“Kinda shocking, you being a pain in the behind big brother for twenty years then turning out to be so cool when you’re nearly fifty.”

“Shut up, MeeMee,” he returned, a smile in his voice.

I smiled at my reflection and asked, “Do you have more time?”

“Are you my MeeMee?”

God, I loved my brother.

“I am,” I confirmed.

“Sock it to me, sweetheart,” he invited.

That was when I started pacing again because I did. I socked it to him and told him everything—absolutely everything—about Mickey.

This took a while. There was a lot of pacing. I was still in my slingbacks and it would be a lot later when I would come to the happy realization I could walk that much in them and they’d still be comfortable even being new shoes I’d never worn.

When I was done telling my brother everything, I stopped, wrapped my free arm around my belly, stared at my toes and asked, “So? Is Pippa right? Is this guy into me?”

At that, I heard Lawr burst out laughing.

My head came up. “What’s funny?”

“Is this guy into you?” Lawr asked my question back to me, his deep voice still vibrating with humor.

“That’s the question and in my current circumstances, I don’t find anything funny,” I snapped.

“Right.” That word sounded kind of strangled, like he was choking back laughter, and he still hadn’t quite done it when he went on, “I’ll confirm a fourteen-year-old girl’s keen perception of the way of things with you and this guy are even though she witnessed you with him for all of five minutes. Amelia, this guy is into you.”

I felt shivers trail over my skin at his confirmation and his emphasis.

But my voice was an octave higher when I asked, “How can that be? For weeks, we’ve hardly exchanged a pleasant word.”

I barely finished speaking before Lawr launched right in. “First, a guy might see a man in a woman’s face and intervene, but he will not offer to help her around the house unless he likes what he sees.”

“That’s impossible, Lawrie. I hadn’t even had my hair highlighted then,” I informed him.

Lawr ignored that and continued, “He also doesn’t give a shit she’s running herself into the ground doing some house sale, so he certainly doesn’t ask her over for a barbeque to help her relax.”

“When you do something like that with children involved, and you’re interested in the woman you’re inviting, it requires planning,” I shared haughtily. “Mickey’s invitation was near on spur of the moment.”