break up with your boyfriend? Since we’re doing group therapy right now, ’fess up.”
But Grace’s eyes were lost in a way that Joaquin recognized from a few foster kids, the ones who had been transferred so many times that they were rudderless, adrift in the storm. She blinked, though, and it disappeared. “Long story,” she said, then started to get to her feet. “I’m hungry. Do you have food?”
Maya and Joaquin watched as she started to walk away. Then Maya pulled her feet out of the water and followed her in. “C’mon, Joaquin,” she said. “Maybe we can draw mustaches on the family photos.”
He laughed at the idea. What a luxury to be able to do that. “Be right there,” he said as the girls disappeared indoors. Once they were gone, he grabbed the pool skimmer and ran it across the bottom of the pool, catching the joint in its net before tossing it out over the fence and then following the girls inside.
“Hey,” Joaquin said. “Do you have a minute?”
Both Mark and Linda looked up. “Yeah, buddy,” Mark said. His hands were in the soapy sink water, rinsing off the last of the dishes while Linda bagged up the trash for Joaquin to take outside. “What’s up?”
Joaquin leaned against the doorjamb, knocking his knuckles against it as if for luck. “I just wanted to talk to you about, um, the adoption thing?”
He watched as Mark’s jaw tightened, as Linda’s eyes grew hopeful. “Yeah, I was just thinking. About it. And um, yeah, maybe we shouldn’t do it.”
The light in Linda’s eyes disappeared so fast that Joaquin could have sworn someone blew out the flame behind them. “It’s not that I don’t— I really, really like living here.”
“We really like you living here, too, Joaquin,” Linda said. “That will never change, you know that.”
Joaquin did know that. His brain knew it 100 percent. It was the rest of him that had trouble sorting through it. “I just think that things are really good right now? And maybe we shouldn’t mess with it?” His voice had started doing the same uptick that Maya’s had done earlier that day, a question instead of a statement.
Linda was chewing on her lower lip, but Mark just nodded. “Absolutely, bud,” he said. “We always want you to feel comfortable here. Whatever you want, that’s what we want, too.”
Joaquin felt the load lift off his heart. He even smiled a little. “Cool,” he said. “Great. Thanks. And, I mean, I do really appreciate it. I’m not lying.”
“You’re not a liar, Joaquin,” Linda said, her voice tight. “We’ve never thought that.”
“Cool,” Joaquin said again, because he didn’t know what else to say. “I’m gonna take the trash out, then. Is this everything?”
He had almost made his getaway through the back door when Mark’s voice stopped him. “Joaq?” he said, and Joaquin turned to see Mark standing next to Linda, his arm around her shoulders, his knuckles tight and white.
“Yeah?”
“The Buchanans. Joaquin, we would never . . . we would never do what they did. You know that, right? We love you. You’re ours, no matter what.”
Joaquin forced himself to nod. “Yeah, totally,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
He stood next to the trash cans for a minute longer than necessary, trying to get his heartbeat back under control. You control what you do, he had told Maya earlier that day, and he knew he was right. He loved Mark and Linda too much to let them adopt him, so if the decision was his to make, Joaquin would make it.
It was, he reminded himself as he went back inside, the right thing to do.
GRACE
So over here,” Rafe said, loudly enough for his coworkers to hear, “we have our finest assortment of slicer-dicers. They slice and dice. It’s not just a clever name. And over here— Are they gone?”
Grace peeked around the corner. “Um . . . yes. All clear.”
“Whew.” Rafe’s shoulders visibly sagged. “Pretending to work is way more exhausting than actually working.”
“Funny that,” Grace said, patting one of the oven mitts in the shape of a chicken. “These are cute.”
“To some people,” Rafe replied, then slipped his apron over his head. “Thanks for coming to visit me after work, by the way.”
“Well, thanks for texting me,” Grace said. “It was nice to have a reason to blow the dust off my phone.”
“Oh, go on, I know your mom texts you all the time,” Rafe said with a wink. He was one of the few people Grace