“If we all haven’t learned something with what’s happening with Cob, Slim, then we’re in trouble!” she shouted and I watched with some despair as Brock’s torso jerked like he’d been struck and the stony look he had froze on his face. “Life is too darned short. Too darned short. I’m a year younger than your father and it is not lost on me that I’m next. So, I’ve decided that my kids are gonna enjoy me and what I can give them while I can watch. Jill and Laura kicked in a little but most of this is from me. This means you won’t get a big inheritance but you weren’t going to get that anyway. It also means I can see my grandsons lazing around on nice furniture in a decent place and I know you don’t think that’s important, but I do. That’s what I want and that’s what I’m going to have.”

She stopped speaking and when no one broke the silence she went on but did it quieter however the words she delivered next packed an even bigger punch.

“My girl endured a nightmare,” she said, my body got tense, Brock’s eyes sliced to his sister then to me then back to his mother when she kept speaking. “I know you pulled in every favor owed to you and I know you ended up owing more than you pulled to make sure that man paid for what he did to my girl. I saw what that did to her and I saw it eat at you, you and my other babies. But you were the only one in the position to do something about it and you did and you didn’t rest until that was done for her. I watched my son exhaust himself to make it so his sister could have some peace after that nightmare and if she wants to say thank you for that and I want to say thank you for it then, Slim, you’re damn well going to let us say thank you and keep your mouth shut about it.”

These words, regrettably, had as profound an effect on me, learning this about Brock, as they had on the familial combatants in the living room. I tried to pull myself together, promptly failed, began to lose it and found my feet rushing out of the kitchen, down the short flight of stairs with my mouth mumbling a trembling, “Excuse me,” as I raced to the other flight, up them, into and through Brock’s bedroom to his bathroom where I closed the door, pressed my back against the wall, slid down, shoved my face in my knees and burst into tears.

I would learn later that Brock had not shared my ordeal with his family. And considering my dramatic reaction, even though Brock was in that bathroom with me about a nanosecond after my ass hit the floor, his Mom and sisters were so worried, they didn’t leave until after Brock calmed me down and left me curled on his bed while he went down to explain and get them gone.

Luckily, thus ended the fight though Brock didn’t give up, he just quit shouting about it.

However, when he couldn’t find his furniture, he gave up and gave in.

Weirdly (or maybe not), this elevated my new girlfriend status seeing as they’d found out I hadn’t been with Brock for a few weeks like they thought but instead quite a bit longer, they sensed there was seriousness to our relationship, I shared a tragic circumstance the like that had been visited on their family which clearly moved them and, although I couldn’t explain how they did it or all the reasons why, I knew I’d been welcomed wholeheartedly into the family fold.

Brock, seeing as he missed little (or, possibly, nothing), couldn’t have missed this and he had no reaction to it whatsoever except for settling naturally and casually into it.

It was safe to say I really liked Brock but I’d also spent a number of years huddling in my own space as a defense mechanism and a big, loud, interfering family kind of freaked me out.

I kept this to myself thinking, if Brock and I survived the long haul, I’d get used to it mainly because I wouldn’t have a choice.

The other big thing that happened was I met Rex and Joel. In fact, the Friday after Brock and I got back together heralded his next weekend with them, he picked them up from school and three hours later I met them at Beau Jo’s for pizza.

Brock was not wrong. His genes were dominant. I didn’t know what Olivia looked like but both her boys looked like miniature Brocks. Joel had Fern’s blue eyes, Rex had someone else’s nose but other than that, features, body shape, everything was so like Brock it was uncanny. It was different, unique to them but still somehow the same.

And he was also not wrong about something else. They were good kids. Polite. Soft spoken. Attentive. Well-behaved.

Maybe too much for kids their age considering they weren’t much older than Grady and they had none of the exuberant little kid-ness of their cousins.

