Page 24 of The Dating Charade

She didn’t smile. “Hello.”

Gripping Dakota on his hip, he stood and faced her. “If I’d known you were coming, I would’ve made up a bed for you . . . but absolutely. Come on in.”

Sunny shut the door and stood between them, frying in the middle of the awkward silence as Jett and his sister took each other in.

“My phone wasn’t working,” Trina finally said.

Jett nodded, well aware of how “finicky” her phone could be. “Sure.”

His eyes tracked across Trina’s face. He wasn’t surprised by what he saw, but it hurt just the same. Her dead eyes, her protruding cheekbones fruitlessly veiled by dull skin. The same long, blue coat swamped around her skin and bones just as it had this time last year—perhaps even more. Where had his baby sister gone?

It’d been a year since the incident surrounding her addictions and the twins’ lack of safety finally scared him enough to make him go down to DCS to file a report. A year since she’d met the social worker at her door and fled—from the worker and from him.

From the way she looked at him now, he knew she hadn’t forgiven him, that if she had any other place to go tonight, she would’ve gone there instead. Everything in her stance made her thoughts clear as crystal. You betrayed me. You humiliated me. You aren’t on my side.

But, oh, if he could only get through to her how much he was.

Between them, Sunny began to clap. “Reunion! Yaaay.”

And that’s when Jett looked down, his jaw opening slightly as he saw the car seat at Trina’s feet.

“Trina?” He weighed his voice carefully as he took a step toward them. “Is there a baby in there?”

He bent down slowly, Dakota’s arms still wrapped tightly around his neck.

“TJ,” Drew declared loudly, standing inches from the television, eyes glued on the football spiraling across the field.

A blanket covered the car seat. Jett lifted the corner.

A baby so small it could fit within the length of his forearm lay unhooked in the car seat, fast asleep.

The slap on his arm was loud, startling. “Don’t you dare wake him,” Trina hissed, then hoisted the car seat up with two hands. “Where can he go?”

Jett locked his jaw, forcing the frustration down. She’d had a baby. Another baby.

Holding Dakota tighter, he put a smile on his face and motioned with his stinging arm toward the back hall. “He can stay in my room. I don’t have a crib, of course, but—”

“He’ll sleep in the seat.”

He nodded, though even to his own childless ears that sounded suspicious. “I’ll take you back.”

“I remember where it is.”

Yes, but he bet she also remembered where he kept his checks. “Even so. Let me help you.” He reached and took the car seat from her grip. The whole thing lifted from her slumped shoulders as if it couldn’t have weighed more than fifteen pounds, baby included.

“How old is he?”

“Six weeks.”

He nodded, his throat constricting. How odd it was to feel something for a kid upon nothing more than a glance. Less than a glance. Another new relative changed things. All of a sudden he had one more being to care about. One more kid to worry over.

Stop this madness! Get your life back, Trina. Now.

He wanted to talk some sense into her, plead with her, make her change. Lock her in a bedroom for two weeks, force her back to reality, to life. But she’d heard his pleading a thousand times before, and a thousand times before she had walked right out that door again, saying fanciful things about changing but never following through.

The rule was simple: Always love. Always try. But never, ever raise your expectations.

And yet he couldn’t stop hoping, couldn’t stop persisting in the belief she’d someday be freed.