Chapter 87. Let Me Be the Cool Parent

Max’s POV

I hauled out the last box and nearly fell over Sophie’s unicorn teddy, which I had just got for her. Ava looked up from where she was sitting on the couch, piles of folded blankets around her.

“You know she has like seven of those, don’t you?”

I laughed, setting the box down next to me. “This one is bigger, it has glitters on its hooves. It’s a completely different species.”

Ava rolled an eye. “You’re hopeless.”

Desperate, but hopeless. But I didn’t tell her that. I just stood there in our new house. Sunlight streamed through the huge windows, casting a block of shadow light on the wood floor with its beam. Sophie’s laughter down the hallway, something that still pulled my chest tight with gratitude. We were a family.

We were together.

Mason showed up, arms full of box after box of purple and pink and Disney-print stacks of boxes. “Hi, Max, where are you going to put the rest of Sophie’s stack of toys?”

Ava’s eyes went