4. Carly

"Jodie, Carly, little miss Ella," Dwight's jovial voice broke the silence. "I'd like to introduce my oldest son, Logan."

He introduced the Big Boss of my place of work to me, and I stood there, agape and seriously considering running for the hills. This had to be some kind of sick joke, right?

Logan looked casual, dressed in a tight black T-shirt that showed off his thick, sculpted arms and a pair of jeans he'd never be caught dead in at Forge. He was all suits, all the time when he was in business mode, and while that had its own sexy-polished appeal, this look was mouth-watering.

And I'd just learned that he was my new fucking stepbrother.

"Good to see you, Carly." Logan's cool, deep voice crossed the room to me. And wouldn't you know it, he even sounded like he was telling the truth. I couldn't exactly return the sentiment.

"Well, my goodness! Do you two know each other?" my mom exclaimed, looking between the two of us in thrilled surprise. I grimaced as Logan gave her a polite response.

"Yes, Ms. Sanders?—"

"Oh, it's Mrs. McDonald now," Mom laughed, "or it will be when I get around to the name change. But you can just call me Jodie, unless you wanna call me Mom!"

If my impressionable daughter weren't standing there watching me, I would have rolled my eyes at that.

"Jodie," Logan amended, and I respected it. "Your daughter and I work together. I'm actually the co-owner of Forge."

"Oh, how funny! What a small world, right, Carly?"

"Entirely too small," I grumbled without meaning to.

In my defense, I'd never been very good with change, and this was another huge, world-shattering change to grapple with on top of the whole stepdad thing. How was I supposed to react to seeing my strict, prickly, annoyingly attractive boss at family dinners?

"Carly's just kidding," my mom hurried to peace keep. She shot daggers at me with her eyes, though. "We're so happy to have you and your sons over for dinner, Dwight."

Wait. She said sons. As in plural. Suddenly, the mental image of a whole harem of men flooding into my home made me feel a little queasy, Mom's pot roast be damned. I started to open my mouth with no idea what I actually planned to say, but Mom ushered all of us into the dining room and we started to take our seats.

"It smells delicious, Jodie," Dwight gushed at his new wife, and despite my persisting distaste for all of this, I did think it was a little cute how Mom preened under his gaze.

"Thanks, honey," Mom said. She took her seat next to the head of the table, leaving that esteemed spot for Dwight. Ella was seated across from her Grammy, and I sat beside her, figuring I'd be on calmer ground there. That left Logan sitting next to my mom, and maybe I got a little bit of sick satisfaction out of it—like her having to sit beside such an unpleasant man was her punishment for injecting all of this chaos into my life. Still, she turned into my favorite version of her, the doting grandmother, as she told our guests, "My granddaughter helped a lot, too."

"And I set the table," my little girl piped up, her voice a little quieter than usual because she was sometimes shy around strangers. Strange men, especially—the girl had grown up in a house of only women, so she didn't know what to make of these large, hairy beasts in her house. Me neither, baby girl, I thought wryly.

Logan opened his mouth as if to say something, but before I could assume the worst, there was another knock at the door. Mom hurried to let in our next guess, and I could have fallen out of my chair when he strode into the room.

"Sorry I'm late," Nate announced to us all, "but I brought presents!"

He lifted a bottle of wine in one hand and a bottle of sparkling grape juice in the other.

"Oh, how thoughtful," Mom gushed as I sat there with my jaw hanging open. Mom played hostess with the mostest, taking the nice wine bottle from his hands and humming at it as if she knew anything about wine. As if she'd known him his whole life, she pulled my tall friend into a warm hug and said, "You must be Nate."

"And you must be Jodie, our new stepmom who Dad's head-over-heels for," he replied charmingly as he returned her hug. "And who's this?" he asked, his eyes falling on Ella as he came closer to the table, blinding us with the full wattage of his bright, slightly-cheeky smile. Those sharp canines could do some damage, and now was not the time to be thinking about that because Nate was meeting my mother and my daughter. As I settled into the reality of yet another shock, staring at Nate like I'd never seen him before while he explained that he didn't want to bring a hostess gift for my mom without remembering Ella, too, he didn't seem to notice me yet. He was perfectly relaxed, his usual carefree self, but then his sweeping gaze fell on me.

"Holy sh—crap," Nate hurried to correct himself, shooting a quick, nervous glance Ella's way. He let out a startled laugh, staring at me incredulously. "No way. Carly's our new stepsister?"

Somehow, Nate's presence was a relief and a surprise in equal measure. He made any room a little brighter, and it was nice to have an adult ally in this room. But when he turned to commiserate with Logan, who looked even less excited than I was, it finally clicked that not only was he now related to me by marriage, but this meant the two of them were brothers. This realization put a little bit of context into their relationship that would have made sense if they didn't look and act completely unrelated. They had a closeness that did feel like family, especially with the strange dissonance of it all to me from the outside.

So much for Nate being my ally.

"You—you two are brothers?" I sputtered out stupidly. Logan watched me with cool scrutiny, while Nate just laughed.

