"Nils, how about you and Rune bring in the rest of our stuff?" Sydney volunteers them. As soon as they've stepped out of the kitchen, she turns to me as she picks up the Margarita Rune poured for her, "Where's my baby daddy?"

"I'm pretty sure he's working on their barn until dinner," I tell her, sipping my drink. It's strong, but I'm glad. I'm going to need it. We all are.

"Whew, perfect! I need time to prepare after our wild ride," she says, opening one of the bags of potato chips she bought and holding it out to me.

"Have you told Nils who his real father is yet?" I ask, taking a few chips.

"No! Just that a crazy man, an old friend of mom's is trying to get back at Rune for exposing the truth about him," she exclaims, taking a few chips herself, "I tried, I did, but I just couldn't find the words. And don't give me that look when you're so obviously happy and getting some. Oh my God, you and Rune are PLs forever," she laughs, squeezing my arm, "And I love your hair."

"Don't change the subject," I whisper tersely as Rune and Nils come back in and head straight up the stairs, "You've got to tell him before he meets Gunnar tonight. And how are Rune and I pathetic losers for getting together? He didn't leave a hickey on me or anything, I checked," I say, narrowing my eyes at her as I take another chip.

The PLs was a nickname she and Gunnar, and even their Aunt Sally, used to call us when we were kids. It was so annoying.

"Oh shit, is that what I told you PL stood for? Sometimes I could be as mean as Mom," Syd cackles a laugh so loud she covers her hand with her mouth, she's obviously running on adrenaline.

"Yes, you could," I agree with a grimace.

"It didn't mean pathetic losers," Syd tells me, continuing to laugh, taking another large sip of her drink and refilling her glass from the pitcher, "Aunt Sally made it up. It stood for perpetual lovebirds."

"Seriously?" I scoff, "That's a bit much."

"I love you, Shells, but you've always been a bit obtuse regarding Ruination and his adoration of you. Am I downstairs or up?" she asks, moving into the living room and picking up a suitcase.

"Downstairs," I tell her, following, annoyed and delighted with the nickname of perpetual lovebirds.

"Thanks, I need to jump in the shower and put my aching head and shoulders under steam," Syd tells me disappearing into the downstairs bedroom.

**

All things considered, dinner's going well. The tacos are popular, the Margaritas even more so. The kids are both being shy but warming up to each other slowly. Rune covers any awkward silences. After years of being interviewed, he's apparently learned some good lessons. He keeps lobbing interested questions at Sydney and Nils about their trip from California or Gunnar and Lorelei about the visit to their cousins as if he's a seasoned talk show host.

Both Sydney and Gunnar are avoiding eye contact with each other. I hope the kids aren't picking up on it as much as I am. Lorelei's so preoccupied with the idea of the horses that she's probably easier to fool than she'd usually be.

I've only touched lightly on looking for the key, but I've asked the kids to help me search for a "key book" first thing tomorrow morning. The main topic of conversation, the one to help us avoid the elephant in the room, is the rescue horses.

"That seems like a stupid and mean thing to do," Nils says after Lorelei's caught us all up on how the Borstad cousins have just two months to find the rescue horses homes because of their neighbor's sudden passing, "Why would anyone buy a horse and then not take care of it?"

"Of course, it is," Lorelei huffs, "but some people are mean, or sometimes they lose their jobs, or someone gets too old or sick, or they die," she adds with dramatic flair.

"So, you're going to take three or four? What about the rest?" Sydney asks Lorelei and Gunnar, glancing at him for only the briefest nanosecond.

I'm only sitting next to her, and I pick up on the uncomfortably electric jolt that snaps between them. Rune squeezes my knee reassuringly under the table.

"It's a tough deadline to find fifteen mostly old horses forever homes and veterinary," Gunnar admits. His long fingers, which are so much like Rune's, tease the ends of his short beard, "But Stella and Torsten know a lot of the horse people on the Olympic Peninsula, and she was pleased to hear about your network with ReWild," he tells me.

"They both love your idea of the coloring page to help tell the story," Lorelei pipes up.

"Rune has an even better idea," I tell her, "He thinks Horse Girls Heroes should help raise money to find them homes."

"Really?" Lorelei claps with excitement, "That would be amazing!"

"That's brilliant," Syd agrees, raising her glass to Rune, and they clink, "on so many levels."

"Hey, Pup," Gunnar says suddenly to Lorelei as he checks his watch, "If you want to invite Nils to see the movie Rune picked out, you'd better do it now."

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

**

"Any more updates on the devil we know," Gunnar asks after the kids are safely ensconced in Syd's room.

Rune has set them up to watch the classic Viggo Mortensen film Hidalgo about the Mustang who wins the famous Sahara endurance race. I wish I was in there watching with them instead of out here for this difficult conversation.

"Three articles posted to smaller celebrity gossip sites this am that our dad found," I tell him, "They're all about Rune and 'a fan' being in a custody battle with you over Lorelei."

"He's expanded since then," Gunnar says, his voice deceptively light, "friends have started to contact me in concern."

"Oh no," I wince as both Rune and Syd swear under their breaths, "Obviously, he never had any intention of keeping a deal with our mom."

"Nope, the man's certifiable," Gunnar says, "I need to be out of here between nine and noon tomorrow so Jenna can come and pick up her stuff. I can't handle one more conversation with her at the moment. Her optimistic philosophy is failing her," his light blue eyes rest on Sydney, "She's losing it with the news that I have a surprise child."

Syd winces but stares at her drink.

"I'll deal with her," Rune says as the two men exchange a look.

