All thoughts melt from Rolland’s face and his shoulders fall. His eyes grow soft as the corner of his mouth lifts into a sad smile.

He nods, speaking low, “I know, son.”

Both Royce and Maddoc tense while Captain’s frown grows sharper.

“What do you mean, you know?” Cap asks him. “You never once asked about her.”

“And you never once mentioned her,” he says quietly and Captain drops his eyes to the floor, looking back up while Rolland steps closer. “The first call I made on my way home was to our attorneys. The papers are being drafted as we speak.”

“Papers?” Cap’s voice cracks and I move to grip his forearm.

His free hand comes up to rest on my side.

“It’s time she comes home, son.”

Cap’s grip tightens and I imagine his face is stricken with an overwhelming sense of uncertainty, but I don’t look. Something tells me he wouldn’t want me to see.

“Can it really happen?” Royce asks quietly, stepping toward his dad. “She can come home?”

There is nothing worse than false hope.

“It can and it will.” Rolland makes his way down, clapping Royce’s shoulders on his way but stopping beside Captain and me.

He glances at me a moment before turning to Cap. “It will take a little bit of time, few weeks maybe, but she will be here soon. I promise you.”

Cap starts shaking and his head drops to rest against mine.

“I have a designer ready as well, she’s simply waiting for your call to discuss setting up a room fit for her. I was hoping to talk to you about this tonight.”

Cap releases me, shifting to hug his dad, and his brothers move, patting his back.

They stand like that a minute, before stepping away.

Maddoc quickly grabs me and pulls me against him while Cap moves for the SUV.

Rolland nods at the four of us and heads back inside.

Together, we leave for school, the three of them seemingly a little lighter than before while I’m growing more heavy by the second.

The lunch bell rings and I stand from my seat but drop back down when Cap looks up at me with troubled eyes.

“What’s wrong?”

“Got a call from Dad’s lawyers already,” he tells us.

“When?”

“About an hour ago.”

“And?”

“They want me to come down and do another paternity test for Zo.” He looks between us. “Says some shit about it needing to be done the legal way.”

“So do it.” I frown.

“Where the fuck was this guy when we needed him for this shit?” Royce mumbles.

Cap scoffs. “Maybe if I wasn’t such a scared bitch about it and talked to Dad from the get-go, he’d have helped me, and she’d have been here all along.”

“Cap—” Maddoc starts but he raises a hand.

“I know, I’m just ... can’t not think it, you know?” He looks away. “Perkins went through a shit ton of trouble to try and keep her a fucking secret. He was dead set on keeping her away from me, from us, called me out and cornered me on every little thing. It wasn’t easy to be Brayshaw with him lurking around.” He meets our eyes again. “Why go through the trouble and risk us putting him in a ditch? He knows if it wasn’t so risky at that point, we wouldn’t have hesitated to get rid of him.”

“Maybe it was because he cared about the mom?” I ask.

Cap shakes his head. “We hoped he did, but he kicked them both out the second he caught us fucking. He never cared about either of them.”

“I wanna know why Dad allowed Perkins to fucking stay at the school when he’s a slimy ass bitch,” Royce says.

“Exactly!” Cap throws his hands out, anger etched across his face. “What’s the fucking deal, man?”

What has him so edgy?

“Pac man.” I wait until he looks my way. “Are you worried about the test?” I ask point blank.

He reaches out gripping my hand. “Not in the slightest, but it makes me feel like a piece of shit,” he admits.

Are you sure?

He squeezes my hand.

“We’ll do some digging on Perkins, but stay sane, man. One thing at a time. Let’s focus on getting her fucking home,” Maddoc tells him and he nods. “You want us to come with you for the paternity test?”

He swallows, dropping his eyes. “Yeah.” He looks to me. “I want you all to come with me.”

“Then we will,” I tell him.

I wrap my arms around Raven as my brothers slip past us.

“Town’s news crew will be here later, they get first dibs on interviews after the champ game.”

“Interviews?” She frowns. “How long will that take?”

“‘Bout a half hour, they know to come to the three of us first if they want time from us, but they’ll wait until after Coach’s speech, let us get showered and changed, and then meet us in the locker room. We don’t talk with the school reporters and shit.”

“So what you’re saying is it’s gonna be a good minute before we get out of here tonight?”

I chuckle, sliding my lips across hers, and nip lightly. “Yup. You good with that?”

“I’m good with that.” Never one to surrender, she nips back.

“Now, Brayshaw!” Coach calls, and I growl against her lips, pulling away.

“Sit by our bench.”

“Yes, boss.”

After she slips into the gym, I enter the locker room and head right for my locker. I start stripping down right away, my brothers and the rest of the team already halfway dressed.

“You good, brothaman?” Royce asks Cap quietly, pulling his jersey over his head. “You been zoning out all day.”

I quickly pull my game jersey on and turn, leaning my shoulder against the locker to block us off from the others.

Cap laughs lightly, his eyes tightening. “Yeah. Hard to fucking focus right now.” He looks at us. “I was gonna wait, say something once we got out of here and Raven was with us, but fuck it.” He glances behind us seeing nobody near. “I couldn’t handle it, so I called that designer lady Dad mentioned, just to see if it was true, and she really did talk to him already.”

“That’s ... good news, right?” Royce asks warily, noticing the same brittle expression on Cap’s face.

“Cap?”

He tilts his head slightly. “I don’t know. She was talking ideas and I just sort of sat back and listened, in shock and shit, but then she started saying how she could run a wire across the hall that would allow us to talk with each other at night, some fun little kid toy thing or something.”

“And?”

Cap’s eyes lift to mine. “And across the hall is Raven’s room. Turns out she’s under the impression the room across from mine is the one she’s decorating.”

“It makes sense she’d need to be closest to you. She doesn’t know us yet and that’s where she’d be most comfortable.” Royce shrugs, looking my way. “Maybe he figures RaeRae will move into your room?”

My face tightens.

“Maybe he didn’t stop to consider it?” Cap asks, hopeful.