Page 7 of Worthy of Sunsets and Second Chances

At all.

I hate him.

He is enemy number one.

I have to be around him because my best friend is getting married to his best friend.

Visiting Fox Grove was what kept me going when I was young. Mom was so sick for so long, years before she died. She wanted me to have the summers with her own mother here, and I was happy to get away from the sadness, sickness, and heaviness of my own house. It always made me feel so selfish to want the respite from my life, but the peace I got once I was here was not worth staying behind. So I kept coming back year after year. And once Mom was gone, well then coming here felt like a whole different kind of lifeline.

Books are a perfect, encompassing escape for me, which started when I was very young. One of my favorite things to do in Fox Grove was go to the library. It was there that I met a girl around my age, Hannah Hargrove. She was taller than me, had long brown hair, electric-blue eyes, and a welcoming smile. Her laugh made me laugh. We became instant friends, and I wanted to get back to the library as much as possible to see her—which was often since Nana worked there and Hannah’s own mother did part-time work in the summers as well. She had two little sisters . . . and an older brother, Eli.

Eli was two years older and immediately made my stomach swoop when I saw him. The dimple on his cheek made my mouth dry as he smiled at me when Hannah introduced us the first time. He was polite, but otherwise left us alone most of the time.

I stole glances at him over the pages of my books as frequently as I could, every summer, for years. He grew older, more mature, more muscular, more sure of himself. Everyone saw him as the happiest guy in the room, the one with the biggest personality, a confidence that pulled you in . . . but I could see that he was masking something. Hiding pain under all the silliness, heartbreaking smiles, golden retriever energy, and cocky swagger he was so good at. I knew all about masks. I put one firmly into place every time I came to Fox Grove. As I got older, I started to spend more time with other kids and socializing a little bit when I was here, but not even Hannah knew the full story about my mom, and she was my closest friend. I never wanted to rip off the bandage and merge the two parts of my life.

The summer I was nineteen and Eli was twenty-one, back from college for the summer—everything changed. Hannah was gone, working at summer camp. I happily helped Nana around the library and had a front-row view of Eli doing volunteer work for her as some college credit requirement, building a set of huge, new bookshelves on the back wall. The romance section had collapsed and needed to be replaced.

Every day Eli would come work, muscles on display in a cutoff T-shirt, holes so big my entire body could slip through the sides. I never understood why guys even bothered with a shirt at that point, but I certainly wasn’t going to sign a petition to make them stop. Tool belt, work boots, backward baseball hat, sweat, manual labor—all of it looked sooo good on him. And it was all for the love of books. Swoon.

Add on to that the fact that Eli was actually looking at me that summer. Not just a passing glance of an annoying sister’s friend. No, he looked at me. His deep blue eyes went a little wide with surprise when he walked into the library to see me standing there the first day, followed by the classic dimpled smile that made my legs feel shaky. But then he gave me some of that cocky swagger, attention, and flirty lines I had watched him work on so many other girls, but never me. His teasing quips that he’d shared equally with me and Hannah over the years became something totally different that summer . . .

“Did you hear what I said?” Sutton asks, snapping me out of my memories.

“Sorry, can you repeat that?” I blush.

“Can you help me pack up some things that Eli is going to need? I saved everything from when Kinsley was little, so I know that we will have him more than covered with all the clothes and stuff. That way he can try to settle in with the baby and not worry about anything else.” Sutton heads to her spare room, me tagging along close behind.

“Sure no problem.” Huge problem. I feel like I’m going to be sick.

Sutton’s stuff is very organized, everything is labeled, stacked, and easy to find. Of course it is; I had helped her put everything away. Organizing and bossing people around are two of my favorite things to do, and my friends use it to their advantage. We pull all the newborn things, her old nursing pillow, bassinet, an extra diaper bag, and ten other items she insists we need that I wouldn’t even think of. I love babies, know some things about them, but the trenches of parenthood teach you what you need much more than just observing.

Kinsley is spending the night at her grandparents’ house, so us girls are free to head up to the hospital with all this stuff. Lainey finished cleaning up while we loaded everything into Sutton’s car, then we headed out. When I slipped behind the wheel of my car, hands shaking, falling in line behind Sutton’s and Lainey’s cars, I felt like I was joining in on a funeral procession.

I hate this day. So fucking much.

6

Eli

“You have a very healthy little girl.” The pediatric ER doctor on call today smiles down at the little baby on the examination table.

My stomach is in knots. “Well, um, we don’t know yet . . . if she is mine though, right?”

“We took your DNA samples as soon as you came in, Mr. Hargrove. The lab is not as busy as it normally is, and we put a special rush on the rapid test since this is such an unusual situation. We will have the results for you within the next hour or so. We also have your blood draws being tested for a more in-depth screening, and those can take a few days. But the rapid test is 99.998% accurate. I know that this is difficult. Just sit tight and enjoy the baby snuggles while you wait.” The older man smiles up at me, like he is a wise owl from a folk tale passing on sage wisdom.

My whole life is potentially being flipped upside down, and he is telling me to just enjoy snuggling a baby that may or may not be mine, that was shoved into my life unexpectedly? Just at that moment, the five-pound-nine-ounce creature starts to wail and my heart splits open.

I can’t fucking stand it when she is upset.

I quickly wrap her back up in her soft blanket, scoop her into my arms, and hug her to my bare chest. I took off my navy-blue Fox Grove Fire Department T-shirt while we waited for the doctor to come in. She is so tiny I can use one hand to cup her body and neck to me securely. The nurse told me that skin-to-skin contact for a newborn baby was very important and would help her bond with me.

Did I want her to bond with me?

Fuck me. I didn’t know what I was doing, but if it made her happy, warm, and stop crying I would do literally anything. As soon as she settled on my muscled chest, it was like magic. She nestled into my warm skin and, fuck, a part of my heart too.

So tiny and sweet.

So fragile and dependent.