Dream Keeper (Dream Team 4)

So I could repeat it for eternity, and I’d never believe.

No, Augustus Hero was not a mistake.

The mistake would be if he took a chance on me.

Now that would be a mistake.

Huge.

Because I was a mess.

My family was a mess.

My ex was a mess.

There was only one thing that wasn’t a mess.

The home I gave my daughter.

And that was also the one thing I was determined never to make a mess.

Therefore, I had to do everything in my power to keep things good and safe and right for my girl.

Including denying myself a great guy named Auggie.

* * *

Juno

She’d messed up.

She’d sat at the big, round table in the corner of the coffee area of Fortnum’s Used Books.

This meant it was like she had a big light shining on her.

Or signs pointing at her.

Or whatever.

That was bad.

She wasn’t supposed to be noticed.

She should have hidden in the bookshelves. Or got close to someone else so the people that worked there would think she was with her mom or dad.

Making things worse, the ladies that worked there, she could tell, were moms.

Toe-tah-lee.

And that was also bad because you couldn’t pull things on moms. Moms figured stuff out.

And then there was the big, crazy-looking bearded guy behind the coffee counter.

Oh man.

Juno had a feeling that guy didn’t miss anything.

Including the fact she’d walked into the store by herself and sat by herself and she’d been there awhile.

Truth: she was tall for her age.

She was still only eight years old.

They all kept looking over at her.

They were going to ask her where her mom or dad were, she knew it.

Man…

Oh man.

He needed to get there.

Right away!

She couldn’t know he’d come.

Her mom and her mom’s friends talked (and they’d talked about him). Juno listened. It wasn’t like they acted like Juno was a baby and she couldn’t understand what they were saying, or they didn’t think she was important, so they forgot she was there. They were cool around her. Natural. Just them. And they thought Juno was cool too.

Unlike her dad (sometimes), her mom knew Juno was with it. She had a brain. She wasn’t a little kid anymore.

And she and her mom were a team.

They’d always been a team, but now that she was growing up, they were more of a team.

Like, Juno helped with the dishes, and sometimes even helped her mom cook.

And she kept her room tidy so her mom didn’t have to tell her to (anymore).

And when Juno asked, Mom began to teach her how to do the laundry. So Juno told her that when she did her own, she could also do her mom’s. After she said that, Mom gave her one of her big, tight hugs, so Juno knew that’d help out a lot.

Juno had gotten really good at dusting and she never (well, not never, but not as much as she used to) forgot to spray the shower with that after-shower spray her mom said helped keep the shower clean so she didn’t have to do it all the time and the glass would look all clear and pretty.

So Juno’s mom knew Juno could handle stuff.

It was just that Juno knew, in their team, her mom handled most of the big stuff.

Okay, that was because she was the adult. She was the mom.

The big stuff in life, Juno had learned, was not about forgetting the shower spray.

The thing was, there was a lot of stuff her mom had to handle.

Like, way more than other moms had to handle.

Which was why Juno was there, right then, at Fortnum’s.

It was why, a couple of days ago, she’d grabbed Auntie Ryn’s phone real fast when she’d put it down. Nabbed it before it shut off, doing this so Auntie Ryn wouldn’t see.

Doing this so she could run to the bathroom with it, find his phone number and write it down.

Why she’d sent the text she’d sent to that number half an hour ago.

A text to the guy she thought could help.

Because Juno knew her mom needed a break.

Juno’s mom, Pepper, needed a lot of stuff.

And Juno knew exactly what she needed.

Mom just wouldn’t go for it.

So Juno had decided she, Juno, was going to make her go for it.

Not in a mean way.

Hopefully, Mom wouldn’t even know it was happening.

But she couldn’t do it without a little help.

She couldn’t do it without him.

And she had this one chance to talk to him without her mom knowing…

If he came.

He had to come.

Uh-oh.

Oh no!

One of the moms that worked there was approaching. The blonde one. The one the crazy-looking guy kept calling “Loopy Loo,” which couldn’t be her name (but could be proof the crazy-looking guy was just plain crazy).

Juno was either going to have to get out of there, or she was going to have to lie to the blonde lady.