Parker and I shared a glance.

He reached over, took my hand, squeezed, and said, “Well, it appears that you already know, but Amelia and I are dating.”

Mom let out a scream so high-pitched and long and loud that I thought perhaps my eardrums had burst.

Olivia gave her a look. “So it’s true! Is it new?”

I bit my lip guiltily. “Well, six weeks.” It wasn’t that long, but it was a long time to talk to my mother every single day and not breathe a word to her.

Now Mom gasped. “So all those times you said you weren’t seeing anyone special…”

I broke out in a grin that I absolutely could not suppress. “I lied. He is the most special.”

“Well, Robby is the most special,” Aunt Tilley interjected.

“But Robby is my brother, so, while he is special, he is not a man I will ever be in love with,” I replied.

“Right,” she said. “Of course. Your brother. Sometimes I forget.”

“So this must be serious, huh?” Mom asked.

She clearly wanted to ask when we were getting married. She simply could not accept it as true when I told her I wasn’t getting married again.

“Any important future plans?” Olivia asked, a little more boldly. “Anything I should get a diamond out of the safe for?”

Neither of us said anything.

“What about a baby?” Tilley trilled.

That was when I jumped in. “No, no, Aunt Tilley. I can’t have a baby. Remember?”

Evidently, the ball was over, because she said, just as clear and lucid as anyone else around the table, “Oh, but couldn’t you try IVF again? Don’t you have a couple more embryos?”

Perfect freaking time for her to come back to reality. I’m sure I looked horrified because Parker and I had never really discussed this. To be honest, I didn’t think we had to. We’d tried. We’d failed. We’d moved on. But when I looked into his face I could have sworn that I saw something almost hopeful in it.

I did a double take. “Wait. Do you want to try to have the other babies?”

The three sets of eyes around the table drilled into us, and I was suddenly thankful that our dads, Robby, and Mason hadn’t gotten out of poker night. I did wish, though, that Trina hadn’t had horrible morning sickness—for her sake, obviously, but also because she was always waiting with an upbeat smile during these emotional scenes.

He shrugged. “Well, I mean…” He sighed. “I don’t think this is the time or place for us to have this conversation, but it might be nice to try for a baby.”

Breathless, I felt like he had punched me in my very empty gut. “So you mean to tell me that we have been discussing our future ad nauseam, and you never felt the need to tell me that you wanted children?”

He turned to the table and said, “Excuse us.”

Then he took my hand and walked us out onto the porch. “Look, Lia, not necessarily. I want you more than I want children.”