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An unfamiliar emotion rolled through me—almost melancholy and hopeful at the same time. I shifted on my stool and reached for another potato to peel.

Maeve didn’t linger. “Liam says yer an artist, love. Tell me aboutcha work, then.”

Siobhan and Ciara were awesome. Siobhan wore glasses and her hair piled on the top of her head. They both looked younger than their ages, swimming in matching oversized sweaters.

“You can have Liam’s if you want one,” Shiv told me. “Aunt Eilidh knit them for all of us, but his is too small now.”

Just then, Will walked down the stairs wearing the tightest sweater imaginable. It looked like the wool would break if he flexed at all and hit just below his belly button. It was obscene. My eyes caught on the trail of dark hair that disappeared into his waistband, and when I looked up, he was smirking at me.

“It’s not up for grabs,” he said to her, still looking at me and somehow sounding authoritative despite the baby clothes. “It’s just recently become my favorite sweater.”

Maeve smiled softly when she saw her son. “We’re goin’ta need to cut ye out o’ that, ye gobshite. Wear ye da’s this year, love.” She tugged at the bottom of the sweater to try to cover his stomach and tilted her head up at Will with laughing eyes.

He’d been waiting for her cue, and after a moment, he swallowed and nodded. “I can do that, Mom.”

He needed his sisters’ help to get it off, and when they finally yanked it over his head, he stood up laughing as they held out the misshapen sweater to him. Bare-chested and skin a little red where it had clung to him, his hair was long enough on top to get mussed, and I sucked in a quiet breath. Will looked like I imagined he would after sex.

He winked at me like he knew what I was thinking and took the stairs three at a time to get a new shirt on. My stomach fluttered like I was at the top of a rollercoaster about to go down the hill. What the fuck.

“Shiv, your room is trashed. You need to change the sheets, so Eilidh has somewhere to sleep,” he said a moment later. He’d come down wearing a larger version of the same sweater. These were not cute at all individually, but collectively adorable.

“Oh, actually, we turned the office into a guest room so that Aunt Eilidh can sleep there,” she replied. Shiv wasn’t looking at Will when she said it, but I saw him stiffen.

“Where’s dad’s stuff then?”

“We donated a lot of it, but saved everything we thought you might want.”

“Now you’ll have a place to sleep and won’t have to be on the couch,” Ciara said. She squeezed his forearm and then tucked her head under his arm so he had it wrapped around her.

I felt an unfamiliar tug in my chest at the casual physical intimacy. Has and I were this way, but I realized suddenly that I wanted to be able to touch Will like that. Not sexually—although I would not be opposed—but like I was allowed to, like he was mine to touch.

Like it was a language we were comfortable speaking with each other.

I remembered the electricity from the first night we met, from Wilderness, from that brief moment after the ball—off-the-charts physical chemistry and seriously good friendmistry. I’d given it all up when I kissed him at the gay bar and couldn’t remember why. It felt so much more natural than staying away; I wanted it back. Could I try it? Would it bother him? I imagined myself just slipping my hand into his to see what he did. Would he hold it or pull it away?

“Louisa!” Has was frowning at me. He’d obviously said my name repeatedly, and I’d been lost in my own thoughts.

“Marisol is here.”

My kiln-baked bread was a fucking hit. I’d made it look like a turkey. I am a domestic goddess!

Maeve was so tickled. She could not stop giggling over his little turkey legs. She looked just like Will when she laughed really hard, and I thought maybe I loved her. It could have been the weed gummies we’d eaten, but it felt like kismet.

Hanging out with Eilidh, Maeve, and her daughters had been like popping bubble wrap, and I couldn’t stop smiling.

Eilidh took thirty minutes to tell a three-minute story about Connor disciplining his son, and my insides fizzed listening to the natural interplay between her and Will. It was like he came alive in a whole new way, and I knew he was turning it on for his mom and his sisters.

“So Connor sat Liam down, hands on his shoulders, face-to-face…”

“The Lord tells ye ‘thou shalt not steal’, my boy. Ye’ve really done it ‘ere, violatin’ the tennies. Ye mam is looking to me to set ye straight so ye never do it again,” Will imitated his father with a lovely brogue, making Eilidh and Maeve catch each other’s eyes a moment, crinkling with delight. Siobhan rested her head on Ciara’s shoulder.

Apparently, Will had been caught with a pack of stolen cigarettes when he was thirteen, and Connor had struggled to punish him when he’d been doing the same thing at that age.

“I never told you making you smoke the whole pack was my idea…” Eilidh laughed and Will smirked at her.

“Don’t tell Antin Eilidh I told ye, but this was all her plan, so if ye hate anyone after, best be her. I made a strong case to save ye, I did, but these women are fuckin’ brutal. Lord help ye,” Will was chuckling when he said it, almost definitely exaggerating, and the two older women cackled.

“He ended up smokin’ ‘em witye! Couldn’t stand to see ye sufferin’ alone!” Maeve cried, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes. “I smelled it on ‘im when he came back in, tryna play like he’d taught ye what’s what.”