"I'll go pick up the skeleton keys," Gunnar says, "and take Pup to get your birthday present."

"Would you mind taking Nils with you?" Sydney asks carefully, glancing at him under her lashes, "So he's not here when Jenna comes by, and Shelby and I can work on some sort of response strategy to Franklin?"

"Have you told Nils anything?" Gunnar asks.

"Not yet," Syd sighs, shaking her head and running her hands through her hair.

"Christ, Syd," Gunnar says sharply, "he's probably read about it already on the Internet." This time, staring straight at her. I'm glad he's not mad at me. He's such an angry iceberg.

"He promised not to look online, but yes, I know. I'm sorry. I've fucked up royally about this, but I don't want Nils to pay," she tells Gunnar sounding like she truly is sorry, "I just need to have my head in a better place first. It's been a bad several months."

"You can't control this," Gunnar sighs in a way that sounds like it's an old argument about something else when he sees she's close to tears, and bites back whatever else he was going to say.

"I think we need to create an alternative narrative," I say to everyone quickly, reaching out to take Rune's hand as I do.

"Taking a play out of Dad's playbook?" Syd says with a sniff, nodding, before finishing her drink and pushing it aside, "That might work."

"What does that mean for those of us who don't have your fancy education?" Gunnar asks tiredly.

"We give the legit media something to bite on besides whatever lies Franklin and Pamela are drumming up," Syd tells him, raising her chin as if it's a dare, "If you both agree, Shelby and I can come up with some specific ideas on strategy tomorrow."

"Okay," Gunnar nods, standing, picking up his plate and the now-empty Margarita pitcher, "That's better than my plan to jump on the next flight to go break Franklin's knees with a sledgehammer."

**

"I think I understand why you didn't let Gunnar know initially. He wanted to travel, and you wanted to finish school and settle down, but why didn't you tell him later on?" I ask Syd as she, Rune, and I are finishing up the last of the kitchen duty, "I mean, Gunnar's doing so well…"

"I just couldn't; it's hard to face being so in the wrong," Syd says, drying the glass taco platter that's too long and fragile to put in the dishwasher with a bit more vigor than necessary, "I knew the clock was ticking with DNA testing becoming all the rage, but honestly, I was still too afraid of Mom's wrath until she made such a debacle of things in Ventura for me."

"She still dislikes us that much?" Rune asks, looking very unhappy.

"Oh, you were in her better graces for a while when Franklin bragged about you as his very successful protege."

"But I'm sure still not good enough for her daughters," Rune adds knowingly. I hate that he and Gunnar know this about my snobby mother, snobby parents really.

"No," Sydney admits as we migrate into the living room to finish our conversation. Rune and I plop onto the couch, Syd in one of the armchairs. "When Gunnar and I finally called it quits the last time right after filming that commercial, I got back together with Bill, who is so impressive on paper but alas more married to his mother than he ever could be to me."

"Ouch," Rune says, "I don't feel so bad."

"Yeah, it was fun to experience the 'not good enough' medicine while living in Ventura. Being so up close and personal, instead of a couple of hours away, I found out Bill's family thought I was quite step down for him from his high school girlfriend. Of course, they only let me know this after I helped save their beloved bike empire during Covid."

"Why in the world weren't you good enough for Bill?" I scoff, tucking my chilled feet under Rune's legs.

"Where shall I begin?" Sydney asks darkly, starting to count on her fingers, "My business degree is from UCLA, not USC, and partially from junior college credits. My MBA is an online degree. Bill and I never married, and oh yes, my parents are creatives, and my mom overdresses for every occasion. When they find out about Nils not being Bill's child that will be quite a fireworks show I'm sure."

"But doesn't Bill's family just own bike shops?" Rune asks, looking confused.

"But they're third-generation bike shops, and they all have degrees from Stanford," Syd kicks off her elegant sandals and curls up her feet, "The palpable jealousy in the air whenever Mom and Bill's mom were in a room together was a delight to behold. Bill's mom was the belle of the ball until mom showed up."

"As much as I dislike your mother, that must have been something to experience," Rune laughs with her.

"Rune, do you have your phone?" I ask him. I must have left mine back in the kitchen.

"Yes," he takes it out of his pocket.

"Will you pull up our mom's video?" he nods and starts scrolling, "I think we figured out the real reason Mom doesn't like Gunnar and Rune," I tell Sydney as Rune passes her his phone.

"I haven't seen this in years," Sydney says as One More Midnight with You begins to play.

"Notice anything?"

"You mean that whoever this hot guy Mom's dancing with looks like a combo of Gunner and Rune, but more Rune," Syd says, not taking her eyes of Rune's phone.

"Exactly," I say, "I think this guy may be part of the puzzle. I don't think this video is the love letter to Mom the way we were always told; I think it's to this guy."

"Oh shit," Syd laughs low, watching the video intently for a few moments, "You're right."

"The podcast research team is trying to track him down," Rune tells us, "But they're having a hard time finding anything."

"Rune, are all of the men in the lawsuit blond like this guy and, well, this pretty?" Sydney asks.

"Yes, different shades of blond, all blue-eyed, all in some form of entertainment, most actors but not all, all have been Franklin's protegees of some form or another over the years," Rune takes his phone back from Sydney.

"But you're naturally a strawberry blond with green eyes," I say, "so you shouldn't fit his type."

"Yeah, well, Franklin figured out how to get around that loophole by encouraging me to dye my hair and to wear blue contacts when I went on auditions. That's when I started seriously booking roles, and unfortunately, started to hero-worship him."