Page 96 of Lose You Twice

By the time breakfast is on the table, Daisy has found the correct shoes but is now wearing both on the wrong feet. Daisy climbs into a chair and stares at the toast. “This isn’t burned.”

“That was the goal,” I say.

“Wren burns toast when she has angry mornings.”

“She’s not angry,” Holden says from the sink. “She’s busy.”

The correction is quiet but immediate. Protective.

I look at him, and he doesn’t look away.

“Yeah,” I say. “Busy.”

Holden comes over to Daisy, giving her a kiss on her cheek, right as Lily comes back downstairs. She gives him a hug before taking the chair next to Daisy.

Daisy takes a bite of toast. “Can Hockey Kai do hair?”

I pause.

Lily’s eyes sharpen with interest. “Can you?”

“I can do a ponytail.”

Daisy looks skeptical. “A good one?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“My sister.”

Lily points her spoon at me. “Harlow?”

“Yeah. Harlow used to make me practice when we were kids.”

Holden shoots me a look that screams “good luck,” before grabbing his bag and heading out the door with Justin.

Daisy twists around in her chair. “I want braids.”

“I didn’t say braids.”

“Can you learn?”

“Not in the next eleven minutes.”

She sighs like I’ve failed her deeply. “Fine. Ponytail. But high.”

“Understood.”

This is how I end up standing in Wren’s kitchen with a hairbrush in one hand, a hair tie between my teeth, and Daisy sitting backward on a chair while Lily judges my technique like a tiny pageant official.

“Higher,” Daisy says.

I adjust.

“Not that high.”

I adjust again.