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Layla beamed at her and bent to pick it up and try again. Amelia and Peyton were also trying their hoops out, with limited success.
The guys were slow to get up to play volleyball, but eventually, Jay rallied them to split up into teams. Charli rarely played, but Misha and Janessa sometimes did.
Though they’d arrived later than the rest, Kayleigh and Hudson had shown up, and Hudson happily joined in the game as well. After sending him off with a kiss, Kayleigh dropped down into the chair beside Charli.
“How’s life?” Kayleigh asked as she crossed her legs, keeping her gaze on Hudson.
“It’s good.” Relatively speaking. “How about for you?”
“Busy. Hudson was away for most of the week.”
There were times Charli found it hard to believe how attached Kayleigh had gotten to Hudson. Her older sister was fiercely independent, so it was weird to see how much she liked having Hudson around. Apparently love did that to a person.
Charli fell quiet as Misha and Janessa joined in the conversation. She split her attention between the kids and the volleyball game, trying to find some semblance of calm.
Unfortunately, calm had been hard to come by since Blake’s reappearance in her life. But maybe if he wasn’t going to come after her about Layla, she could relax and not be so tense whenever he was around them.
As she watched the volleyball game, memories of how she’d once imagined her and Blake being part of family gatherings assaulted her. Of them hanging out with her siblings. Of their wedding in the presence of her family.
Because they’d kept things secret, she’d dreamed of the day they’d be able to be public about their relationship. Only they’d never had the chance.
So there she sat, watching her siblings with their significant others and trying not to let her jealousy grow.
Twelve years ago, Jay had been the only one in a serious relationship—and that had been with someone none of them liked—so it hadn’t been as hard to be around her siblings.
Blake had hung out with them a lot back then, but it hadn’t really been fun since they’d had to keep their distance and pretend they were nothing more than friendly acquaintances.
And now they were once again pretending that nothing existed between them. Except that this time, there really wasn’t anything between them but a painful past.
Charli couldn’t let on that they’d previously been involved because the whole family would know the truth about Layla’s paternity. It was bad enough that Jackson had put the pieces together.
“Are you interested?” Kayleigh asked.
Charli looked at her sister, wondering what she’d missed while she’d been lost in the wasteland of her memories once again. “Interested in what?”
“Not what. Who.”
“Who?”
Kayleigh rolled her eyes. “Are you interested in Jackson’s cousin?”
“Not in the way you’re probably thinking.” Over the years, Charli had gotten used to her family trying to sus out her interest in different men.
“How are you interested?”
“Well, he’s the father of one of my students. I’m always curious about the home lives of the kids in my class. How they interact with their parents.”
“He seems like a good dad, from the little I’ve seen.”
Charli just nodded, then looked to where Amelia was playing with Layla and Peyton. They’d moved on from trying to use the hula hoops properly, to trying to throw them over each other.
“Layla and Peyton have been good with her, too,” Kayleigh added.
“Yep. They’ve taken her under their wing the way Layla did with Peyton when he first arrived.”
Charli was glad that Layla had such a sweet and friendly personality, but it definitely was adding a complication to her life. Now that Amelia had made the connection, she would likely be included in anything where Layla and Peyton were present. Which meant that Blake would be where Charli was.
How had this become her life?
