.

"Okay so why the stickers on the girls? I didn't play football... I didn't play any sports. Morgan played Volleyball freshmen year but quit halfway through the season. It could just be a coincidence. Maybe she liked football players."

"It's so odd that she has these old yearbooks though, Gabs." Sydney begins writing down the names of all the females on the list on the other half of the paper. I don't know why but it makes me uncomfortable that I have a sticker. I don't understand. "I think we should go back and show Jax."

My eyes roll. "No."

"This could be really important. That was a lot of names for them all to have that in common. I'm not kidding, Gabby. We need to go back."

Sydney grabs the yearbooks and begins stacking them. I have no desire to go back and see Jax again today. I don't feel like having my mental breakdown in front of him. Plus then I have to bring Zo with me again. Then I get my idea.

"Yep, you're right. Let's go see Jax. But we need to drive around first."

"Okay...?"

<><><>

It takes a half hour of driving circles around town before my daughter is sleeping in the backseat of the car. We park the car in our own driveway and then Sydney and I walk across the street with Zo in my arms. Sue let's us back into the house after a few knocks on the door.

"Awe she's tuckered. You can put her on the couch if you'd like." Sue motions to the living room.

I ignore her and dart towards the hallway. I don't even bother to knock, I open his door. He's sitting on his bed, lost in the pages of some book with his earbuds in. Then his head lifts and his eyes grow as he sees me holding Zooey.

"Books, what are you doing?" He tugs the buds from his ears and shuts the book. He looks completely panicked right now but I know this is for the best.

"I'm making my own decision. You need to know her. She's sleeping. Stand up."

He gets out of the bed quickly, his eyes don't leave Zo. "Gabby, she can sleep in Court's room..." He thinks I'm going to set her in his bed but he's mistaken. I hand her right to him, placing her into his arms. I know how she sleeps, she's not waking up anytime soon. Her little arms automatically wrap around his neck and her head rests below his chin. Her whole body rises and falls with his chest as his rapid breathing begins. The look of complete terror washes from his face the moment she nuzzles in closer to him. His eyes close and he places a light kiss on her hair.

"Now tell me that you don't want to know her. Tell me that you can walk away from her again. She wants a dad, she wants you. Her day was made today because she got to read on the same porch where her dad used to read. Act like you don't love me, I can handle it. Love her! Because if you do the same to her, that I can't handle."

He frowns and places his cheek against her head. "I don't want to hurt her." He whispers. "I love her, Gabby. I'm terrified something will happen to her because of me."

I smile at him. "That's called being a parent. Trust me. She terrifies me too. I get that you're not ready to tell her and we can talk about that. But don't leave again without knowing her. She loves you too."

He nods and gives her another kiss. I feel like I could melt right here. Seeing him hold Zooey is something I never thought would be a possibility again. It baffles me that we can agree that he loves her and she has love for him but we can't seem to say that to each other. If only one of us can have Jax, I want that to be Zo.

"Sydney thinks she figured out something about the yearbooks. That's also why we are here."

"Okay" he nods and walks out of the room with his baby in his arms.

Melting.

I follow them out to the living room where Sydney once again is spread out all over the floor with yearbooks and notes. She looks up to Jax with Zo and gets a big smile. "Hey did your sister have a thing for football players?"

"No?" His eyebrow lifts as he sits on the couch. "Felix was the first. She typically did not like anyone who played sports."

Sydney rolls her eyes towards me. "Well there goes that idea."

"Why?" He readjusts his daughter so that she's sitting in his arms. She nuzzles in close again and his facial expression shows just how much he's loving this.

"Every guy with a sticker was on the varsity football team. But we don't know how the girls tie in. Gabby never played sports."

He chuckles. "That doesn't surprise me in the least."

I smack him in the arm as he laughs.

"So why would your sister be putting stickers on football players that she never met?"

"I have no clue. Understanding my sister's mind was a task in itself. Her mood swings, her obsessions, the guys she liked, her friends, the music she liked, all of it changed weekly."