I saw Brock every night (and therefore every morning) but when Brock had his boys, these were the only times he and I spent blocks of time being apart. He explained this to me as being an attempt to introduce me slowly into their lives rather than shove me in their faces and force them to spend time with someone they didn’t know too well. So, after our first Friday night dinner together, I didn’t see Brock until Sunday night. And the next time Brock had them I saw them again on Friday night and then didn’t see Brock until Sunday.

But it was the next time I would get it about his boys’ good behavior. Because we didn’t meet for Beau Jo’s for pizza but I brought cupcakes and Brock cooked spaghetti at his old pad where we were going to eat dinner and watch a movie. But I was at his place when they got there in late afternoon and didn’t leave until they were in their twin beds in Brock’s second bedroom.

Spending more time with them and seeing them earlier, I noted on arrival they seemed wound up and when I say this I mean tight. Jumpy. Hyper-attentive. Anxious. And Rex once actually looked fearful and this was when he spilled his glass of pop on the coffee table. His wide, terrified eyes shot to his father, his face paled right under my gaze and his body grew visibly solid.

I also saw this make Brock’s mouth get tight. Not because of the spill but because of his son’s reaction to doing it. He quickly hid his reaction and cautiously and gently dealt with the spill while assuring his son (who, with effort, allowed himself to be assured but clearly didn’t commit to it) that it was in no way a big deal.

It didn’t take a child psychologist to see if Rex spilled pop at his Mom’s, the reaction he got from his Dad was not even close to what he’d get at his mother’s.

I had never been with a man with children and I decided to bide my time and let Brock discuss it with me when and if he wanted. This was not a game. This was me giving my man space. We were still getting to know each other and he didn’t need me nosing into his business with his boys and his ex.

So I didn’t.

But this weekend Brock decided would be different, he talked to me about it, asked me if I was comfortable with it, I wasn’t (exactly) and told him so but also told him I’d give it a shot.

So Friday night was his with his boys. So was Saturday. But Saturday night, I came over and made (at Brock’s request since he wolfed down three quarters of it when I made it for him) my Mexican tortilla casserole (though, obviously, since Brock liked it so much, I doubled it) and this was followed by hot fudge sundaes with my homemade hot fudge sauce.

And after, I spent the night.

It was a compliment when the boys dug into my food with the same relish as their father.

And it was a relief when they took my spending the night in stride.

And now it was Sunday. The kids were being picked up by their mother at five and Brock told me that Olivia had long since informed him she wanted the kids returned to her fed and watered so we were going to have a big late lunch after which I was serving homemade carrot cake.

A cake I was decorating at that present moment even though it was just for us.

This was something I had to do, it was a compulsion. Every cake deserved to be pretty, even if the decoration was simple.

And considering the thousands of baked goods I’d decorated, it took me the same amount of time to decorate a cake as it did for most people simply to frost them so it really didn’t matter.

So I smiled into Joel’s blue eyes and answered his question with, “Yeah.”

He looked at his brother, Rex looked at him then they looked back at me.

Then Rex asked, “Do you do cakes like The Cake Boss? ”

I shook my head and went back to piping while explaining, “My shop is small, I only have two girls who help me with the baking and decorating, I’m not set up for that kind of operation and my cake mission doesn’t include extravagance, just the drive to make every cake I bake pretty.”

“Cakes don’t need to be pretty, they just need to taste good,” Joel informed me as his Dad moved up the steps.

My eyes went from Brock to his son whereupon I shared, “In order to decorate a cake, you have to make more frosting which means the cake has more frosting which means the eater gets to eat more frosting so, agreed, cakes need to taste good but decorated cakes, being decorated with loads of extra frosting, taste even better.”

Brock circled Joel’s chest with an arm, tugged him playful rough back into his torso and muttered, “Can’t argue with that, Joey.”

“Nope,” Joel agreed, his eyes on the cake and looking into their hungry depths I knew my work was done as clearly his horizons had been expanded.

At that point there came a knock on the door. I looked to Brock and saw his brows draw together and his head turn in that direction then he let his son go and sauntered away. I went back to piping.

“Carrot cake’s my favorite,” Rex shared, his voice not hiding his anticipation and the sound of it made me grin.