“Right? How many have you tried? It’s my life mission to get through all of them at some point.”

  “Me, too! I think I’m through half the menu, but then I get stuck on my favorites and it’s hard to move on,” she admits.

  “It happens to me all the time.”

  “I’m Emme.” Her hand shoots out and I take it, my smile growing wider. She’s freaking adorable.

  “I’m Kailyn. It’s nice to meet you.”

  “Dax said you went to school together.”

  “We did.” I glance his way, wondering what else he’s told her about me.

  “Dax said he was an idiot in school.”

  I laugh. “Is that so?”

  She nods. “He said all boys are stupid, especially in high school and college, but I think they’re all pretty stupid now, and I don’t start high school until next year.” Her nose wrinkles and she looks at her brother, as if checking to make sure it’s okay for her to share.

  Dax gives her a solemn nod. “It gets worse before it gets better, kiddo. Might as well stay away from boys altogether until you’re closer to thirty.”

  Emme rolls her eyes. “Anyway, my favorite milkshake is Oreo, but they have a peanut butter chocolate one that’s just as good, so I have a hard time deciding.”

  “Hmm.” I tap my lip. “Those both sound amazing. It’s going to be a tough decision.”

  “Yeah, but the good thing is you can’t really go wrong. My dad takes me here all—” She jolts as if she’s touched a live wire. “I mean, he used to take me here.” Her head drops and she brings the sleeve of her hoodie to her mouth. Her thumb pushes through a tear in the fabric.

  Daxton puts his arm around her and pulls her into his side. He gives me an apologetic smile as he rubs her shoulder and whispers something to her. Her small frame shakes, and she nods into his chest. After a few more seconds she excuses herself and slips out of the booth.

  Daxton watches her disappear into the women’s room, worrying his bottom lip before slowly turning back to me. “Sorry about that. It comes in waves, you know? One second she’s happy and laughing and the next she’s in tears.”

  “How are you managing?” I ask. Dark circles ring his eyes, and although he’s put together, his exhaustion is obvious.

  “It’s a learning curve. She has to go back to school tomorrow and she’s nervous, and frankly, so am I. She’s going to have to deal with all her friends and the questions, and of course our aunt works there, so there’s added stress. The whole custody thing just threw us for a loop, especially so soon after our parents—” He pauses and clears his throat. “I’m hoping that us talking will alleviate some of her anxiety about possibly having to move.”

  “How much have you told Emme?”

  He fiddles with his napkin, smoothing it out. “That Linda would like her to come live with her, but that I’d like her to stay with me, so we need to figure it out.”

  “And what did you tell her my role is?”

  “I told her you were kind of like a bank manager and referee. You make sure her trust is safe and that she has what she needs while I work on keeping her with me.”

  I’m about to ask if that’s what Emme wants when she returns to the table, effectively shutting down the discussion.

  We order our meals and milkshakes when the server comes around. She’s a woman in her early twenties, and she makes goo-goo eyes at Daxton whenever he speaks. I get it, he’s a hottie, but she needs to tone her simper down a notch. Or ten.

  While we wait for the food to arrive I explain the parameters of the trust and my new role in Emme’s life.

  “But I still get to stay with Dax, right?” She pokes at her milkshake with her straw.

  “That’s right. Everything stays exactly the way it is for the time being, apart from me being involved in more than just your trust.”

  “Okay.” She nods, as if this makes sense, but then chews on the inside of her lip.

  “Do you have any other questions? I know it’s a lot of new things happening, so I’m here to help however I can.”

  Emme looks to Daxton, as if seeking his approval before she speaks. I’m not sure if it’s because she’s wary of me, or of his reaction to whatever questions she has. At his nod she clears her throat. “So if you’re responsible for me, does that mean you have to move in with me and Dax?”

  Daxton’s eyes go wide and his gaze darts to me. I’m not capable of speaking, though, since I’m coughing up the french fry I almost choked on.

  “No, Em, it’s not like that. It’s still just you and me,” he replies.

