaining half of the simmering pan, watching the whitesspread.

“How come Dad has eight years on you, but you’re the sensibleone?”

She snorts. “The question for you,” she continues, “isn’t whether you want to be part of this family, but how you want to be part of it. I’m the one with the least say, but for what it’s worth, I’d love for you to be here to celebrate days like yesterday. To feel like this is your home when you need one. I want to see you and your dad laugh when Sophie names her trucks after eighties bands and races them down the hallway. I want all of us to raise a glass to you when you conquer the world, or when you go downtrying.”

I don’t know how I’m going to settle things with my dad, but hearing how Haley talks, seeing the three of them together, knowing I’ll have a new half brother or sister soon, I want to be a part ofit.

The plates are in the same cabinet they used to be, and I retrievetwo.

I finish cooking our breakfast and set both plates in front of us. Haley chuckles as she takes in the flower design I made on her plate withsyrup.

“I figured no one’s done this for youlately.”

She smiles. “You’d be right. Does this mean you’re not madanymore?”

“Jury’s stillout.”

I drop into the seat across from her, and we digin.

“How’s the musical coming? You told me you’re working with mostly the same team, but you and your writing partner are leading this time instead of following.” She reaches for hermug.

Nervous energy has me swallowing an extra big bite of egg. “It’s going to be amazing. Creatively, it’s been going well until now. We have ten songs written, but I’m struggling to drag it across the finish line. It’s not like I can’t write anything. But nothing seems to matter enough. Nothing feels good enough or big enough ortrueenough.”

I’ve spent hours a day trying to get myself out of this rut—reading, going for walks, brainstorming... I even bought a dream journal which, so far, succeeded in telling me I spend way too much of my subconscious thinking aboutpastries.

“The end is always thehardest.”

“Right? And I’ve been distracted because the funders…” I savagely bite into a piece of bacon. “The money is complicated. We have a reading scheduled with prospective funders at the end of the summer. Miranda and I thought it would be a slam dunk, but it’s looking harder everyday.”

Because Ian was supposed to fundthis.

Ian was not, however, supposed to fuck another woman, particularly the afternoon I walked into his apartmentunannounced.

My stepmom takes a long sip of decaf, staring thoughtfully at her empty plate. “You need a change ofscenery.”

I lift my brows in surprise. “Here?”

“It’s a huge house. There’s plenty of room without stepping on anyone’s toes. Plus, you always loved the patio in thesummer.”

Dad and I might kill eachother.

But my gaze drops to the hand she rubs over her stomach. “This guy or girl has been keeping me up. They’re not due for another six weeks, but I don’t think we’re going to last that long. Sophie’s started waking in the middle of the night, and your dad’s been busy with unexpected administration issues for thelabel.”

Compassion washes overme.

“Let me help,” I hear myself say. “I can’t stay for six weeks, but maybe two? I can flex my work around watching Sophie and whatever youneed.”

Her face relaxes. “I’d love that. And your dad would,too.”

“Let’s not go crazy,” I say dryly, and she laughsagain.

I take our plates to the dishwasher and look out the kitchen windows over the patio. There are a couple of cars I can make out through the hedges separating us from the small tree-lined parking lot. “Who’s at the label thisearly?”

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