by Pippa Grant
“None of us like to see our babies hurting,” she replies.
Yep.
Gonna cry.
I wave a hand at the stairs. “Thank you. I need to—”
“Say thank you,” Holly whispers next to me. She raises her voice. “Help me with a mug problem.”
“Thank you,” I stutter.
Holly grips my arm and turns me to the stairs. “Gonna cry?” she asks halfway down.
“Yes.”
“That’s hardcore, sending his mom and her friends to take a little stress off your plate.”
“It’s half an hour on Zoe’s birthday.”
She snorts, but she’s grinning. “You’re out of your league, Ingrid.”
She might be right.
I help Yasmin check out our last few customers, then we lock the door. My kids are all laughing upstairs, and I can hear all of the ladies talking too. Shortly after I’ve told Yasmin and Holly to go home for the night, my phone dings.
It’s Levi, texting me.
You’re going to get a FaceTime request from a weird number in about five minutes. Take it.
I text him back. You sent YOUR MOTHER? Why did you send your mother?
He doesn’t reply.
And five minutes later, like clockwork, my phone rings with a FaceTime request from an email address made up of random letters and numbers.
I swipe to answer, and immediately wish I was sitting down.
“Hi!” the bubbly blonde with glitter eye shadow on the other end says. “I’m Waverly. I’m looking for Zoe? I heard it’s her birthday.”
So, basically, my daughter’s entire life is made.
Again.
And I definitely need to sit down.
And breathe.
And probably stick my head between my knees so I don’t hyperventilate, which seems like a silly reaction to a couple small kindnesses, but it’s where I’m at.
I head up the stairs, stammering to the pop star calling on my phone, then holler for Zoe like an idiot, because I’m yelling in front of her favorite singer, and that’s not a good look for anyone, except when I hand her my phone, she screams even louder than I yelled for her.
“Zoe,” I whisper. “Quieter.”
“It’s okay, Ingrid,” Waverly says cheerfully. “That’s how I felt when I met Taylor Swift too.”
“Oh my god, I love you!” Zoe squeals.
“What? No way! I love your hair. Is that pink glitter?”
“My mom let me have a glitter streak since I’m the birthday girl!” Zoe turns her head and shakes the camera, and I almost apologize, except I know what Levi would do.
He’d sit there and talk to a fan and get motion sick without complaint.
While Zoe chats with Waverly Sweet, I drop into a chair at the edge of the loft, close enough to listen in, far enough away to not ruin this little thrill for my baby girl, and I drop my head between my knees, and I breathe.
Most guys would send flowers or chocolates.
Levi sent family.
He sent friends.
He sent a message.
It’s not I can afford nannies and private planes to make this easier.
It’s I can give you what’s important. I can pay attention. I can make your dreams come true.
Or did he put all of this in motion before I broke up with him, and he’s doing this for my kids, and not for me at all?
But if he did, why would his mom be here?
Does this mean he was falling for me too? That he’s not ready to let me go?
Or is he a master of making me regret what I did?
“Overwhelming, isn’t it?” Donna says quietly beside me.
I nod. I can’t yet look up, because if I do, I might cry.
“If you want us to go, we will. You’ve done an amazing job with your babies, Ingrid. We know you don’t need us. And Hudson’s going to be just fine. Take it from several of us who’ve been there. But if you want us—all of us—I think you know how to get our numbers.”
I swipe my eyes with the balls of my hands and look up at her. “I think you did a pretty amazing job with this mom thing yourself.”
“Honest truth? My boys shock me more every day, still. The one thing Levi’s never wavered on since he was nine years old, wailing into a toilet paper tube microphone in the bathroom while he was buck naked, was that he was never getting married or having kids. Watching him fall for you and your family has been like watching his final puzzle piece fall into place.”
My heart hiccups.
It’s easier to think this was all pre-arranged kindness than to know that I need to decide if I want to take a chance on what we had being real.
If it’s real, I have to bend.
I have to meet him halfway.
And after doing my life my way for so long, I don’t know if I know how.
“I broke up with him.” The words taste like rotten sawdust on my tongue. This woman should hate me. I rejected her son.
