I walked up to Harold's door, intending to leave the muffins on the step since his car wasn't in the driveway. However, his front door was open with only the screen door blocking his house from the outside. Then I realized that there was very loud music coming from the basement. I let myself in, placed the muffins on the kitchen counter and ventured downstairs, calling out Harold's name to alert him of my presence. For a brief moment, I thought, What if she's here? But I realized I didn't care that much anymore. Harold was my friend, and I planned to do whatever I could to preserve our friendship.

When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I was startled to see two teenage boys dancing around like maniacs and laughing.

“Oh!” I said. “I'm sorry, I thought Harold was down here.”

The boys were clearly startled by my presence as well. One of them scrambled to turn off the deafening music. And then he strode over to me with his hand outstretched. “Hello, I'm Charlie.”

The other one stood where he was, looking like a deer in the headlights, and said, “I'm Harry.”

“Oh, hello! Harold told me you were coming! I'm Lise. I live next door. I brought a basket of blueberry muffins over.”

“Blueberry?” Charlie asked.

“Sure. Don't they have blueberries in England?”

“Not that I'm aware of.”

“Well, try one,” I encouraged them. “I have to get back home, my girls are napping.” I headed to the stairs, but stopped and added as an afterthought, “Why don't you come over and go swimming later? It's awfully hot outside today.”

They both said they'd love to and that they would come over in about an hour.

I got the girls up from their naps, dressed them in their swimsuits and sprayed on the sunscreen just in time to meet the boys in the back yard. They were more than ready to swim, apparently. Charlie dove in the moment his feet hit the concrete. Harry, on the other hand, came over to meet my girls. Harold did say that his younger son loved children.

“This is Rachael,” I said. “And here are Aurora and Grace.”

He squatted down to their level and said, “Hello, I'm Harry.”

“Mr. Styles is their dad,” I told my girls.

“You're a grown up and you have a daddy?” Aurora asked incredulously.

Harry laughed and I replied, “I'm a grown up, and Grandma and Grandpa are my mommy and daddy, remember?”

“Oh, yeah!” she said, playfully smacking her forehead, which earned another hearty laugh from Harry.

Then Harry yelled to his brother, “Get over here and greet our hosts, you dolt!”

Charlie joined us, already dripping wet, and I made the introductions again.

“Swim!” Grace demanded, grabbing Charlie's hand. She was my little water baby, for sure. I couldn't keep her out of the pool for anything. She was clearly glad to have a swim buddy. Charlie laughed and jumped in alongside her.

Harry turned to Aurora and asked, “Do you want to swim, too?”

She nodded excitedly. Harry stepped into the pool and held his arms out for Aurora. She rolled her eyes at him and said, “I can jump!” She shooed him back, away from the wall of the pool so he could watch how high she jumped.

I threw a towel over my shoulder and nursed Rachael while they all got acquainted. The boys were strikingly similar to their father in looks. They both had the same smile and the same dimples as Harold. Charlie's hair was a bit lighter than Harry's dark brown locks, but both of them had wild curls. Harold always kept his hair close cut, but I had still noticed his bit of curl, especially when it got humid outside.

They were both acting crazy and swimming around with my girls like they were little kids again. I had a warm feeling in my heart, happy to see my girls with “older brothers.”

Harry and Charlie weren't anything like what I had expected. Silly me, I assumed they would come dressed in ties and blazers with private school insignia emblazoned across the front and they would speak with very proper British accents. Oh, they had British accents all right, but they were far from the image I had projected in my brain.

Charlie was ripped, like he had lifted weights or something. I couldn't help but stare at his muscular biceps and triceps. Harry was muscular, too, but more lean. What surprised me most about him was that his torso and arms were riddled with tattoos. To be completely honest – and probably quite culturally insensitive – I had no idea people even got tattoos in England! The most prominent of Harry's tattoos was the butterfly across his chest.

Now there's a kid who's confident in his masculinity, I thought.

I couldn't deny that both boys were attractive, just like their father, but heavens, I didn't expect them to be so attractive! There were surely going to be some broken hearts over at the schools that the boys would be attending.

Rachael finished nursing and wiggled around until I sat her up in my lap. As soon as Harry noticed that she was done, he came over and asked if he could take her in the pool. I fastened her sunhat around her neck and off she went. I couldn't decide whether I just wanted to sit back and watch my girls playing with their new “friends,” or if I actually wanted to swim.

Grace left me no choice, yelling, “Mommy, swim!”

I stood up and hesitantly removed my cover up. I was wearing my tankini, but I had the same uneasy feeling as I did the day I met Harold, just not completely comfortable having people see me in my swimsuit. I quickly got into the pool to avoid drawing too much attention to myself. I swam directly to Rachael, thinking she would want to come back to me, but she was happy as a clam in Harry's arms while Aurora and Grace playfully wrestled with Charlie.

I swam a few laps and then just floated along on my back with my eyes closed. I was startled by Aurora splashing a giant wave of water over my face. I thrashed around, sunk down and sprung back up right next to her, making her giggle with delight. We all got into a huge splashing fight, but when Rachael started whining, Harry took her out of the pool and dried her off. I had never seen her take to someone so quickly, but she and Harry seemed to have already formed a bond.

