“Good, then it’ll be gone for the wedding.” She leans in to hug me and I uncomfortably hug her back, feeling her belly press against mine. When she moves away, she notices me staring and places her hand across her stomach.

“It’s going to be a girl,” she says and Dean glances up at me with a strange look on his face that I can’t decipher. I wonder if he’s freaked out, too, at the thought of children, if he’s worried he’ll end up like our father, drunk and nonexistent. I could ask him, but we’re not to that place yet.

“Congratulations,” I say to both of them.

“Thanks.” Dean folds up the newspaper and tosses it into the table by the cookie jar. He’s quiet for a moment and I seriously have no idea what the hell’s going to come out of his mouth. “You too.”

I’m surprised by his simple remark and I miss a beat before I respond. “Thanks.”

“This is going to be so good,” Caroline says, whisking over to the counter to a plate of eggs and bacon. “A wedding outside at Christmas time near a lake. I can only imagine the pictures I’m going to get to take.” She starts munching on the bacon.

“It’ll be freezing though,” Dean says, stating the obvious as he hops off the table and then strides up to Caroline and circles an arm around her waist. “You sure you don’t want to have it inside? We’ll all be freezing our asses off by the end of it.”

Micha and I exchange a look and then we both shake our head. “No, cold temperature or not, I’m not having it anywhere else,” I tell Dean, and Micha squeezes my hand. “It’s important.”

“Okay,” Dean says, confused. “I guess we’re having an outdoor wedding. But who all’s coming.”

“Me, Micha, Lila, Ethan,” I ramble off the list, counting down on my fingers. “Micha’s mom and boyfriend, you and Caroline obviously, and Dad… and maybe his girlfriend.”

“Oh yeah,” Dean says as he kisses Caroline’s shoulder. “The secretary.”

“So you knew about her?”

His shoulders rise and fall as he shrugs. “He mentioned it on the phone a couple of weeks ago.”

He never mentioned it to me. “Oh.”

Sensing my downward mood, Micha takes my hand and gives me a soothing kiss on the cheek, his unshaven jawline rough against my skin, but comforting at the same time. Dean doesn’t seem to notice at all that something’s bothering me and it’s not his fault. He doesn’t know me like Micha does—no one in my family does.