Rainy Day Friends Read online

  “I’m fine.”

  She slid him a look. “You know Mom taught us to think before we act, so know that when I slap the shit out of you for lying to me that I thoroughly thought about it first.” Setting down her fork, she drew in a deep breath. “Now I’m going to ask you again. Are you okay?”

  He closed his eyes against the worry and concern in hers. “Working on it.”

  She sighed and set her head on his shoulder. “What can I do?”

  “Nothing. You’re already doing it.”

  “If I could kill Brittney, I would.”

  “Lyssa—”

  “I would,” she said fiercely. “For what she did to you. To your adorable babies.”

  “Stop,” he said gently. “We’re okay.”

  “You’re not. You won’t get serious again.”

  “And that’s not a bad thing,” he said. “It’s about the girls now. Not me.”

  “So you’re going to abstain from love until what, they turn eighteen?”

  At the yes she saw on his face, she made a soft sound of distress and her eyes filled.

  “Lyssa,” he said again, pained.

  “Ignore me,” she whispered. “It’s mostly baby hormones. I’m driving Owen insane.”

  “Just Owen?”

  She made a half-hearted attempt to slug him, but since he’d been the one to teach her how to hit, it still hurt. “Owen’s never going to stop loving you,” he said. The guy had loved her since they’d met in second grade, although every time Alyssa had a baby, her emotions went haywire for months afterward, driving them all a little insane.

  Suddenly came the sound of either elephants storming the house or his own two heathens up and looking for him. They tore into the kitchen, hair rioting around their heads, eyes still sleepy, wearing matching-footed Supergirl PJs.

  His babies loved superheroes.

  They had their mother’s unruly curls in a softer version of the dark brown of his own hair. For the most part they also had their mother’s temperament, which meant that their every thought and emotion showed all over their faces. “Hey,” he said, his smile fading because as they leapt at him, climbing into his arms, he could see worry and fear and tears in their eyes. “What’s wrong?”

  “You’re home!” Samantha said, voice muffled against his shoulder. “You’re finally home. We waited all night for you.”

  He craned his neck and met his sister’s gaze. She was just as confused as he. “What do you mean?” he asked. “You didn’t sleep?”

  Samantha shook her head, all her dark hair flying around her head like an explosion in a mattress warehouse. “We kept sneaking out of bed to check your room,” she said. “Grandma almost caught us twice.”

  Sierra tapped her sister on the arm. Samantha met her gaze and they did that thing they did, the silent communication that only they could understand, before Sam turned back to Mark. “Sierra even fake-snored. She’s better at it than me.”

  Sierra, her face once again buried in Mark’s other shoulder, nodded and he tightened his grip on the only anchors in his always-spinning-too-fast world. From the corner of his eye he saw Alyssa pick up Elsa and leave the kitchen to give them privacy.

  “Why didn’t you call me?” he asked.

  “Because you were mad at us for staying up past our bedtime the other night. And this was very past our bedtime,” Sam said. “And maybe you were busy catching bad guys.”

  The dead organ in his chest rolled over and exposed its underbelly. “Listen to me, okay? If you’re worried, you call me. If you need me, you call me. I don’t care if I’m working, if I’m sleeping, or if you think I’m angry at you—if you need me, I’m there for you, do you understand?”

  Samantha lifted her head and stared at him, her eyes just a little too old for her age. “Because that’s your job as our daddy?”

  “Because I love you,” he said firmly.

  AT MARK’S LOW, fiercely uttered words, Lanie stopped short in the doorway to the Capriottis’ personal kitchen. She’d come to meet Cora by request. She hadn’t expected to see Mark leaning back against the counter, looking hollow and exhausted to the bone, a daughter in each arm, eyes closed, his jaw pressed to the top of one of their little bedheads, explaining to them how much he loved them.

  It was an intimate moment, private and . . . the most moving thing she’d ever seen.

  “Daddy?” Samantha whispered. “Are you sorry you’re not still The Force?”

  Mark cupped her head and made her look at him. “What?”

  “You had to leave Star Wars and come home to take care of us. You had to give up the fight.”

  Mark looked confused at first, and then he laughed softly and pressed his forehead to Samantha’s. “Sweetness, Star Wars is a story. It’s made-up. When you overheard whatever you overheard—which we’ll circle back to in a minute and go over the eavesdropping rules for six-year-olds—it wasn’t about Star Wars.”

  “It wasn’t?”

  “No. I was in the Air Force, which is one of the branches of our government’s military. It means I was in the fight to keep America safe and whole. On this planet.”

  Sierra giggled and Mark was still smiling until Sam said, “But you gave up the Air Force for us. And it was a big, important job, Grandma said so. You had big, important things to do.”

  “Yes,” he said. “But not as important as you two.” He paused as if considering his words carefully. “I wanted to come home. I want you both to know that.”

  “You mean when Mommy left?” Sam asked. “And when Sierra stopped talking?”

  “Yes,” he said, his voice a little strained now. “When Mommy left you both in Arizona. The minute I found out, I came home to get you.” He cupped Sierra’s head, still pressed tightly to the crook of his neck. “I gave up that job for a better one—taking care of you two. You’re the most important things in my life.”

  At that, Sierra lifted her head and stared into Mark’s eyes and he stared back, like he was willing her to believe.

  Lanie was literally glued to the hallway. She couldn’t move. She knew she had absolutely no business standing there, but her feet had disconnected from her brain’s control. And so had her heart, because it was thumping hard and fast. Her eyes were burning too. She’d let him think she’d misjudged him and that was as bad as actually doing it. It also made her feel uncomfortably like her mom, who was very quick to judge and even quicker to cut someone out of her life.

  “More important than the vines?” Samantha was asking her dad. “Because Great-Grandpa says nothing is more important than the vines.”

  “Baby, you’re way more important than the vines.”

  “More important than Grandma?”

  “Yes,” Mark said. “But don’t tell her.”

  “More important than—”

  “Anything,” Mark broke in to say. “Anything, Samantha. You and Sierra are my life. You get me?”

  The twins nodded and he kissed each of their foreheads and set them down. “We good?” he asked.

  “We good,” Samantha said and fist-bumped him.

  Sierra did the same. Mark caught Sierra’s hand and reeled her in once more, rubbing his nose to hers in an Eskimo kiss that made her giggle. “You know, don’t you, sweetness, that you can talk to me. Right?”

  Sierra bobbed her head.

  “Okay, then.” He let her go and she went running off after Samantha. He waited until she’d vanished out the side door before turning and landing his gaze right on Lanie.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “For eavesdropping again?”

  Feeling like a jerk, she shook her head. “No, although I’m sorry about that too.” She paused. “I’ve been rude, I think.”

  “You think, or you know?”

  His tone said he was teasing, but she still blew out a sigh. “I know.” She was too nervous for this. Cora had asked her to meet for breakfast to go over some of the preliminary sample designs she’d come up with before presenti