A quick glance at the clock on the wall told me we had fifteen minutes left. At six fifteen, her lesson would be over for this week, and I wouldn’t see her in person until we came back to New York next month. We’d make do with our online class, though. She was a trooper with an iPad.

“I did it again!” she cheered. “I’m gonna play it for Sammy every night before bed.”

I smiled and reached forward, adjusting her grip on the strings. “One more time from the beginning, yeah? Then I’m gonna give you homework.”

“Cuz I’m a big girl now.” She nodded. “Big girls get homework.”

“That’s right. You wanna count us in?”

“Yeah, I’ll do it like you. A-One…a-two…a-one, two, three, fow!”

I stifled my mirth and tinkered slowly alongside her, and she was definitely getting there. Repetition was her best friend—which might frustrate her fathers soon. Because I believed her. She was gonna play this tune for her little brother until their ears were bleeding.

Nicky and Gideon applauded dutifully when we’d finished, and the little monkey stood up to take a bow. Talk about being the family’s charmer. Sammy had his ways too, and he’d already made it clear that August was his favorite uncle. Otherwise, he was mostly Pop’s li’l champ.

Right before Camden showed up outside the viewer’s window, I went through next week’s plan with Hannah and Nicky. We were gonna start practicing a new song.

“Cam’s here!” Hannah announced. “Cam! C’mea!” She waved him in.

I smiled as he poked his head in.

“Is that Princess Hannah I see? Because she looks like a rock star right now.”

“I’m a princess rock star,” she boasted, running over to him.

I chuckled at the two, then turned to Nicky.

He turned to me too. “You headin’ out right away?”

I nodded. “Our flight’s at nine.”

“Tell the hubby I said hey. And that he still owes me a recipe.”

“It’ll be the first thing I’ll tell him,” I joked. In reality, their good-natured rivalry about Mediterranean cooking was only on my mind when I got to sample the food. But considering Camden and I hadn’t seen August in almost two weeks now, my priorities looked a lot different.

It happened a couple times a year when August traveled to his restaurants to create new menus and show his face. Life was busy, and we couldn’t always tag along. Like this time. But we were flying out to meet up with him as he wrapped up this tour, and we were gonna spend the weekend in LA before road-trippin’ to Nashville for some downtime.

After we’d locked up, said our goodbyes, and I’d gotten my squishy hug from Hannah, Camden and I grabbed our bags and got into a cab.

“JFK,” I said.