I smiled humorlessly, though he couldn’t see it since my face was still hidden. I hadn’t been getting much sleep. Patrick had been sick on and off for the last month with an upper respiratory infection. He was on the mend, but he was still sleeping with me. This meant I could count on being kicked in the stomach at least six times a night. For a four-year-old, the kid had massively long and strong legs.

“No, I’m sorry. I’m an ungrateful witch. I should have brought my broom to work.”

“No. You’re an exhausted single mother who is starting a new job today at the same place where the father of her child works, only he has no idea he has a child.”

A flare of panic and guilt burned in my chest, making it difficult to breathe or think. But I wouldn’t cry. Even as a kid I’d never been much of a crier. I hadn’t cried in years. I’d tried, but I physically could not, not since giving birth to Patrick.

Besides, Sean wasn’t the most unbiased person when it came to mothers keeping their son’s father in the dark. His own mother had hidden the identity of his father for years.

“What would you have me do, Sean? He was drunk. He didn’t know my name. He doesn’t even remember me.”

“Perhaps he’d have made things right by you,” he offered solemnly, finally cutting the engine.

“I’m not interested in him doing right by me. Like I said, he was drunk, hardly capable of giving consent to father a child.”

“You were both there, E. Perhaps if he’d known he was a father, he might have cleaned up his act earlier.”

“You can’t put that on me.” I shook my head quickly, feeling my anxiety rise with each word. “Sure, maybe he would have cleaned up his act. Or perhaps he wouldn’t have given a shit. Or perhaps he would have taken Patrick away from me. Or perhaps he would have—”

“All right, all right.” Sean held his hands between us in surrender, then unbuckled his seatbelt. “I’m not going to argue with you about this again. As I’ve said, you’re excessively stubborn.”

I swallowed a retort on the tip of my tongue. If this had been five years ago, I would have argued. We would have sparred and enjoyed every second of it.

But I didn’t do that anymore. Plus, I loved my cousin and didn’t want to be ungrateful. I needed him to know how much he meant to me, how he’d made such an immense difference in my life.

I felt his eyes on my profile, felt the shift in his mood before he said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought this up, not now, not before your first day.”

“I want you to know,” I gathered a deep breath, and with it my courage, “I never told you this, but I’ve never regretted having Patrick. Never. He has made my life infinitely better. Loving him, taking care of him, has been the greatest joy of my life. Sometimes things were difficult, sometimes they were impossible, and I would wonder how I was going to make it through, whether we were going to have to live out of my car—”

“Oh, darling.”

“No, listen. I need to say this and I need you to hear it.”

He reached for my hand and squeezed it. I turned mine palm up and twisted our fingers together.

“This is selfish and terrible, but what got me through those times was knowing I had you. I don’t know what I would have done without you as my safety net. If things fell apart, I knew you would be there.”

He gave me a tender and pleased smile, which only served to ignite my guilt.

“It’s not fair, how much I’ve asked of you.”

“You’re wrong, darling. Because loving you and Patrick, taking care of you and Patrick has been one of the greatest joys of my life. You are my family.”

“But it’s not fair, how you’ve placed your life on hold. You and Lucy—”

“Don’t you worry about us, we’re right on track, thanks to you. She adores Patrick, as you know, and he’s been a most effective contagion.”

“Contagion?”

“Yes. For baby-making fever.”

I gasped, then laughed, because Sean was grinning devilishly. “You’ve been using Patrick this whole time?”

“Of course I have. But that doesn’t negate my love for him. If anything, I love him more for changing Lucy’s mind about having children. And, Eilish, I am sorry I keep pushing you about Bryan.”

“It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not fine. You should allow me to make it up to you.”

I squinted at him because I knew where this was going. Shaking my head, I opened the passenger side door. “Don’t you dare—”

“Come on, you know you miss shopping with me.”

I jumped out of the car and called back at him, “I don’t need anything.”

“But you want something.” He was out of the car, smiling at me with his small, knowing smile.

“Not a single thing.” I shut the door and turned from him, employing quick steps. I didn’t want to be late.

“Wait,” he called after me, making me halt and glance over my shoulder. “You should let someone spoil you every once in a while.”

“No, thank you. My days of being spoiled are long gone.”

“You were never spoiled, Eilish,” Sean said, a note of consternation in his tone, as though he were truly distressed by this fact.

“Well,” I shrugged, pasting a bright smile on my face, “no harm then. I’ll never know what I’m missing.”