JAY

"So what's the plan here Erin?" I ask her. I don't want to be mad. I know that I can't know what's going through her head, but I can't help but worry about her. Her mom has cancer, terminal cancer and she doesn't need anything else on her plate right now, especially a 15 year old girl coming out of the system.

"I don't know Jay," She tells me, running her hands through her hair in frustration, "It was a snap decision, I didn't know what else to do."

"Erin you don't need this on your plate right now, especially with everything else going on."

"Jay I'm sorry, I know you are trying here. But you didn't have my childhood or Nina's so you can't possibly know what I feel like right now. You were privileged and that's not your fault, but you never had to worry about where you were going to be sleeping that night. I don't want her to have to worry about that, so either get on board or get out," I sigh quietly. I know that I shouldn't fight this, we're still on shaky ground and whether I like it or not, I have to support her right now. I lean forward a press a kiss to her forehead as I feel her body relax into mine.

"Whatever you need," I tell her softly, "I'm here for you."

"Thank you," She says, the fire in her voice gone. "I love you,"

"I love you too," I say. "Do you want me to go?"

"No, no," She assures me quickly. "Stay,"

"Okay," I tell her as we stand there for another second, "And I forgot to tell you, the date for Will and Natalie's wedding is back on and you are invited, do you want to come?"

"Yes," She says with a smile, "Of course, when is it?"

"November 1st at the Drake Hotel, it's coming up,"

"I will be there," She tells me with a gleam in her eyes. "Now I know that I told you that I love you and that I want you to stay, but will you please go get some take out? I really do not feel like cooking right now,"

"Of course," I tell her. "What do you want?"

"Thai?" She puts out, "I'll have to check with Nina first, but are you good with that?"

"Yeah," I tell her. "That place on State right?" She nods as she leads me out of her bedroom.

"Nina?" She asks.

"What?" The teen replies as Nina looks up from her phone. I can tell the response annoyed Erin, but I also know that she won't use the energy to respond to it.

"Do you like Thai food?" She asks her.

"I guess so," She replies. "I've never really had it before,"

"Oh okay," Erin replies, slightly taken aback. "Well you up for trying something new?"

"Sure," She replies.

"So what should I get her?" I ask as Erin turns back around to face me.

"Pad Thai?" She says unsurely. "Everybody likes pad thai right?"

"I guess?" I question, looking back at her. "But she's going to like it or she won't,"

"Yeah," Erin replies softly. "Can I have that thing with the wide noodles and the broccoli?"

"Yes," I say with a laugh, knowing exactly what she's talking about and also knowing that she can never remember the name of it. "I'll be back in twenty,"


ERIN

"C'mon," I tell Nina, waving her over towards the spare bedroom that has been vacant since I move here three months ago.

"Huh?" She says looking over at me. We haven't talked much since we got here maybe twenty minutes ago, she's just been sitting quietly on the couch, her feet tucked underneath her.

"Grab your stuff," I say, grabbing one of the garbage bags that we packed up at her apartment that we stopped at after we left the office. She didn't let me inside her room and I didn't ask why, but she came out of there with two trash bags full of her clothes, a sight that I've seen too many times in my line of work.

"I have my own room?" She asks as we walk into the small bedroom, the double bed and the dresser on the wall taking up nearly all of the floor space.

"Yeah," I say looking over at her. I recognize the shock in her voice, I did the same thing when Hank took me upstairs. I'd never had my own room and I'm going to bet that she hasn't either. "The dresser is empty so you can put your stuff in it,"

"Thanks," She says, her eyes turning a rosy red as she sets the two black bags down on the floor.

"Alright," I say as I sit down behind her. "I'm happy to have you here, but there are going to be ground rules,"

"Like what?" She asks, turning around to look at me and pausing from loading her clothes into the dresser.

"You have a curfew," I tell her.

"A what now?"

