Page 186 of Twisted Needs

I crouch so Lottie is closer to their eye level. “Lottie, say hi.”

She doesn’t. Her current favorite word is “goal,” and she deploys it with enthusiasm in place of almost everything else. “Goal!” she announces, flinging her arm into the air.

Both girls laugh, but Anatalia isn’t done. “My sister also wants to know how old she is.”

“Two.”

“Our brother is two, but he can walk really good.”

“Yeah?” I grin. “You’ve got a little brother?”

“Anton,” A’Nayah says. “But he’s too little to ice skate.”

“Well, you’ll have to bring him when he’s big enough.”

“Okay,” they say in unison.

Eventually Aviva comes back for her kid, but not before giving me a look when she notices the twins still lingering. They skate off soon after, but she keeps watching me like she’s trying to solve something. “You know, Park, it feels like you’re sending me brainwaves…”

“What?” I snort. “Brainwaves?”

“I’ve never seen you make that face before.”

“What face?”

“The kind of face you make when the universe shifts,” she says, switching Lottie to her other hip. Malloy swoops in and steals the child away a second later like it’s a drive-by. I help her off the ice and sit her down on a bench, kneeling to start untying her skates while she props her feet on my lap.

Her hand rests on her stomach. “You and Anders ever think about…”

I glance up. “No,” I say honestly. “Neither of us came into this with kids in mind.”

A big part of me has always been afraid of what that would look like. We like our freedom. Travel, movement, no real tether. Anders writing wherever he wants. Me retired, following him.

New York is home base, mostly for convenience. But we spend just as much time elsewhere. It just never felt realistic. At least, not before. Because the older I get, the more it starts to shift.

Kids used to scare me. Loud, messy, constant. And Anders as a kid—honestly—didn’t help Luca’s case for fatherhood. But that was before three years of marriage and proudly watching my husband build something out of nothing and turn it into everything he dreamed of. One of his series is getting adapted. He just sold the film rights to another.

He’s so fucking successful it almost feels unreal just standing next to him. And I get to be there for it. That’s enough.

And yet…there are times he brings it up. Lightly. Like it’s something he could say yes to in a second if I ever said the word.

For so long, I told myself Anders was all I needed. And he is. But maybe that’s not the whole truth anymore. Maybe it’s not about replacing anything. Maybe it’s just…another way forward.

“Holy shit,” Aviva mutters.

I exhale. “I don’t know.”

“No,” she says quickly. “The fact that you’re thinking about it like that? That’s exactly my point. Only someone who’s ready thinks like that.”

“Sometimes I still can’t believe you’re a mother,” I say, half-laughing.

“Yeah, well. That’s my point. It doesn’t erase you,” she says. “It just adds to you.”

“I think it could be good for you,” she adds. “Especially you.”

“Me?”

She nods. “You’ve lived enough to know what you want. But you’re not too far gone to lose anything if you change it. Your kids…”