After swimming, I invited the boys to stay for some snacks. They gratefully accepted. I didn't realize how late it was getting until I went inside to get the food. It was almost dinner time! I quickly pulled some chicken out of the freezer, intending to go back and start thawing it as soon as we were finished snacking.

I went back outside and placed the juice, cheese and crackers on the patio table. I handed Rachael a teething biscuit, warning Harry, “She'll make a mess with that. You can put her in the bouncy seat if you want to.” He declined, saying he didn't care if she got him a little messy.

It wasn't long before I heard Harold's voice carrying across the lawn. He made his way over, pleasantly surprised to see that his sons had already met the neighbors. They made light conversation for several minutes, Harold asking if the boys had gotten settled in, and the boys asking their dad how work was.

Suddenly, Charlie piped up. “May I cook dinner for all of us?”

I thought to myself, What is going on? These boys are too good to be true! They love my girls, they want to hang out with us and now they want to cook for us.

Still suspicious, I smiled and said, “Absolutely! I'm thawing some chicken – is that okay?”

“Sure, we can grill it out here, if you don't mind,” Charlie replied. I offered to make a salad to go with it and we got to work.

I hurried into the house to get changed and came back to find Harold standing in my kitchen, while everyone else was still outside.

“Hey,” I said, feeling a bit uneasy.

“Hello,” he smiled. “I'm sorry things ended awkwardly when we went out,” he said sincerely.

“Yeah, me too,” I replied.

“Can we go back to being friends?” He asked hopefully. Well, it was obvious that he no longer wanted to pursue a romantic relationship. I breathed a small sigh of relief to know that our friendship wasn't damaged beyond repair.

“Of course,” I told him, stepping in to give him a friendly hug.

The men went to work getting the chicken ready to grill while I worked on the salad. I started to wonder if Rachael would ever need me again when Harry walked through the sliding glass doors with a whiny baby.

“I think someone needs her mummy,” he said, handing her over to me.

I wiped my hands on my apron and said, “She probably wants to nurse. I'll be just a minute.”

I went toward the living room with Harry calling after me, "May I help with the salad?”

“Yes, please. Could you finish cutting the cucumbers and carrots?” Then I leaned back against the couch, letting Rachael latch on while I closed my eyes.

Dinner was sublime and the conversation was light and pleasant. Near the end of the meal, I turned to Harold and said, “Your sons have really impressed me today, playing with my girls all afternoon and now cooking dinner. I might want to hire them!”

Harry and Charlie both murmured a polite thank you to my compliment, but Harold took over, saying, “I give all the credit to their mother. She was one in a million and it's apparent that she taught them well.”

Charlie nodded, but Harry got a funny look on his face, almost like he was angry. Harold didn't notice, but I tried to decipher it without Harry noticing. I pulled my attention away from him and asked, “What was your wife's name?”

Amelia,” Harold responded.

Oh, that's Rachael's middle name, too!” I raised my wine glass and made a toast, “To Amelia!”

Hear! Hear!” The Styles men all responded, clinking their glasses together. Aurora and Grace giggled as they tried to clink their plastic cups with our wine glasses.

"I would have loved to meet Amelia. She did a fantastic job,” I smiled. Harry looked at me and grinned, showing the deep dimples that he shared with his father and brother.

After dinner was cleared away, Harold invited all of us over to his back yard. “I haven't had a chance to use the firepit yet. And we have to enjoy the lovely patio furniture that Lise helped me to pick out.”

I got the girls into their pajamas, just in case they fell asleep by the fire. When we arrived, Charlie was building a fire while Harry strummed on a guitar. It looked like he was still getting it tuned, but soon he began playing and he was quite good. Charlie finished building the fire, and then sat down and started to sing along with Harry. They both had amazing voices, and Charlie seemed obsessed with keeping the rhythm by drumming on everything in sight with his hands.

Another reason for the girls to be falling all over themselves when they meet these boys, I thought to myself. As soon as they start making friends at school, we'll never see them again!

Harold joined us by the fire but he didn't stay long. He excused himself and went inside after a short while.

Charlie, Harry, the kids and I stayed outside for hours, singing songs, telling stories and getting to know one another. Sure enough, Grace fell asleep on a chaise lounger next to Charlie, and Aurora was starting to drift off next to Harry. Rachael had fallen asleep hours ago and and I had already put her into her crib and I had brought the baby monitor outside with me.

“Well, it looks like it's time for bed,” I said quietly.

I told Aurora that she would have to walk home because I could only carry Grace, but she protested, saying, “I want Harry to carry me.”

“Aurora, you're a big girl, you can-”

“I can carry her, that's fine,” Harry interrupted me.

"Thank you,” I said, and I picked up little sleeping Grace. I said goodnight to Charlie and thanked him for cooking and entertaining us.

Harry followed me to the girls' room and set Aurora on her bed. I laid Grace down and covered her up and she didn't even flinch.

But Aurora said, “I want Harry to read me a bedtime story!”

I could tell that Harry was about to say that he would, but I said, “No, Aurora, that's enough. We heard lots of stories and sang lots of songs outside. It's time to sleep.”

I walked Harry back to the door and said, “Thank you so much. You've already made quite an impression on my girls.”

They're great,” he smiled, waving a goodnight as he walked back to his house.