The blond beefcake, who I swore could have had a successful career as a gigolo if he hadn’t been in the military, held his hand out toward me, and I slapped his palm. He then turned to Ivan and held it out too, where Ivan shook it. “Nice seeing you again,” my brother-in-law said, taking a step back to be side by side with my sister. “Thanks for babysitting.”

I shrugged but Ivan said, “Sure.”

“We’ll get going so we can get back faster,” Aaron let us know, leaning over to kiss my sister on the temple.

Ruby nodded. “You know where everything is. They’re both upstairs right now. They’ve eaten. Benny’s asleep on our bed. I didn’t want to wake him up to move him. We’re still working on his potty training…”

I waved her off. “Don’t worry about it. I can handle it.” I glanced at Ivan standing there and tried to imagine him changing a pull-up… and I came up with nothing. “We can handle it.”

Maybe. At least I could.

With another kiss to the temple that Aaron gave Ruby, they filed out of the house, closing and locking the door behind them. The lock had barely been spun when there was a wail from upstairs.

“Let’s get to work,” I said, pointing at the stairs.

Ivan nodded, then followed me up the stairs of the nice, big four-bedroom house in the suburbs.

My sister’s babies shared the same room. There were two cribs set up on opposite sides, one white, the other one wood tone. I headed straight to the white one, seeing the squirming, tiny body lying face down. Jessie was crying so loud I winced as I picked her up and brought her into my chest, cradling her. She was so small… and so damn loud.

I rocked her, whispering, “Shh, shh, shh,” and bouncing her a little the way she liked, before turning to find Ivan standing in the doorway, grinning like an idiot. I blinked. “What?”

Jessie kept on wailing.

“You picked her up like it was nothing,” he said, his eyes going from me to the baby and back again, like it was a miracle or something.

“She’s just a baby, not a grenade,” I told him, still whispering shh, shh, shh, and bouncing to try and calm my favorite little baby down. It always did the trick. I smiled down at the cute, pissed-off face.

“I didn’t know you liked kids,” Ivan murmured, coming to stand beside me, arching his neck to look at the child in my arms.

I smiled at Jess, knowing he couldn’t see me, and wrinkled my nose. “I love kids.”

His “Really?” didn’t surprise me at all.

I bounced the baby a little more, her wailing toning down until it was just a whimper. Bingo. Jasmine the Baby Whisperer. “Oh yeah,” I said softly, keeping my voice light. “I like kids. I just don’t like adults.”

“You don’t like adults? I don’t believe it.” Ivan snorted, turning his neck to shoot me a smile before focusing back on the baby. His finger came up and touched one of Jessie’s cheeks sweetly, probably taking in the softness if it was one of the first times he’d ever been up close and personal with a little human.

“Shut up.”

I could hear him breathe gently. “She’s so soft and little. Are they always this small?”

I watched her little face, knowing under her eyelids there were bright blue eyes that one day might come out the same shade as my mom’s. “She came out almost seven pounds; that’s pretty big for how small my sister is,” I explained. “Benny is a big boy too, they get it from their dad.” I dropped my head to give Jessie a kiss on the forehead as she gave a fussy baby cry. “Kids are innocent. They’re sweet, they’re honest. They’re cute. They know right and wrong better than adults do. What isn’t there to like?”

“They’re loud.”

I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye and cleared my throat, trying to ignore the tingle coming from it. “You’re loud.”

His gaze was already on me as he said, “They have tantrums sometimes.”

I glanced up at the ceiling. “It still sounds like you’re describing yourself.”

Ivan laughed as quietly as possible. “They cry.”

I made a face at him, that made him grin that white-white grin.

“Shut up. I don’t ever cry,” he whispered.

“Whining… crying… same thing.”

“You’re such a liar.”

I shook my head and glanced down at Jessie, my little niece. “I love babies, especially these babies. My babies,” I whispered, moving her further up my arm. Jessie gave a whimper, and I moved her again to hold her up to get a whiff of her diaper. It smelled fine. She took after my sister, her poop reeked when it came out.

“Are these your only two?” Ivan asked out of the blue.