  “Oh. Okay. ’Cause, like, that might be a little weird, but at least you and Dax were, like, friends before, right? And Dax doesn’t have a girlfriend or anything, so it wouldn’t be that weird. Except if Kailyn had to stay in your old room.” Emme’s eyes light up and she leans in closer, as if she’s about to tell a secret. “His bedroom is full of stuff from his old TV show. Posters and everything.”

  I glance at Daxton and then back at her. “Is that right?”

  She nods. “Dax said we can clean it out and I can put all the stuff on eBay and decide what I want to do with the money.”

  “Oh, really? Is there lots of cool stuff?”

  Daxton’s face is an interesting shade of red. “It’s just memorabilia and crap.”

  “But some of it might be worth money, so I’m going to see what I can get for it.”

  What I wouldn’t give to help clean out that room. I find myself a little giddy over the thought. I’m a TV memorabilia junkie. I may have boycotted watching the show after law school, and boxed up all my old things, but they’re still in my bedroom closet.

  A few minutes later Emme slumps back in her seat, rubbing her tummy. “You all right, kiddo?” Daxton eyes her plate. She’s barely touched her burger or fries, and only managed to drink about half of her shake.

  “Just not really hungry anymore.” She fiddles with her napkin and peeks up at him. “I’m sorry. I know it’s a waste.”

  “You want it packed up?”

  She shrugs. “Can I go next door to the bookstore and look around while you guys eat and talk about stuff that you don’t want to say in front of me?”

  Daxton gives her a look. “Em.”

  “What? I’m not dumb and I’m not trying to be rude and, like, I’m kind of done hearing about Aunt Linda, so can I go?” She gives him sad puppy dog eyes, which I’m sure are at least 50 percent authentic.

  “Fine.”

  Emme slides out of the booth, grinning.

  “Hold on.” Daxton pulls his wallet from his back pocket, flips it open, and retrieves a twenty.

  “What’s this for?”

  “You’re going to a bookstore. This is so you can buy a book.”

  “Oh.” She smiles and pockets the money. “Okay, thanks.”

  “And you only go to the bookstore. Nowhere else, okay?”

  “Okay, Dax.”

  “And no crossing the street.”

  She makes a face. “What?”

  “Stay on this side of the street.”

  “I’m not a baby. I don’t need someone to hold my hand all the time. I know what the walking guy and the flashing red hand mean.” And there’s the teen snark I’ve been waiting for. I fight my own smile because I don’t want to encourage the sass, but I’m curious as to how Daxton handles it.

  He glares at her until her eyes roll. “If I’m just going to the bookstore, I have no reason to cross the street anyway. Any other rules?”

  “I think you’re good. You have your phone?”

  She pulls it out of her pocket. “Satisfied?”

  “Can the attitude.”

  “If you stopped treating me like a baby, I wouldn’t need to pull out the attitude.”

  Dax raises a brow. “I can take the twenty back.”

  That changes her tune. “Sorry. Okay. No more attitude. I know you’re just trying to, like, show me you care, or whatever. I’ll be back in a bit.”

  “Go look at books and don’t cause a riot, or stage a political protest or anything that’s going to piss me off.”

  “Oh my God. You’re the worst.” She rolls her eyes again, waves at me, does a little bouncy spin, and heads for the door.

  Daxton watches her leave. “I’m pretty sure one of these days her eyes are going to roll up into her head and stay there.” He glances at her plate, frown still in place. “She hardly ate a thing.”

  “She giving you a hard time?” I bite the end of a fry. The portions here are huge. I still have half a sandwich and half my fries, but Emme’s plate looks like she mostly pushed the food around.

  “Not really. I mean, the spontaneous tears are to be expected. It’s just…she’s a teenager. She’s growing. When I was her age, I ate everything in sight.”

  “Her appetite is off, then?”

  He runs his hand through his hair. It falls right back into place, which I find annoying for some reason. “Half the time I just offer her junk food to get some calories in her body. She picks at almost everything.”

  “Is that abnormal for her?”