"Well, yeah, but not like you think," he said, which only muddied the situation further in my overtired brain. Luckily, Dwight stepped in to explain.

"Logan is my only biological son," he started to say. I could certainly see the resemblance between them, though Logan had yet to soften into his father's happy-go-lucky air. Somehow, I doubted he ever would. Dwight continued, "But I adopted Nate a long time ago, and I love them both just the same."

"Like Heidi from school," Ella piped up, looking to me for approval. It took a minute for me to remember her friend who'd been adopted out of foster care, and then I smiled at her, patting her knee under the table.

"Exactly, Ella. Smart girl," I told her, and she shrank a little under the compliment, letting out an embarrassed "Mom!" under her breath. Once, she would've clung to me and given me kisses even with company around, but my little girl was growing up.

"I don't know this Heidi," Nate piped in as he pulled up a chair beside me. "But if she's friends with Ella, I bet she's pretty cool." He shot a wink to Ella that made her giggle.

As we finally started dinner and Mom and Dwight started to regale us with stories of how they met on their romantic singles' cruise, I stayed pretty quiet, having exhausted my social battery for the day hours ago. Luckily, Nate was able to keep the conversation going, and he even showed a surprising penchant for getting my daughter to open up. He mixed his regular brand of lighthearted humor with some toned-down, age-appropriate flirtations that had Ella fully starstruck by him, and hell, at least my little one was having a good time. And it was good to see that even after all this time of knowing him, Nate could still surprise me by revealing that he's secretly great with kids.

Logan took a page out of my book and stayed mostly quiet as we ate, his golden-hazel eyes inscrutable and closed-off as always. But I couldn't deny that he wasn't quite fitting into the jerk box I'd stuck him into in my head. He was always polite, complimenting my mother on her home and her cooking in understated ways that felt more genuine for their lack of fluff. Logan outside of work had a calm, stable kind of energy that he"d honed into an intimidating sword when he was in boss mode. I preferred this version immensely, especially when he started to reveal himself as a family man.

Dwight, Logan, and Nate had an enviable family dynamic. There was nothing flashy or overly-sentimental about it, but I could feel the deep love and support they had for each other, especially in the way Logan seemed to watch over them all. The ultimate big brother—paternal, even with his own father. Family was an even bigger priority to him than business, and I could see that in how he turned all of Dwight's praises back onto him, thanking his father for giving him the tools to become the man he was today. It was beautiful, really, how family oriented Logan was. It humanized him, and it even made him more handsome, somehow.

I felt my tired mind starting to fall into habits I'd learned from my emotional, romantic mother as I watched all of this unfold. Silly fantasies started to pop up in my brain. I could imagine Logan as a dad, teaching his child—or, if I was honest, mine—how to ride a bike with a cool, patient focus. Logan, Ella, and I sitting down for a smaller, more intimate family dinner, cosplaying as the nuclear family I'd always quietly wanted for Ella and myself. Logan, a safe place to land. He already filled that role for his own brother, clearly.

Enough of this, I scolded myself internally. I took a sip of the wine Nate had skillfully poured for us, tuning back into the conversation just in time to almost spit the red liquid out of my nose.

"My youngest son sure would love to be here and meet you ladies," Dwight said, fully shattering any sense of comfort I'd started to find. "I wish he could have made it tonight, too."

"There's another one?" I blurted out, and I clamped my hand over my mouth in shock. Nate shook with quiet laughter beside me. Our all-girls, no-boys-allowed home was being overtaken by not three but four men. We were outnumbered. I put down my wine glass with a shaky clink, deciding I'd had enough destabilization today for one lifetime, thank you very much. Mom looked like she wanted to trade me in for a newer, nicer daughter. But could she really blame me for being on the verge of fainting right now?

Dwight, however, simply chuckled. "Oh, Jodie. You didn't give your daughter any information to go on, did you?"

"It slipped my mind," my mom mumbled, a little embarrassed even as her new husband patted her hand on the table with affection.

"I have three sons." Dwight addressed me again, clearing it all up at last. "Just the three, so don't worry. My youngest, Bennett, has been working out of the country, which is why he couldn't make it to dinner tonight. He's a doctor." His mustache stretched out over his wide, proud smile. "He's been working in Sierra Leone, helping children in need over there."

"We get it, Pop," Nate half-laughed. "Ben's your favorite. Hey, maybe it's better he's not back in town just yet. Give us two a fighting chance."

Logan cracked a grin at Nate's joke.

But I wasn't in the right state of mind to acknowledge the slipping of Logan's cold fa?ade. When I apparently had a visible reaction to that "yet", Dwight addressed me again.

"He's coming home soon, so you'll be able to meet him. He's about your age. I think the two of you will really get along."

The logical part of my brain realized that somebody who administered healthcare in the developing world couldn't be so bad. Maybe if I'd had a full night's sleep to consider it, I could even admit that he sounded like a good guy. But right now, faced with the prospect of four whole new men in my life whom I didn't ask for, I couldn't be less excited to meet the mysterious stepbrother number three.