“No, I have another niece from my oldest brother. She’s a teenager now.”

“Are you close to her?”

I looked at Jessie again, thinking of all the ways I’d failed my other niece. I hadn’t been in her life much. She had a favorite aunt, and it wasn’t me. The only person I could blame was myself. “More now, but not enough. I was too young when she was born, and then once I wasn’t… I didn’t make time or enough of it, you know what I mean? She was a baby, and then she wasn’t. It was too late by the time I realized it.”

Of course he knew what I meant by time running out. I wasn’t positive how. But he knew.

“Yeah, I know,” he agreed. “That’s part of it.” Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him glance at me. “Don’t hold onto that. It’s pointless and you know it.”

I shrugged. “You say it like it’s easy, but you know it isn’t. I shouldn’t care that my oldest sister is her favorite, but it bugs me,” I told him for some reason. “I’m a sore loser, that’s probably it.”

Something touched my shoulder, and I saw it was Ivan’s hand. “You are a sore loser,” he agreed.

The smile I gave him was a little one that I wasn’t totally feeling.

“You’ll probably be this one’s favorite.” He touched Jessie’s cheek again.

“I’m working on it,” I told him. “It’s my goal. For once, I can be someone’s favorite.”

The way he turned his head slowly, made me cautious. Then he whispered, “What is that supposed to mean?”

I shrugged again, pushing that heavy feeling that had come out of nowhere off of me. I was going to fix things. I was going to be better. “Nothing. Just that I can be someone in my family’s favorite, so I’ve chosen Jessie since I have a fresh slate.”

His expression should have said something to me, but it didn’t. “I still don’t get what you mean by that. Explain.”

I rolled my eyes. “What I said. My mom’s favorite is my brother Jonathan. My dad’s favorite is my sister Ruby.”

“What?”

I shrugged. “They have favorites. Every parent does. Ruby’s favorite person is my sister Tali. Tali’s favorite is Ruby. Sebastian and Jojo’s favorite is Ruby too. It’s fine.”

It wasn’t that Ivan made a face—because he didn’t—at least not a face that 99.99 percent of people would have noticed. But that was the thing. I was the .01 percent that would. Because I did. What he did, and I knew it was more of a reflex than something intentional, was flex his jaw muscles. It was quick. Just a quick flex that was the briefest, most insubstantial movement I had probably ever seen.

But I saw it.

“What?” I asked him, still making the same face.

He didn’t look surprised at getting caught, and in that way that was all Ivan, he didn’t bullshit me and lie. “Who’s your favorite?” he asked me slowly, that gray-blue gaze intense.

I glanced at the baby in my arms and smiled down at the tiny face. “Both the babies.”

Ivan swallowed so rough I noticed it, what I also noticed was how raggedy his voice sounded when he threw me another question. “In your family though, Meatball. In your immediate family, who is your favorite?”

I didn’t even need to think about it. Not for a second. Not ever. I sure as hell didn’t need to look at him as I answered. “All of them.”

There was no disbelief to his tone when he threw my words back in my direction. “All of them?”

Giving the baby a kiss on the forehead, I said, “Yeah. All of them. I don’t have a favorite.”

He paused. Then he asked, “Why?”

The sting at my chest was so abrupt it almost took my breath away.

Almost.

What it did though, was hurt. Just a little. Just enough. But it did. It didn’t matter how rare it happened, it always felt the same.

So I definitely didn’t look at this man who I spent almost all day, every day with when I answered. “Because I love them all equally.”

But this bastard didn’t let it go. “Why?”

“What do you mean why? I just do,” I said, still avoiding eye contact by trying to play it off like I hadn’t already memorized the tiny face in my arms.

The thing about athletes—about people in general who have this need to win at anything and everything—is that they don’t know the meaning of giving up… of letting things go. That concept is foreign to them. So why I expected the man who was even more of a sore loser than the biggest sore loser I knew—me—to let something it was clear he was hung up on, go, was beyond me.

So I shouldn’t have been surprised when he kept going and asked the one question that I absolutely did not want to answer.