Instead, not only is she still here, she’s reaching for my hand and gripping it tight. “Apparently not very well if he still thinks there’s a chance he can win you over.”
Something swells so big in my chest that I almost can’t breathe.
I could give her all the arguments I gave him—that my family and I need someone who’s here, someone who won’t miss birthdays, who won’t be performing in Times Square at midnight on New Year‘s instead of hanging out in the loft for our annual celebration of New Year’s in England so that we can go to bed at a decent hour. Someone who can take a day off to get a sick kid to the doctor for a strep test, or who can do split ops with me so that Zoe can level up in gymnastics, since that class is offered at the exact same time as Piper’s hockey practice and I can’t bring myself to ask someone to take Piper to hockey every week when I don’t know when I could pay them back the favor, and I don’t want to miss all of her hockey practices either. Someone who’ll respect the rules and boundaries I’ve already set for the kids without question and fit into our lives smoothly, instead of us having to bend to fit around his life.
But I can’t make myself say any of that to his mom.
Instead, I look her straight in the eye and ask her the same question I’ve wondered time and again. “But why me? Why us?”
“Does why matter?”
“Mom! Mom, oh my gosh, Mom, Waverly Sweet knows it’s my birthday!” Zoe throws herself into my lap and hugs me tight. “Thank you thank you thank you. This is the best birthday ever.”
And there goes that hot ocean behind my eyeballs again. But I look at Donna Wilson while I hug my baby girl close, even though she doesn’t fit nearly as well in my lap now as she used to. “He’s cheating,” I whisper.
She smiles, and I see his smile, and my heart somehow manages to swell with warmth and break down in sobs at the same time. “He second-guessed himself, if it helps. But what you’d be comfortable with got overruled by what would make someone else happy.”
And that’s both better and worse.
Because he’s not just thinking about me.
He’s thinking about all of us.
“Do I need to worry about surprises for Hudson?”
Donna laughs. “Absolutely not. He likes you too much for that.”
“Mom! Hudson’s trying to eat the mistletoe!”
Three of the mom squad leap to their feet and dive for Hudson, who is, indeed, chewing on the plastic ivy wrapped around the balcony railing.
“Do you think Waverly’s going to call other people and wish them happy birthday?” Zoe asks. “I hope so. That would be so nice of her to call everyone on their tenth birthday.”
I squeeze her tighter. “I hope so too. Who’s ready for cake? We apparently need to give your brother something edible to chew on.”
Levi’s mom and her friends don’t stick around, but they do all tell me to call them if I ever need a helping hand.
And Ellie hugs me before she leaves too. “I adore your store. When the little one
gets here, we’re coming for storytime on Saturday mornings.”
It takes three centuries to get my kids and the squirrel to bed after birthday cake and presents, but once they’re all settled, I close my bedroom door, take a deep breath, and hit Levi’s number.
It goes straight to voicemail.
Right.
Because he has a concert tonight.
I don’t leave a message.
I don’t know what to say.
Thank you seems insignificant.
And my gut-level he can’t take your phone call because he’s too busy for you reaction isn’t something he deserves.
He’s trying.
Question is, can I find a way to meet him halfway?
Thirty
Levi
Some days I hate my job.
Today’s one of them.
I’m supposed to be on a bus halfway between Denver and Seattle right now, headed to my last show of my Christmas album mini-tour, but instead, I’m in Copper Valley.
Why?
Because I want to see Ingrid.
I don’t want to be performing in Seattle tomorrow night.
I want to be here.
Unfortunately, though, it’s Friday. She’s working hella awful hours at her store, and I can’t walk into a crowded shop to ask the owner to be my girlfriend without causing a massive scene.
If there’s one thing she’ll never be, it’s a publicity stunt.
Talking to her in private is the only option.
She’s texted me more since Mom and her friends stopped by the store to visit, but it’s not the same as it was before yet.
While the clock ticks down to closing time, I head over to Tripp’s place. He and Lila and the kids are back from their honeymoon, and they’ve been working half-days so they can spend more time together after the craziness of the baseball season.
“You saved a squirrel,” Tripp repeats to me. We’re hanging out on his back deck as James and Emma run around the yard throwing leaves at each other in the waning afternoon light.
