Page 146 of Falling Into Forever
Lena leans in to hug me. “I gave her Fruity Pebbles for breakfast. It’s basically the same thing.”
Oh my God. It’s not the same. Fruity Pebbles brought up an entire generation of kids. My sister Shannon would eat an entire box in one sitting.
“But…”
“You’ve got this,” Dante says, shutting down my next protest with a kiss that’s far too chaste to calm my nerves.
“Poppy packed some crafts for you to do,” Lena says, then kisses the little girl holding up a hot pink sparkly bag. “We won’t be gone long.”
Crafts? Who the hell does she think I am? Martha motherfucking Stewart?
“Sassy! Come on. I’ve gots a special thing for us.” How the heck does this kid move so fast? She already has my hand in hers and is dragging me toward the coffee table. “Auntie Ainsley said you wub pictures.”
This whirlwind of a little girl dumps out the entire contents of the bag and stickers, photo frames, pictures, and glitter cover every inch of the table.
So. Much. Glitter.
This will be worse than getting sand in your butt crack at the ocean. This shit will get into every nook and cranny but never leave.
Poppy plops down onto the floor and tilts her head expectantly. There’s no way to say no to this little girl. I honestly thought I would be immune to her charms. But I seem to be the worst culprit for giving in. Saying yes to ice cream at ten in the morning is much easier than dealing with tears at that God-forsaken time of day.
Dante doesn’t seem to agree.
Little eyes that remind me so much of him peer up at me expectantly, and begrudgingly, I sit beside her.
I’m not sure how I feel about having kids yet. But Poppy has so much Thompson in her, it makes me think of Dante. Would our kids have his features? His coloring?
“Okay, squirt. You’ve got me here. What are we doing?”
She waggles a finger at me with a smile to let me know that she’s not a squirt, but she doesn’t mind if I call her one. It’s our thing now. I kind of like that we have a thing.
She stares at me until I can’t hold in my laughter any longer, then she goes back to her task. I swear she does it on purpose too. She stares at me long enough that I crack. And I do—every single time.
My chest gets hot and tingly, and I shake out my hands instead of clawing at my heart like I want to.
This kid is like bacteria. But the good kind of bacteria, I guess. The kind that helps your gut, not the kind that gives you massive diarrhea.
Lena would probably not appreciate that analogy, but it makes me laugh.
“What’s so funny, Auntie?”
Damn it, Poppy. She catches me off guard every time she calls me auntie, and it traps all the air in my lungs.
“Nothing. Just. You’re kind of all right, squirt.”
“You wub me. It’s okay. I wub me too. I’s a funny girl.” She picks up a pile of pictures and spreads them out in front of us. This kid has enough confidence for the entire freaking state, and I hope she never loses it.
“You are a funny girl, squirt. And you’re right. I do love you.”
She grins like she tricked me into saying it, and I shrug. Then she hands me some pictures. I hadn’t paid attention until now, and something warm and uncomfortable takes up residence in my stomach.
Pictures of my sisters and me. Pictures of Dante and me in high school. Pictures. So many pictures of my life.
“Where did you get these?” My voice sounds funny, like I’m forcing the words through a straw.
“Unca and Mommy gots them for us. Unca wubs pictures, but you don’t got any here and it makes me sad.”
“Pictures make you happy?”
