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“She’s actually on vacation right now. She said she’s always wanted to go to Fiji so she just went.”

I have to give her credit, she’s a pretty damn good liar but she’s not fooling me. She has a tell, and it didn’t take me long to realize that anytime she told me we were just friends in the beginning of all this, she was lying through her teeth.

“Wonderful. She certainly deserves a vacation after working so hard for so long. Tell her to call me when she gets a chance, will you?”

“Absolutely.”

She turns away from Mom and finds me watching her so I wink, hoping to distract her, and she fights back a smile. Mom starts asking Emma about her last doctor’s appointment but I can’t look away – not with Addy sitting right across from me. She holds me captive with her sneaky glances and shy grins. I want to jump on this table and pound my chest like a fucking gorilla every time she looks at me, like she can’t keep her eyes off me either.

“Trey, honey, Moe tells us that you’ve got a new girl in your life,” Mom says, and my head snaps up to look at her. I think about denying it for a moment because I know that’s what Addy would want me to do but I won’t ever deny her.

“Uh, yeah.”

I can practically feel Addy’s eyes boring into the side of my head, and I shift in my seat, refusing to look at her.

“Is she special?”

I know I’m totally giving myself away but I can’t stop myself from smiling like an idiot when I say, “Yeah, she is.”

Addy quietly gasps from across the table, and when I look over at her, her eyes are wide with surprise. Nobody else seems to have noticed her reaction though.

“Well, you should bring her by sometime. Let us all meet her.”

“Oh, I don’t know, Mom. It’s still kind of new, and you all can be a little overwhelming,” I reply, forcing my laughter back down, and when I glance over at Addy again, she’s biting down on her lip to keep quiet.

“Oh, come on now, we’ll be good. Won’t we, Tucker?” she asks, shooting a glare at him as he tries to sneak the last pancake. I swear to God, that woman sees everything.

“Why the hell are you singling me out?” Tucker barks, shooting Mom an offended look that’s fake as shit.

“I don’t know, Tuck. Maybe it was because you asked my last girlfriend so many questions that she thought you might be a police officer,” I say, and he shrugs.

“Hey, I was just lookin’ out for you, and if she couldn’t stand up to the pressure then she wasn’t right for you,” he says, grinning, and I shake my head with a chuckle before looking back to Addy. Her eyes almost seem to dance with happiness as she looks back at me, and I would do anything to make sure I get to see those eyes every day for the rest of my life.

“Oh, by the way,” Emma says, standing slowly and Nix reaches out to help her up, “we have a little announcement to make.”

“Wait, don’t tell me, are you pregnant?” Tucker jokes. Daisy and Emma roll their eyes while Dad, and I chuckle.

“Shut it, Tuck. We decided on names for the boys,” she says and beams.

“All right then, let’s hear it,” Dad says, slapping his hand down on the table. After he got over his initial shock, he was so excited to be a grandpa, and when they found out they were having boys, his excitement only grew. I can remember, as a little kid, following him around everywhere with Tucker, and he would explain things to us and teach us how to do stuff instead of just acting like we couldn’t do anything. We spent a lot of hours in that garage as he taught us to work on cars, and, in a way, even that saved me when I was going down the wrong path.

“Baby A is Corbin Michael West.”

We all look at Dad, who has a few tears in his eyes. He clears his throat and nods.

“Sounds like a great name, baby girl.”

“And baby B?” Mom asks, her green eyes shining with unshed tears.

“Baby B is Grady Mitchell West, for Nix’s dad,” Emma says, peeking over at Nix with a look of total adoration. God, those two are disgustingly cute, and I hate to admit that I’ve been a little jealous of what they have at times.

Daisy raises her glass of orange juice and looks around the room. “To Grady and Corbin.”

Everyone joins in, repeating his toast, and I can’t help but look over at Addy again, wondering if there will ever come a day when we’re adding to this family.

* * * *

The sliding door opens and Tucker steps out, two sodas in his hand. Addy left a few minutes ago and begged me to hang around for a little bit so people wouldn’t get suspicious, and for some reason, I found myself on the back porch, listening to the kids next door splash around in their pool as I thought about how I could convince her that I’m in this for good and that she’s safe to open up to me.