Sydney pulls out her notepad and begins writing her notes. She was always the better student. Maybe I should have paid a little more attention in school. I peer over to her paper and see she's writing date ranges by weeks.

"What was your sister like the week she died?"

He shrugs. "Paranoid. She told me that we were in danger and couldn't trust anyone in town. She was crying a lot."

"So maybe stickered people are people she thought she couldn't trust?"

"No." Jax shakes his head. "She trusted Gabby. Only Gabby and I."

"Maybe they were people she trusted? I mean Felix was her boyfriend, Morgan was her friend, Kane was her boss, Lily was her friend..."

Sydney shakes her head no. "No that still doesn't work. There's still people on here that she didn't know. And couldn't have known. What about the weeks prior to that, Jax? What was she like."

"Jesus, I don't remember. She hung out with Lily a lot after her assault. When we came here, Court was like a whole new person. She was happy again. Then that assembly happened and Gabby's assault came to light and then she was trying to help Lily with hers... she got really down again. Every time she would come home from Lily's house she was upset. It got so bad that my parents would take her on long trips so that she wouldn't do anything stupid. Then she'd come home and be fine again. Except the last time she hung out with Lily and that's when her manic episodes started."

"Okay, well I just hear a whole lot of Lily in there." Sydney scribbles down her notes frantically.

I heard it a lot too. But I mean I knew everything he just told us. Courtney was just helping Lily get over her rape. It put her into a funk. I remember her needing to take those trips and even Courtney said that she felt better whenever she got home.

"I doubt Lily has anything to do with this. Court was just helping her." It's like Jax reads my thoughts out loud. I nod in agreement with him.

"Yeah, but she also has a sticker. So whatever this yearbook thing is, she's part of it. Where is she living now? She doesn't live in town."

I shrug. I have no clue where any of my classmates ended up. With the exception of Cole, Morgan and Tyler.

"Facebook stalk her" Sydney hands me her phone.

I hand it back. "I don't have Facebook. I happen to like people not knowing where I am. And before you ask Jax, I'm going to assume he doesn't have one either."

"Correct." He chuckles. "Could you imagine how many people would shit themselves if I attempted to friend-request them?"

I laugh at the thought of Jax attempting to add someone like Tyler as a Facebook friend. I'd pay to see that reaction.

"When you come out of hiding someday, please let that be the way you tell Felix..." Sydney laughs. "He deserves it for being an ass to you. We could have so much fun with it. Employment? Reaper."

We all burst out laughing without thinking. Zo stirs in Jax's lap as he freezes. Her little eyes flicker open and look to me, then to Syd, then up to Jax.

"Hey" he chokes out.

My eyes gloss over as my hand comes to my mouth. Shit, he wasn't ready. Now what do I do?

I tell her he's my friend. I'll just use his middle name. "Zo, that's... Alphonse." I don't like lying to her, but I really can't have her going back and telling everyone that she met her dad or that she met someone named Jax if he's still trying to hide. If he was leaving again, that's different. I'd rather have miles between us and this town with her knowing him. At least until Court's killer is caught, which could be never. So long as he doesn't leave without being truthful to her, this is okay.

He lets out a long sigh and smiles. "I'm a friend of mommy's."

"I'm Zooey" she rubs her sleepy green eyes as as Jax smiles.

She immediately begins talking his ear off. She tells him all about how we are at this house to try on my dress and how I'm getting married this weekend. She tells him about home, and all the books she's been reading. He tells her that he's read those same books and they discuss them before he offers to make her pancakes for dinner. It amazes me how quickly they take to each other. Sydney and I just sit back and watch it unfold.

"It's like she knows," Sydney whispers. She's right. She wasn't scared at all to wake up in his arms. She doesn't sleep like that with Kane, just me.

I turn back to them and watch him lift her up to the counter. He measures ingredients and allows her to dump them into the bowl. I didn't even know he could cook. He's come a long way since Lunchables and fruit snacks. At home we just buy the mix and stir some water into it, drop it on the griddle and boom, you have pancakes.

We take the yearbooks and throw them up onto the island and sit on the stools to watch him ladle out circles of batter into the skillet.

