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“Aunt Brittney says you cheat.”

Simon looks directly at Brittney.

She smiles sweetly back at him.

“Daddy, you can play by me.” Theo is already trying to drag another chair over.

Simon catches the chair before it tips. “Easy, buddy.”

Simon hangs his jacket over the back of the chair and settles beside us. Theo immediately abandons his own seat and climbs halfway into Simon's lap instead.

I roll my eyes, but when Simon's arm settles along the back of my chair, his fingers brush lightly against my shoulder.

Theo proudly holds up his hand of cards. “UNO!”

“You have three cards,” Simon says.

Theo looks down. “Oh.”

Carter immediately points at him. “Draw two for lying.”

“He's four!” I protest.

“House rules, Blaire.”

Simon palms the two extra cards so smoothly I almost miss it.

I smack his arm. “Simon!”

“What?”

“You've been here for thirty seconds!”

Chance shoots out of his chair. “I FUCKING TOLD YOU!”

“LANGUAGE!” Mom screams from the kitchen.

Chapter thirty-three

Simon

It takes everyone being distracted by pie after dinner for me to finally get Blaire alone so that I can tell her what went down with Veronica.

“I even tried to text her after,” I say. “Asked if they admitted her. If she was okay. She said, Why do you care, go be with Blaire.”

Blaire lets out a breath through her nose. “Okay.”

“Blaire.”

She leans back against the garage door, arms folded. “She’s going to use this pregnancy to have control over you? That’s what you’re thinking?”

“That’s what it already is.” I rub my mouth. “Every question I asked turned into whether I was choosing her or you. The second she knew about us being together again, she said that I was suppose to choose ‘’my new family” over you and Theo.”

“Some selfish part of me,” she says, quietly, “wants to ignore her until there’s a DNA test. Until we know it’s yours. Just… put it down. Come in here. Eat pie. Ignore her until there’s a court order that says we can’t.”

She glances up, looking guilty already.

“I also don’t want to leave her alone in it,” she continues. “I remember that. I had you. I had them.” A tilt of her head toward the house. “It was still lonely as hell. And if that baby is yours, I don’t want you missing it because she’s being impossible and I’m being territorial.”