“The boys just stopped in for a visit,” I explained.

“Oh, a visit?” said Brenna.

“Shit,” said Trevor. “Is it bath time? Sorry, ladies, usually I’m up on the schedule. Brain fart! Mike, get those shoes back on.” Mike looked up at Trevor with exasperation.

“You don’t have to go,” I protested.

“No, no, Beaner needs her bath. We just stopped in to say a quick hello. We’re on our way to the Dairy Queen up the street.”

Mike looked startled to hear this.

“Well, I promised Mike a cookie. Let me grab you guys a couple for the road.” I dashed into the kitchen.

Kelli, meanwhile, was alternately babbling greetings to Brenna and whispering gleefully to herself in anticipation of her bath.

“Why don’t you head down to the bathroom and get yourself ready for Brenna, Kell?” I called as I yanked open the cookie tin. That was all Kelli needed, and she plunged down the stairs, for all I know stampeding poor, forgotten Mike in the process.

All that was left in the tin were shortbreads, but then I remembered Kelli’s good-behaviour stash of chocolate chip, which I suspected Mike would prefer. I wandered back to the top of the stairs to ask him.

Mike, I saw, already had his shoes back on. He was at the door, fidgeting with impatience but being ignored because Brenna was standing close and speaking quiet words to Trevor, who stood rigid, his hands bulging in his pockets. Bulging because they were balled into fists — I could tell from the way the tendons in his forearms flexed, like they had when he was barbecuing.

“Mike?” I said. “Shortbreads or chocolate chip?” And that’s when Brenna stepped away from Trevor and went without a word to join Kelli in the bathroom downstairs.

Mike said chocolate chip, so I went back to root through the cupboards for Kelli’s secret stash. When I turned around, Trevor was standing in the kitchen with me, a half smile on his face and his fists still bulging in his pockets.

My instinct was, for some reason, to apologize.

“Sorry about the mix up with Brenna,” I said.

Trevor shook his head tightly, trying to smirk as if he were relaxed. “The ladies at Bestlife,” he said. “They can get a little territorial.”

“Can they?” I said.

“Yeah. Because they got no fuckin lives of their own if you wanna know the truth, pardon my French.”

I turned away to tear off a couple of squares of paper towel. I took two cookies out of the bag and wrapped the towel around them. I even dug around in a drawer to find a rubber band to wrap around the cookies and keep the towel in place. All this activity made ample time for Trevor to say whatever it was he wanted to say. But he wasn’t saying anything. I handed him the cookies.

“It was really nice to meet Mike.”

“We’ll have another visit sometime,” said Trevor. “Maybe on the weekend.”