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Grinning, I said, “I’ll start a wine fund with my earnings.” I grabbed my almost-empty glass from the counter and held it in front of me. “You girls are the best. Love you bunches.”
They clinked their glasses to mine and Jewel replied, “Love you bunches too.”
“You’re going to be fine,” Piper added. “Better than fine.”
I took a swallow, then lowered my glass, nodding.
Becoming a nanny for a different family meant opening my heart to more precious babies. I knew I’d fall in love with whatever kids I was lucky enough to care for. Knew it would hurt when I had to say goodbye to those kids and their families. I was reasonably sure, though, that I wouldn’t ever get hurt as badly as Knox had hurt me. I knew that because I was pretty damn certain I wouldn’t get over this heartbreak any time soon. My heart, where romance was concerned, was out of commission for the foreseeable future. You couldn’t break what was already destroyed.
“Yeah,” I said on an exhale. “I’m going to be okay.”
It was just going to take some time. Maybe a couple of decades.
CHAPTER32
KNOX
Thanksgiving with my new, extended double family was unlike any Thanksgiving I’d ever experienced. It was how I imagined a Hallmark holiday would be but louder.
The Henrys and Norths—all twenty-two of them, or twenty-four when you counted Juniper and me, plus Drake and Mackenzie’s two dogs, Tank and Gunner, and Gabe and Lexie’s dog, Saint—had gathered at Seth and Everly’s home. It was situated on the lakeshore a few houses up from mine and had been in the family for nearly fifty years. This was where my half-siblings had started their childhood. When they’d moved to Nashville, their grandmother—mygrandmother, Guinevere Henry—had stayed. This house had served as her full-time home, a summer retreat for the family, and a second home for Holden, who’d preferred high school here in Dragonfly Lake to the large, overcrowded one in Nashville.
Admittedly, with the Henrys and Norths, even this generous four-bedroom home felt cozy and small. The main dining table in the kitchen and the one in the formal dining room had all their leaves in, and chairs and high chairs crowded around them. Both rooms, and the living room in between, had been rowdy, chaotic, and filled with laughter all afternoon.
June and I were still sitting in the dining room with our half of the group after the meal was cleared away and dessert had been devoured. My daughter was out of the high chair, sitting on my lap, spellbound by a clean spoon. Hayden, Chloe, and Eliza were sharing some of the worst parts of being pregnant, eliciting cringes from those of us who hadn’t lived through it with them and shudders from those who had.
Unlike last month at Simon’s birthday celebration, I was becoming comfortable with everyone, relaxing more with them as well as with my daughter, and starting to feel like I fit in. As the only single guy present, I’d taken some teasing for that. I preferred being teased over the stiffness of my debut any day. If these folks were kidding around with me, their guard was down, which relaxed mine as well. Even though I was the new guy, I no longer felt so conspicuously like the new guy.
I had a bunch to be thankful for, the warmth and welcome from this family second on the list, right below June Bug.
I’d probably clung to Juniper harder than usual for the past three days as I tried to adjust to Quincy being gone. Truth be told, my daughter had been fussy and out of sorts, likely because of Quincy’s departure. Maybe also because I was fussy and out of sorts.
We’d get over it eventually, Juniper probably faster than me.
Despite being able to relax with these people who were beginning to feel like family, there was a heaviness in my chest I couldn’t shake. The cause of it was no mystery. I ached for Quincy like I’d never thought possible. Like I’d never ached for anyone before. I wanted her flipping me shit as we shared a meal. I wanted her loving on my daughter as much as I did. I wanted her lounging on the sectional near me as we watched a movie or talked. I wanted her in my bed, and it wasn’t just because sex with her turned my world upside down. I couldn’t sleep well without her, couldn’t seem to fall into a deep rest.
“When I was pregnant with Calvin,” Eliza said, pointing over her shoulder toward the kitchen where her older son was sitting on Faye’s lap and playing with a tow truck, “all I wanted to eat was bologna.”
“I’ll eat almost anything, but bologna is nasty,” Drake said, laughing. “Why bologna?”
Eliza shook her head and made a face. “No idea. I can’t eat it at all anymore, but I begged my roommate, Grace, to go on a bologna run in the middle of the night once.”
“Knowing Grace, she did it too,” Hayden said.
“She sure did. She deserves a medal.”
As talk continued, Juniper’s body stiffened, and I could tell she was about to dirty her diaper. I picked her up and headed upstairs to Seth’s office, where Everly had suggested we store our baby gear and change diapers.
“Definitely time for a change, huh, June Bug?” I said to her as we walked into the quiet room and I got the first hint of baby stench.
I spread her changing pad out on the floor, laid her on top, and bent over her, talking to her, giving her some time to finish going before I stripped her down. As I dug out her plush monkey and gave it to her to keep her hands out of the “work area,” someone entered the room behind me. I turned to see who it was and tensed.
“Hey,” Cash said, looking down at us, a beer in his hand.
“Did you take a wrong turn?” I asked, trying to figure out why he was here.
He’d said hello earlier, but that was the extent of our interaction. He’d been in charge of cooking since Everly was a self-professed newbie in the kitchen, and I’d given him a wide berth. I wasn’t up for a repeat of the scene at Simon and Faye’s house. I’d made a point of finding a spot at the table he wasn’t sitting at.
He shook his head, grinned down at Juniper, then reared back as the odor must have hit him.
