Page 73 of This Wild Heart

I watched Anya too. Watched her interact with every single one of them with a big smile, and easy answers, and the kind of spark in her eyes that absolutely no one could ever fake. They asked her about Vida’s nonprofit. Asked her about her family. To tell stories about Emmett we hadn’t heard before. My brothers asked her about her dad, laughing heartily at her stories of being raised by a beast of a fighter and how that benefited her growing up.

And last, I watched Sheila. Watched her fall head over heels in love with that little kid, and every time she refused to hand him over, when she changed his diaper and kissed his cheeks and rocked him back to sleep with an adoring smile on her face, it was like an invisible wrench was locked underneath my ribs, tightening over and over, until it was a little hard to breathe right.

For once though, I wasn’t the center of attention, wasn’t the center of everyone’s concern, and that felt really fucking good. Everything else though, that was a tangled mess that I wasn’t ready to touch with a ten foot pole.

“How did he sleep last night, Parker?” Greer asked from the couch. She had her fingers in Leo’s tight fists, leaning down to kiss right on his belly.

I cut Anya a slightly panicked look, and she answered smoothly. “Woke up twice,” she said. “But he went right back down after a few ounces.”

“That’s not too bad,” my sister answered.

Ian’s wife Harlow was sitting next to Greer, and she was smiling at whatever the baby was doing when she glanced up at me. She was pregnant too, though not as far along as Poppy. “It must be hard to get settled in newlywed life when something like this happens.”

Anya was sitting across the dining room table, and we shared a brief look. The edges of her lips curled up like she wanted to laugh. “A little,” she conceded. “I guess we’re just not doing any of this the normal way, are we?”

Sheila came out of the bathroom and stopped behind me, wrapping her arms around my shoulders for a hug from behind. “Speaking of newlyweds, I have something for the two of you.”

“Mom, you didn’t need to do that.”

She patted my shoulders as she released me. “I know, sweetheart. But it just kills me that we didn’t get to be a part of your big night. Was it romantic? I bet it was.”

Anya choked on a potato chip, and with a wry arch to my brow, I leaned forward and pushed her glass of water closer. She held my gaze as she sipped slowly.

“Parker was so stingy with details,” Sheila continued.

“All the boys are like that,” Poppy muttered. “It’s like they’re biologically wired to filter out eighty percent of the pertinent information.”

“Maybe twenty percent of the story is all you need to know,” Jax answered, his arm slung casually over my sister’s shoulders. He was absently playing with her hair.

She rolled her eyes. “I want to knowallof it, though.”

“I know, angel, I know.” He gave her a soft kiss.

Sheila had ducked into the kitchen and set the white cake box in the middle of the kitchen counter. When we didn’t make a move to join her, she gave me an exasperated look. “Up, Parker. My standing here indicates I’d like you to move.”

Now would’ve been a great time for Leo to start screaming as a distraction because every single eye in the room was watching us. Anya adjusted the ponytail at the top of her head as she stood, and I clocked it as one of her rare nervous gestures. Her cheeks were holding the slightest blush, and my hand hovered just over the small of her back as we rounded the corner into the kitchen.

With the way the house was set up, it was like we were on a stage, and all my nosy fucking siblings were now settling in to watch the newlywed show. My stomach flipped with sudden nerves, and I heard Anya let out a long, quiet exhale next to me. Her shoulder brushed the front of my chest, and I didn’t back away from the contact.

Powerful thing, touch was. Especially hers.

When Anya touched me, even if she didn’t mean to, it was like I suddenly found myself grounded. Like my feet were planted more firmly on the surface of the earth. Like my head was just a little bit more clear.

Sheila pried open the cake box, and Anya leaned forward, letting out a little gasp.

“It’s beautiful,” she breathed. “Did you make that?”

Sheila’s cheeks were flushed as she nodded. “Never got to make a wedding cake for any of my kids before, so I thought this would be the perfect time to try.”

Gently, she unhooked the sides of the box so she didn’t have to lift it out, and I found myself smiling when I finally saw it. It was just one tier, but it looked straight out of a magazine.

The white frosting of the outside layer had been etched to look like birch wood, and in the front of the cake, she’d used a thin tool to make it look like we’d carved our initials into a tree. Surrounding theP + Awas a perfectly shaped heart. On the top of the cake, she’d created a small grouping of blossoms, soft pink petals with black and white centers. Three of them. The smallest one was a darker shade of pink, and at the base of the flowers, she bunched some blackberries, and a stick of greenery bending with the circle of the cake.

“Holy shit, Mom,” Greer said, mouth agape. “I’m sending your ass to theGreat British Bake-off.”

Ian rolled his eyes. “Except she’s not British.”

Greer gave him a look. “You are so lucky I have a baby in my hands right now.”

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