“Hey, where is everyone?” I called. I’d never tell anyone but my therapist, but every time I came home and the house was empty, I still wondered if she’d decided to leave because it was too much. I knew better now, but it didn’t stop the fear that they’d leave one day.

“Out back in the hot tub,” Nova called back, and Rigby slapped me on the back with a grin.

“First one there gets Nova on his lap.”

I grabbed him by the shirt and yanked him back. I was going to get the girl—but then I’d give him a turn, because that’s how families worked.

Epilogue

NOVA

EIGHT MONTHS LATER

“So, I feel like everyone thinks they know your story, but do they really?”

The interviewer sat across from us in the living room, her face perfectly made up and her phone recording on the coffee table between us. Huey was in the playpen with his favorite IceCaps toy, flinging it around happily.

We’d agreed to a single interview, and the money would go to the American Stroke Association in Alana’s memory. We’d decided, after a lot of begging on their behalf, that it would be the best way to put the whole narrative to rest, and also shed some light on the ideals behind a poly lifestyle. To explain that it wasn’t one size fits all, despite the crap being spouted in the newspapers again this week. Apparently, we’d inspired the sports world to evolve from the ground up, but that didn’t mean that the world was taking it smoothly.

I smiled at the interviewer. “As outsiders, no one ever knows the real story, do they? Unless you are living it, it’s always just rumors and conjecture.”

River snorted beside me. He was still super pissed with the whole media storm that had gone down when we first got together. I couldn’t blame him.

The interviewer didn’t seem to take offense, though. To her credit, she focused on me instead of fawning all over the guys. “That’s very true. Some have discredited your relationship as a media stunt, others as an attack on religion, but more than a few people have argued that polyamorous groupings are the way of the future, especially as the world gets more and more difficult to navigate on even a dual income. Working class families are in a similar position as the single mother of a decade ago. Struggling to make ends meet. The working poor.”

I shrugged. “I couldn’t even begin to comment on that. I’ve never been in that position, but I understand that a lot of families live below the poverty line. I wouldn’t suggest polyamory as a financial strategy, though. It takes a lot of hard work to balance the needs of four adults and a child.”

The interviewer smiled. “And one on the way.”