I hesitated, glancing at her, at the way she looked at me like she genuinely cared, like she saw the tangled mess in my head and wasn’t afraid of it. “I don’t even know what I want. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

“There’s no ‘supposed to,’” Aurora said simply. “There’s just what you need, what you want, and what feels right.”

I chewed on my lip, my fingers tightening around my mug. “What if I don’t know what that is?”

She reached out, squeezing my hand lightly. “Then you take it one step at a time. And you let the people who love you help.”

The words hit me harder than I expected, knocking something loose in my chest.

Love.

The kind of love that came without conditions, without expectations.

The kind of love that had scared me for so long.

“You’re talking about Samuel, Kai, and Adam, aren’t you?” I murmured, not sure I wanted to say their names out loud, not sure what it meant to acknowledge them in this way.

Aurora smiled knowingly. “I am. Because I see the way they look at you. And if I’m not mistaken, you look at them the same way.”

I bit the inside of my cheek, staring down at the swirl of tea in my cup. “It’s complicated.”

“The best things usually are.”

I huffed out a quiet laugh, shaking my head. “You sound awfully wise for someone who’s only a couple years older than me.”

“Motherhood does that to you,” she said with a smirk. “That, and owning a bookstore. All the answers are in books, Sadie. You just have to find the right one.”

“Oh god, I wouldn’t even know what book to start with!”

Aurora hesitated before shifting Evie to her other hip. “Want to talk about it?”

I opened my mouth to deflect, to make some excuse, but when I looked at her, really looked, I saw someone who’d been through it.

Who understood.

So, I took a breath and said, “I’m pregnant.”

Aurora didn’t flinch, didn’t gasp in surprise. “That’s big.”

I let out a shaky laugh. “You could say that.”

She nodded. “How do you feel about it?”

I exhaled slowly, gathering my thoughts.

“Scared. Terrified, actually. I don’t…” My throat tightened. “I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to be someone’s mother when I barely had one myself.”

Aurora’s expression softened. “You think that makes you unlovable?”

I flinched at how easily she saw through me, but I didn’t deny it.

She sighed, shifting her weight. “Sadie, family isn’t just blood. It’s the people who show up. And from what I hear, you’ve got three very stubborn men who aren’t going anywhere.”

I scoffed. “They’re hovering, that’s for sure.”

“Because they care. Because they want to be there for you.”

Tears burned the back of my eyes. “What if I let them in, and then I lose them?”