Chloe raised an eyebrow, apparently unimpressed. “And not enough for others.”

“Best you’ve ever had, huh?” Joss said, a knowing, almost sympathetic glint in her eye. “You’re so fucked.”

“Literally,” Ellie agreed.

The girls laughed while I tried to quell the rising panic inside of me.

“Let’s change the subject before I have to tell my brother we’re the reason Grace is backing out of a relationship with him.” Shannon pushed my cup of tea closer to me. “Take a calming sip, and let’s get on with planning Maia a birthday party.”

I did as Shannon suggested and focused. “It’s the summer holidays now and I don’t know who Maia’s real friends are after the whole drama she had with the history teacher, so it will be difficult to invite school friends to the party. Honestly, though, I was thinking Maia might be happier this year with just a family affair. I know sixteen is a big birthday, but it has been a difficult year and I think low-key would work best.”

“Agreed,” Shannon said. “When it’s her eighteenth, she can invite whoever she wants.”

“Exactly.” I flipped open the notebook in front of me. “So, if you’re all up for it, I thought Maia would like it if you all were there with your kids. She’s never had a big family party before, and I think she’d love it.”

“We’re definitely up for that,” Jo said, her eyes bright with kindness. “We’ll be there.”

“Hyper kids and all,” Olivia added.

Hannah grunted. “Just remember you asked for it.”

“You know Braden would probably let us host it on the bottom level of Fire,” Ellie said.

“Or there’s D’Alessandro’s,” Hannah offered. “It’s Marco’s uncle’s restaurant. He’d give us the back room for a private function and he’d even cater it.”

“Yeah?” I said, pleased. “Maia loves the food there. That would be perfect.”

“I’ll get Marco to call him tonight. When is it?”

I gave her the date, two weeks from now. “What about decorations? Maia’s not a girlie girl, but I would like to make an effort.”

“Metallics,” Joss suggested. “As a non–girlie girl myself, you can’t go wrong with silvers and golds and bronzes for decoration.”

“Okay.” I nodded, scribbling that down.

“But make sure it’s sweet sixteenth stuff,” Shannon said.

“Right. What about music?”

“Deejay?” Olivia suggested.

I mused over it. “Do you think we could get him to play alternative rock?”

“Forget a deejay.” Chloe waved the idea off. “We’ll get an iDock and some speakers and plug an iPhone with all her favorite stuff on it into it.”

That was the music sorted, then.

“Is that it, then?” I stared at the list I’d made.

“Ooh, why don’t we put up a projector screen?” Ellie said. “Right across the back wall. At first we can just use it for slides of photos of Maia with us. We’ll take sneaky shots over the next few weeks when we’re with her, and then afterward we can stick on a film for the kids. We could rent a really big one for the back wall. Make a statement.”

We all liked that, so I wrote down “Rent projector.”

As we sat talking and throwing out more ideas, laughing and getting sidetracked, I relaxed completely as I realized these women were genuinely invested in making sure Maia had the best birthday ever.

We were in the middle of discussing whether it would be too much to hire some kind of entertainment act when Logan came striding into my sitting room.

“Hello, ladies,” he said, and brushed his hand over Shannon’s shoulder as he passed her.

“Where’s Maia?” I said. He was supposed to be with her, distracting her.

Logan leaned down and kissed me softly on the lips before settling on the arm of my chair. “I dropped her off at the tattoo parlor. Apparently, Cole said she could spend the day learning about the world of tattoo artistry.”

“Oh, yeah. I forgot about that,” Shannon said.

I wrinkled my nose. “Should she be spending the day in a tattoo studio?”

“Why not?” Hannah shrugged. “They’re only smoking crack and tattooing babies.”

I made a face. “I see sarcasm runs in this family.”

Shannon chuckled. “She’ll be fine, Grace. She’s with Cole. There’s no one more responsible. I promise.”

Logan rubbed my shoulder. “You think I would have left her there otherwise?”

“No, of course not,” I assured him. “I’m just a little frazzled. There’s a lot going on.”

“How are the plans coming along?”

I dove into explaining what we’d come up with so far.

His eyes brightened as the girls jumped in with all their ideas. “Sounds perfect,” he said once we’d finished. He peered down at the notebook and the guest list I’d written out. He frowned. “Be sure to add my mum, dad, and Amanda.”

“What?” Shannon snapped immediately.

Logan shot her a warning look. “I’m not happy about it either, but Maia wants to meet them and they want to meet her.”

“Oh, now they want to meet her. So! It’s not up to them.”

“No. It’s up to Maia. I gave her the choice.”

“And whose bright idea was that?”

I winced. “Uh… well… that would be mine.”