"What are those?" Zo points to the yearbooks.

"Yearbooks. They are books that you get when you go to school with everyone's picture in them. Wanna see mom in high school?" Sydney asks.

My eyes roll. "Let's not relive my senior year."

"I want to see!" Zo yells and takes the book from Sydney. She carefully flips through the pages. She tries to find me on every page, which she doesn't, proving again that I was pretty antisocial senior year.

"Oh! There's mommy and Kane!" She points to a picture of us at prom. Jax says nothing, doesn't even turn to look at the picture.

"Yep." I go back to watching him cook.

"Why do you have a purple star on your picture?" She rubs her finger over the sticker.

"Good question," Syd mutters beneath her breath.

"Because I'm awesome. You only get one of those if you are as cool as mommy."

Jax laughs. "Right. Keep telling yourself that, Books."

I get up from my stool, reach over him and tear a piece of pancake from the stack of finished ones, then toss it into my mouth. "I will, Alfie." His pancakes are seriously delicious and now my daughter is going to be spoiled. "I'm going to need to make pancakes from scratch now. You realize this right? She's in for a treat and I can't match that."

"Guess I get the purple star then." He sticks his tongue out playfully.

"He gets a purple star too." Zo points to a picture in the book. "He must be awesome too. The only two purple stars."

I glance down at the book and do a double take. She's pointing at Tyler.

"Zo, let me see the book." It comes out as a demand.

"I wasn't finished..."

"Da- Alfonse," I catch my slip, "has a pancake for you. I need to see the book for a few minutes. Then you can have it back."

Sydney and Jax are both looking at me like I'm crazy. I snag Sydney's notepad, flip to a new page and begin taking my own notes. Only this time, I'm focused more on the stickers. It's not necessarily that someone has a sticker, it's what the sticker is. I write my name with Tyler's name and write purple star beside it. Then I begin doing the same for everyone else's names. There are only two of each sticker. And even I'm finished, there is a pairing of one boy with one girl, with a matching sticker.

I hold up the paper and Jax and Sydney both stare at it. "What's the one thing that connected me to Tyler senior year?"

"Your assault?" Jax lifts a brow.

I look down at the paper again. Morgan and Felix share a sticker of Nick Carter. I point it out to Sydney. "No way." She shakes her head disagreeing. "They just slept together for the first time during Cole's wedding!"

"Cole is married?" Jax asks.

"No," Syd and I both day in unison.

"You two are creepy when you do that."

I pull out my phone and select Morgan's name and hit speaker. "Don't talk, Alfie." He nods and leans against the counter looking down at the phone.

"Hey bridezilla, what's up?" Morgan's voice booms through the tiny speaker.

"Hey are you with Cole right now?" I need to make sure she will be honest with me. She won't say this around Cole. "Or anyone else?"

"No, why?"

"I need to ask you something and you need to be completely honest with me Morgz."

"Okay?"

"Did you sleep with Felix in high school?" The line gets quiet. Too quiet. "Morgan?"

"How did you know that? Did he seriously tell you?"

"Best friend intuition," I look up to Jax and his eyes are huge looking down at the paper now. "Morgan was it..." how do I even ask this? "Was it consensual? Or was it just him that wanted it?"

"It was freshmen year. He was my best friend's hot older brother Gabs, I wanted it. So did he. He took me home one night, he kissed me and it led to a lot more." She giggles as Sydney and I cringe. "Jesus don't tell Cole okay? He's still pissed about me saying it during truth or dare. I know I'd be pissed if I heard that he had slept with your slutty sister more than once..."

Sydney's jaw drops and I end the call as quickly as I can before she starts yelling. "I'm going to beat the shi-"

I cover her mouth with my hand. "There are young ears in here, Aunt Sydney." She licks my hand to get me to remove it. "Gross! Brat!" I wipe my hand on her shirt.

"Children!" Jax yells.

"What?" We again say in unison as we turn back to him.

He's holding the list up and pointing to it. "I think our six year old just cracked Courtney's code..."