  He fiddles with his napkin. “I don’t really know. I mean, I used to have lunch with Emme and my parents every Sunday, but I never focused on her eating habits. It’s just not something I thought about. She’s already small, smaller than the other kids her age. She can’t afford to lose weight. I don’t want to stuff her full of sugar and chocolate because that’s not any better.” He blows out a breath. “Sorry. I’m unloading on you and that’s not what you’re here for.”

  I give him a sympathetic smile. “You’re taking on a lot and going through a heavy personal loss. People grieve differently. When my mom passed I didn’t have much of an appetite for a while, but it came back eventually.”

  His eyes soften and his hand slides across the table a few inches in my direction. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “It was during my undergrad, so it was a long time ago.”

  “That must’ve been hard.”

  I swirl a french fry in my ketchup. Maybe Beverly has a valid point, maybe Daxton does feel comfortable with me for some reason—because of our law school connection, probably. It’s possible he doesn’t remember it the same way I do.

  Regardless, right now it’s not about what happened five years ago, it’s about finding points of connection and this loss is something we share. It’s a way for him to relate and for me to gain his trust. “It was difficult, particularly for my dad. I think that was the hardest part, seeing him suffer without her. Kind of like you have to watch Emme go through this while you do, as well. It makes you feel helpless.” It’s taken me a long time to get over that, and in some ways it’s made relationships challenging. I’ve already suffered hard losses, and I know that pain. I’m not sure my heart is meant for much more breaking.

  His eyes are on me, soft, maybe a little relieved, and full of painful sympathy. “That’s it exactly. I feel helpless and so…out of my depth. Is your dad okay now?”

  I focus on the napkin in my lap. “In a way, yes. He’s with her now, if you believe in that kind of thing. So I’d like to think he’s happy and at peace. That they both are.”

  This time when Daxton reaches across the table, his fingers slide over mine, eyes full of commiserating despair. “They’re gone? You lost them both, too?”

  My first instinct is to retract my hand and hide it under the table, away from the man who seems to cause no end of conflict every time he drops into my life.

  “Not at the same time, and not in such a…” Violent, horrific, haunting. “Difficult way.”

  “But you’re alone. Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

  His hand is still covering mine. The contact is unnerving because his warmth seems to seep under my skin and into my veins, radiating through my entire body, inciting a very different set of emotions, ones I haven’t felt in a very long time. Ones at war with the sadness of my own loss, of his. Ones that definitely don’t fit these circumstances. I shake those off. It’s just because we share a similar level of trauma, because his loss makes me remember my own. And he’s attractive, which is impossible not to notice when I’m sitting across from him like this, and he’s touching me.

  I withdraw my hand, severing the contact. “No, I don’t have any siblings. I have a very close friend who’s pretty much like a sister, though, so it’s almost the same thing. I imagine this is hard in a different way for you because you have someone, but she’s in your care and needs your guidance.”

  He stretches his leg out and his foot knocks against mine under the table, but he doesn’t seem to notice, or move it away. Maybe he thinks my leg is part of the table. “Does the empty feeling ever go away?”

  I think about holidays, my parents’ birthdays, my own, and what it’s like to be without them when I reach milestones. “I think you learn how to live with holes in your heart. You can’t patch them up, or plug them with other people, but you find ways to make it bearable, if that makes sense.”

  The flicker of hope in his eyes dims.

  “It gets easier, Daxton. Not right away, and probably not for a long while, but it will get easier. You adjust.” You simply get used to having those empty spaces in your heart. But I leave that part out. His wounds are too fresh to poke at, and this discussion makes mine feel the same.

  “You’re different than I remember,” he says.

  His words feel like an electric charge. I give him a questioning smile. “I’m sorry?”

  “I wish I would’ve…I wanted to…” He stumbles over his words. It’s strange to see him so uncomposed. “I know you’re here for Emme’s well-being, but I—”

  “Daxton?” A shrill female voice makes us both jolt.