"A curfew," I repeat again. I'm really flying by the seat of my pants here. I've never raised a teenager, I'm barely an adult. I would call my mom about this, I call my mom about everything. But I can't call her about this, not right now. "9 o'clock on weekdays, 11 on weekends," I can tell she looks like she's about to push back, but she stops herself.

"Okay," She agrees reluctantly. "What else?"

"Dinner, every Wednesday night at 7, I expect you to be here for that." I tell her. I don't know where that came from, I pulled it out of my ass, but I remember how important it is to create a routine, or something like that. "You can go to your friends houses or whatever on other nights, but Wednesday, you will be here."

"Okay," She agrees again.

"Last," I tell her, "No skipping school," I know that this will be hard for her, it was for me. But I wanted out, so I did whatever I needed to do to make that happen and I'm hoping that she'll be the same way.

"Are you serious?" She asks, looking up at me with those blue eyes wide. "Erin everyone skips school,"

"Well now you don't," I tell her sternly. "I'm not willing to budge on any of these, my house, my rules."

"Is that it?" She asks, seeming a little annoyed at this point.

"Yes," I tell her, "That is it." I give her a tiny rub on the shoulders before leaving her to her own devices. I don't know how far I'm allowed to go. I'm not her mom, I'm not even her foster parent. I put myself in this situation and I don't even know what I am. Maybe Jay was right, that I shouldn't have done this. But I'm here, I said yes, so I have to try.


"Should I wake her up?" I ask Jay as we linger in the kitchen, the smell of coffee filling the air. I really struggled with the decision to let him stay over last night. It wasn't like I was going to do anything with Nina in the apartment, but it still felt weird having him here with her, at least on the first night. But I ended up giving in, mostly I think because I didn't want to have to deal with this by myself.

"I don't know," He tells me. "You want to get her to school on time right?"

"I have to go wake her up right?" I say with a groan.

"Yeah," He says with a chuckle, "You do,"

"Let's hope she's not a cranky morning person," I say with a groan. I got up really early today and by default, so did Jay. I wanted to get myself ready before I even got Nina up, making sure that I could dedicate this whole morning to her.

"Oh before I forget," He tells me, grabbing my hand and pulling me back towards him. "I told Natalie that you're coming to the wedding and she told me to find a date that you're available to sit down with the designer."

"I'm sorry what?" I ask him, looking a little more than shellshocked. "Designer?"

"Audrey Spencer?" He tells me, "I didn't recognize the name,"

"You've got to be shitting me," I say, the glee in my voice matching that a young child.

"What?" He asks me cluelessly.

"I love her, her clothes are amazing," I tell him breathlessly. "But why am I sitting down with her?"

"Oh," He tells me. "Natalie made a deal with her, she's making her dress and all the bridesmaids dresses. It's a good deal, they get free dresses and Audrey gets a hell of a lot of free publicity,"

"I'm not a bridesmaid," I remind him.

"No you're not," He says with a smile. "But she has a showroom here in Chicago and she offered to let you pick out a dress,"

"You're kidding me," I say with a huge smile.

"Er," He tells me with a grin, "This is the American equivalent of a royal wedding, do you remember the news coverage of Abby and Graham's wedding? It's a big deal, there's been more than a few designers trying to get their clothes on you guys,"

"Since when did I start counting?" I say with a chuckle before taking another sip of my coffee.

"Good Morning America is when the calls starting coming in," He says with a wink, as I roll my eyes at the memory of that god awful segment yesterday. But really? That was less than 24 hours ago! I guess the world moves faster than I thought it did.

"Okay," I say pushing myself out of that wonderful dress induced dream that is apparently a reality. "I'm going to go get Nina,"

"Good luck," He calls after me as I drag my feet towards the closed door.

"Nina?" I say, knocking on the thick wooden door. I wait aher few seconds before rethinking my approach. I take a deep breath before opening the door. I breathe a sigh of relief as I realize that she's still in the bed, her long brown hair splayed out over the pillow as she starfishes across the entire bed.

