“It hurts,” he sobs.

Sighing, I sit up, moving Laney to the side so I can see his hand. “How did you even do this?”

“It hurts!” he screams. “It’s going purple, Lucas! Fix it!”

It is going purple and my fear is back and I’m on my knees trying to pull his hand out. It won’t budge, so I panic some more and start smashing it against the coffee table, but the vase is plastic and Lachlan’s crying louder, and I’m shouting louder for him to stop crying and now his hand’s turning blue and “How did this happen?” I yell. Smash, smash, smash on the table.

“Here,” Laney says, hand on my shoulder. She pushes me away, and I fall back on my heels, watch her pour baby oil into the vase and all over Lachlan’s arm and then pop. His hand releases and she scruffs his hair and tells him to wash his hands, but he’s rubbing the oil all over his clothes instead.

I look up, breathe, ask, “Where did you get the oil?”

She doesn’t have time to answer before the door opens, and Logan steps in. “What are you doing with my baby oil?”

“Logan!” Leo screams, marching in after him.

Logan walks across the living room toward the kitchen, Leo on his heels. “It’s not my fault she’s into me, man.”

“Look at me when I’m talking to you!” Leo yells.

Logan spins, rolls his eyes.

“What now?” I ask.

Leo glares at Logan, speaks to me. “I caught Logan making out with my girlfriend.”

“What?” Lane shrieks.

“So what? She’s hot!” Logan says.

Leo punches him square in the face, and a moment later, Lachlan’s tiny, oily fist gets me in the jaw.

“Enough! Everyone in the minivan! Now!” Lane shouts, and when Lane shouts, we all listen.

We pile into the minivan, one by one, and once we’re all seated, she asks, “What do you boys want for dinner?”

Six voices shout out five different meals (the twins choose the same), and she notes them all down in her phone. Then she drives us to the grocery store and dumps a bunch of stuff in the cart while we all follow silently behind her because when Laney gets like this, we know she means business. She makes me pay for the groceries and then we head home. As soon as I’m done unpacking the bags, she says, “You need to go!”

“Go where?”

“You have the parent-teacher interview with Lachlan.”

“Shit.”

“Shit shit shit!” Lachlan shouts.

Lachlan’s teacher—a woman in her mid-forties with bright red, frizzy hair—seems disappointed that it’s me at the interview and not Dad. I tell her Dad’s away on business, and she gets that look in her eyes—worry—as if she should be calling CPS to check in on us. I look over at Lachlan, make sure there are no bruises or scratches or general boy injuries, but he’s clean. If it weren’t for the stains on his shirt and if he didn’t smell like he’d been bathing in baby oil, I’d have nothing to worry about.

I give her my most charming smile, compliment her hair, and she grins. Moves on. She says that Lachlan’s doing well, but he loses focus. A lot. He also finds it necessary to interrupt the class by standing up and singing inappropriate songs. “The other day, he told the kids in his class to…” Her voice lowers when she adds, “eat his booty like groceries.”

I stifle my laugh.

She sighs. “Maybe I should make another appointment with your father?”

“I’m sorry,” I say, straightening my features. “Could he be like…”—I push my luck—“one of those kids who’s exceptionally gifted and the class work is just too easy for him?”

“No.”

“It could be—”

“No.”

“But he’s—”

“No, Lucas. Lachlan’s not exceptionally gifted. I think you should find him an activity to focus on. Maybe start something this summer.”

“Like what? Baseball?”

“Baseball sounds great. It’ll give him the opportunity to play with kids his age instead of all his older brothers. Also, I’d recommend that you boys watch your language around him. We’ve had several parents complain that Lachlan’s the one teaching their kids swear words.”

Lachlan stands, shoves his finger in his teacher’s face. “That’s bullshit, lady!”

By the time I get home, Dad’s here and they’re all seated at the kitchen table, waiting, five different meals set out in front of them.

“Sit,” she tells me, so I do. Dad’s eyes meet mine, and he motions to Liam’s damaged face. I jerk my head once. Not now. Laney picks up a bowl filled with a bunch of folded paper and says, “You will all select one piece of paper from this bowl. This bowl has each of your names in it. You will go in age order, starting with your Dad, and you will say one thing you love about the person on that paper. Understood?”

“Yes, ma’am,” my brothers say.

“Good. Eat.” She marches toward me, kisses my cheek. “I’ll be in your apartment.”

I spend two hours with my family at the kitchen table. We don’t grab the names from the bowl, we don’t talk about the things we love about each other. Instead, we spend that time talking about the things we love about Laney. And I carry their love, along with my own, as I climb the steps to my apartment, my heart full.

She’s sitting on the couch watching TV when I open the door. “How did it go?” she asks, not looking up.

“It was… eye-opening.” I move behind the couch, shift her hair off her shoulder and kiss her neck. “Meet me in the bedroom?”

When she gets into bed, the first and only thing I do is cuggles her.

She falls asleep almost instantly, not used to living off of such little sleep.

I spend the next eighteen minutes watching her sleep and after realizing what I’m doing, I try to convince myself that I’m not a creep. That it’s completely normal to be doing what I’m doing because she is my girlfriend and I do love her. I want to shout it from the rooftops… but I’m not that creepy, and I’m also a little afraid of heights. And where did that expression come from anyway? In what world is the area small enough that a message from a rooftop could be heard? Was there no wind around to carry the dude’s voice? Fuck, I need sleep. And I also need to claim Lane (because it’s the 1950s and women are property, apparently). So I do our generation’s version of rooftops and dame claims; I make us Facebook official.

Take that, Cooper Kennedy.

I pull her closer to me, a smile on my face, until I remember the day we had and the shit Liam’s going through. I scan my brain, try to think of ways to fix it, but I come up blank. And so I do the only thing I know to do; I contact the one person I look up to for guidance when it comes to dealing with my brothers: Cameron, our brother-in-law.

Chapter Thirty-One

LUCAS

Cameron sits in a recliner as if he’s The Godfather, chewing on a fake cigar with a smirk on his lips. We're in Lucy's cabin with Cam's friends “Big Logan” and Jake while Lucy and Lane are in the apartment.