The Reality of Everything - Rebecca Yarros Page 0,37

I carried her around the front of the house.

“Morgan!” Fin called out over the sound of men climbing down from Morgan’s almost-finished roof. They’d made a huge amount of progress compared to when I’d left this morning. Half the roof was shingled, and it looked like they were quitting for the day. They even managed to save that old weathervane, which two of the roofers were anchoring back in its original position.

There was no sign of Vivian, which meant she was probably in the house.

“Fin!” Morgan waved from next to Steve and subsequently lost her grip on the paperback she’d been holding. She bent quickly to retrieve it, then set it on the drafting table as we walked over.

I was struck by the strangest urge to get a copy of whatever she was reading. In my experience, what someone read told you almost everything you needed to know about them. Claire had preferred drama, anything that fired up her imagination. Garrett liked war biographies. Sawyer enjoyed not reading. Ever. Me? I went for Griffin, Clancy, or anything that pulled me out of my life for a minute.

What was Morgan into? Did she read chick lit? Romance? Nonfiction? Was she into horror? Or was comedy more her thing?

I put Finley on the ground once we reached the drafting table, keeping my eyes north of Morgan’s turquoise tank top and way north of those tiny white shorts. I was going to need to join a support group if I couldn’t shake my obsession with her legs.

“I missed you!” Morgan said, dropping to eye level with Fin and pulling her into a big hug.

Well, shit. For the first time, I was jealous of my kid.

“I missed you, too! And you almost have a roof! Are you coming back soon?”

“Four days,” Steve promised, even though Morgan shot him a disbelieving look. “You’d be surprised how fast a roof goes on,” he finished as he packed up for the day.

“How have you been?” Morgan asked Fin.

Fin jabbered a mile a minute, telling Morgan all about her days, like she’d been gone an eternity.

Okay, maybe it had felt a little long.

Morgan nodded dutifully, adding a word here and there as Finley jumped from subject to subject and was now on something related to Doc McStuffins.

Morgan’s smile hit me in the gut like a freight train. Shit, I was in trouble.

She shared that grin with me when she glanced up, and I answered it with one of my own, knowing there was no hope of getting a word in edgewise now that Fin was on a roll.

And now she’d moved on to Christina’s cat.

“Jackson?” My stomach lurched at the wariness in Vivian’s voice behind me.

“Hey, Grammy!” Fin called, breaking her filibuster to hug Vivian quickly, then turning back to Morgan to continue her tale, which had shifted to the lunch menu at her preschool.

“Can we talk?” Vivian asked softly. “Claire called this morning about…what happened last night.”

Morgan’s eyes met mine.

Steve’s eyebrows shot up.

“Fin, why don’t we go…” Morgan looked around for a destination.

“We’re done for the day.” Steve gestured toward his team as they started climbing down from the roof. “You can show her the progress,” he suggested.

“That sounds like a great idea! Then you can finish telling me all about your favorite foods!” Morgan clasped Fin’s hand and grabbed her beach bag.

“Oh! There’s macaroni and cheese and pizza! And ice cream and…”

I shot Morgan a thankful look, and she nodded, already walking back toward her house and out of ear range.

“And I’m going…somewhere else,” Steve said with a nod. “Always good to see you, Mrs. Lewis.” Then he basically speed-walked toward the nearest piece of equipment.

“Hey, Vivian.” I turned to the side so I could see Fin out of my peripherals and give my would-have-been mother-in-law my attention.

“She’s lovely,” Vivian remarked with a slight curve of her lips. “Good with Fin, too.”

I watched as Morgan put her floppy sun hat on Fin, which completely swamped her little head. “Yeah, she is. We lucked out in the new neighbor department.”

“Oh, Jackson.” Her shoulders sagged. “Claire was so upset this morning.”

“Was she?” I folded my arms across my chest as I glanced over to Morgan and Fin, seeing them sitting on a blanket Morgan had spread out as she pointed to the changes in the house.

“She was really upset. Going on about how you didn’t want her in Fin’s life and wouldn’t even put her on the phone.” She smoothed her silver, chin-length bob, which was her most