"Nina," I say again, gently shaking her shoulder, trying to tread lightly as I still don't really know my place here. She replies with a slight groan. "C'mon," I urge. "Time for school,"

"Already?" She says with another groan, "It's too early,"

"It's 7," I tell her, "I already let you sleep in long enough."

"Fine," She replies, another groan almost twice as long this time. I have to stop myself from chuckling, knowing that I was probably twice as bad when I was 15.

"I want you dressed in the kitchen in ten minutes," I tell her, "We're leaving at 7:30," And with that I walk out, vowing to myself to check back in five minutes to make sure that she's actually moving.

"You got over the first hurdle," Jay says as I walk back into the kitchen.

"Now we just have to see if she actually gets up," I say with a groan.

"She will," He says as he rubs my shoulder. "I know I said I was against this last night and I still might be, but I'm proud of you for doing this. You're doing something really great for her,"

"I know," I say, looking up at him. "Also, my parents invited me over for dinner tomorrow night, do you want to come?"

"Are you going to bring the kid?" He asks me.

"I think so," I say, "I told her that she had to be home for dinner every night at 7, so I guess I'm taking her with me."

"Good," He says with a smile. "Hopefully that'll take some of the heat off of me,"

"My mom liked you," I reassure him.

"Oh I'm not worried about your mom," He says with a laugh, "But your dad, I'm scared shitless,"

"He's not that bad," I tell him. "Just be respectful and nice, you'll be fine."

"I'm having a hard time believing you, but I'll be there,"

"Good," I say, giving him a kiss on the cheek and pouring myself another cup of coffee. God knows that I'm going to need it to get me through the rest of this day. "Nina you better not still be in that bed!" I call over towards her room.

"I'm up, I'm up!" She calls back, her voice thick with sleep as I hear her feet hit the wooden floors.

"Let's hustle!" I call back to her.

"I'm going!" She yells back at me.

"Welcome to motherhood," Jay teases from across the island.

"Stop that," I tell him, shooting him a glare before grabbing a carton of strawberries from the fridge. I have no clue what she likes to eat, she seemed to like the pad thai last night, though that doesn't help me at all right now. Everyone likes strawberries and I haven't ever met a person who doesn't like bread or butter, so I'm hoping that toast and fruit is a solid bet.

"When are you starting work again?" I ask Jay as I wash off a few of the berries, grabbing a knife from the drawer next to me, slamming it shut with my hip and pulling a cutting board from the cabinet above me.

"Thursday," Jay tells me as I set everything down, twisting open the bag of bread and popping two slices into my toaster.

"Where's the office?" I ask him, cutting the tops off the berries.

"The Loop, corner of Michigan and Adams," He tells me.

"Good location," I reply, very much focused on making this breakfast at least mediocre. I already ate, it was just banana and a cup of coffee, but that's pretty usual for me.

"Yeah, but I think I'll probably be out of the office most days, doing meetings with clients all over the city."

"That'll be fun though," I offer, "you love it here and you haven't gotten to live back here in awhile, you'll get to hang out all over the city,"

"Yeah and work," He says with a laugh. "But I'm lucky they even hired me."

"They're lucky to have you," I assure him.

"Oh course you would say that," He says with a smirk as slide the sliced berries onto a plate, waiting for the toast to pop up. Jay and I continue to make small talk and drink coffee as I finish up Nina's breakfast, waiting impatiently for her to show her face.

"Well good morning sunshine," Jay says with a chuckle as Nina walks into the room, wearing a pair of cut off jean shorts and plain white t-shirt, a pair of worn red converse adoring her feet.

"Breakfast," I say, pushing a plate towards her spot at the counter as she awkwardly toys with the hem of her t-shirt.

"You made me breakfast?" She asks looking up at me surprised.

"Yeah," I say with a smile. I don't know how long she's going to be here, but I know that she's been through the ringer, so if I can make things better for her, I'm going to do it.