  Standing at the end of the table is a tall, very leggy, very stereotypical California female. Her blond hair is almost white—artificially so—and her boobs are fake and there’s enough collagen injected into her lips to make her look like she’s just finished giving head to an entire football team.

  His eyes close for the briefest moment and his fingers tense against the edge of the table. When they open again, he gives me an apologetic look, and then his expression and his body language transform as he directs a warm, welcoming smile at the quasi-human Barbie doll.

  He gives her an appraising, visual sweep. “Hi.”

  “How are you? God, it’s been forever. It’s Jessie. You remember me, right?” Her nose scrunches. “We met at that party at Justin’s a few months back. Everyone was skinny-dipping.” She does this flaily thing with her hands, and her eyebrows shoot up, like there’s more meaning in that than I’d care to know about.

  I crumple up my napkin and toss it on my plate. Gathering the files, I slip them into my briefcase. “I have to head back to the office for afternoon meetings.” I pull a twenty from my purse and let it flutter to the table.

  “No, no. This is on me.” He reaches for the money and tries to give it back, but I’m already out of the booth.

  I smooth out my skirt, ignoring him. I feel dowdy next to Jessie.

  Daxton tries to follow me, but Jessie is already squeezing in beside him. “I need to—” He points in my direction, and Jessie gives him a blank look.

  She glances at me and then back at him, tilting her head to the side. “Oh, are you two…” She motions between us with an expression somewhere between confusion and disbelief. “Together?”

  I laugh. “I’m just a lawyer.”

  “Oh, right. That makes sense.” Jessie nods. She puts her hand on Daxton’s arm. “Is everything okay?”

  I have to fight an eye roll. Emme and I have that particular trait in common, I suppose. The thought of her being raised by someone who’s clearly into the party lifestyle gets my back up. “I’ll be in touch with Trish this afternoon. Have Emme call me if she needs anything.”

  “Kailyn—”

  “You may want to consider what constitutes positive role-modeling as you move forward.” And with that parting comment, I leave him to manage what I assume is one of his many previous conquests.

  I’m on my way out the door when Emme walks back into the diner. Her smile falls when she sees me, messenger bag in hand. “You’re going?” Her frown deepens when she sees the woman barricading her brother into the booth. “Who’s that?”

  “A friend of your brother’s, I think.” I have to work hard to keep the disdain from creeping into my voice. I rearrange my features into a smile. “I have to get back to the office. But it was lovely to meet you, Emme.”

  “Oh. Right. Okay.” She fidgets, fingers tugging on a loose thread. “Um, well, thanks for coming to lunch and explaining all that stuff. I don’t really get it, but I’m glad you’re helping me and Dax.”

  Poor baby, she looks so lost. I want to tell her everything is going to be okay, even if it’s a lie. “If you have any questions, I’m happy to try to answer them.”

  She wrings her hands. “So I stay with Dax, and you just make sure my trust is safe and stuff?”

  I spend a few minutes explaining again exactly how it all works and hope her nods mean she really does get it, but I suggest exchanging contact information so she can call or text if there’s anything else she’s unsure of.

  Meanwhile Jessie fawns all over Daxton fifteen feet away.

  “Maybe next time we can just talk about normal stuff,” Emme says as she pockets her phone. And then she hugs me. I wonder if hugging is a family thing and maybe they’re all big on affection. It takes me a moment to shake off the awkwardness and react. As soon as I wrap my arms around her tiny frame, she tightens her hold on me. I want to protect her from this pain, even though I know it’s impossible. I pat her back and give her a squeeze, remembering how difficult it was when I lost my mom, whose hugs were really the only ones that ever made me feel better when I was sad, and my heart aches even more for this lost girl.

  When I return to the office, I have a list of phone calls a mile long. One stands out among them because it’s not a client. Linda Thrasher left a message requesting a call back regarding Emme Hughes. I’m unsurprised the aunt has tracked me down.

  Now I’ll have both sides of the story, so I can form an impartial opinion. Currently I don’t have many warm feelings for Daxton, and I would prefer not to let my own biases influence our future interactions.