I’ve been filling them in on my adventures with Ingrid, since I haven’t yet. Feels good to talk about her. “It wasn’t my squirrel.”
“That’s worse. And after all of James’s frogs and chipmunks…”
Lila pats his hand. “Think of all he’s learned from them.”
“James or Levi?”
“Both.”
“Nice throw, Emma,” I call down to the three-year-old, who’s sporting yellow and red leaves in her blond curls. “You need me to come talk to that leaf about flying farther next time?”
“I do it myself, Unka Wevi,” she yells back. And then she picks up a stick half her size and flings it at James.
“Atta girl,” Lila whispers.
Tripp sighs. “Emma, don’t throw sticks.”
“It frowed on its own.”
God, I love three-year-olds. “How’d you know Lila could handle your kids?” I ask Tripp.
Not even gonna beat around the bush about it. If I’m heading to Ingrid’s place to ask to be part of her life, part of her family’s life, then I’m going in armed with knowledge and an answer to every objection she might give me.
“Sitting right here,” my sister-in-law says with a smile.
“You strike me as the type who’d rather have people talk about you behind your back while you can listen in.”
“She could handle me,” Tripp says around his wife. “At my worst, I mean. My kids are easier.”
Lila nods thoughtfully. “I can’t actually argue with that.”
“The kids will get there one day, but she’ll love them too much by then.”
“Possibly more than him,” Lila agrees, flicking a thumb toward my brother.
They share a secret smile, and fuck.
I miss Ingrid.
She’s only a few miles away, but it feels so damn far. “How’d you know you were ready to be a stepmother?” I ask Lila.
She doesn’t blink. “Are you saying you only save squirrels for women you’d like to have a future with?”
“Pretty much.”
Tripp eyes me. Then Lila, who eyes him back before turning to me again.
Both of them take a hit off their beers like there’s not enough alcohol in the world for this conversation.
“Very funny.” I eyeball my niece out in the yard and wonder if I could convince her to fling a stick at my brother without getting her in trouble.
Huh.
Maybe that’s why Tripp’s not answering.
“Seriously, how do you do it? Especially when things are busy?”
“Clear boundaries,” Lila says, the same time Tripp answers, “With a lot of communication.”
“And the manny,” they add together.
I don’t know if Ingrid would want a nanny, male or female. She’s always done everything herself, but is it because she needs to, or because she wants to?
Doesn’t matter.
She’s hopefully already figured out that I come with a posse of grandmas.
“Being a stepmom is a little terrifying,” Lila says. “I’d never been around small people before that meeting with the commissioner that Tripp brought James and Emma to last year.”
Tripp grimaces. “And the baby chipmunks…”
His bride throws her head back and laughs, which is pretty fucking remarkable.
I was at that meeting too.
Ugly, ugly mess.
But it turned out okay.
Better than okay, actually.
Knowing what Tripp and Lila went through to get to today, happy, together, and a family, makes me feel like a lucky bastard for only having to rearrange my schedule, re-evaluate my life plans, and learn to be a father-figure and not just an uncle-figure to be the man Ingrid needs me to be.
Hopefully.
Also, yeah, I know that’s a hell of a list of things to tackle.
Good thing I don’t like to half-ass anything.
Lila’s still chuckling as she tips her bottle toward me. “I learned a lot by watching you, you know.”
“It’s easy when you know you can leave anytime.”
“James built a snowman in the drivers’ seat of your Porsche. And it melted. And had a mud heart inside. You can leave, but you can’t forget something like that.”
“It had a what?” Tripp whips his head between Lila and me, then squeezes his eyes shut. “I didn’t hear that part of the story.”
“And James is still alive,” I point out. “It’s just a seat. I got a new one. And I don’t even drive that car that much.” I frown, realizing how I don’t drive my Porsche often would sound to the woman I’d like to be my girlfriend. “If I talk Ingrid into coming to the party next week, can we maybe not start with that story?”
“Have no fear. There’s not a single person in your circle who’d start with that one. That one makes you sound like a saint. Sort of like going with the whole glitter-in-your-hair-on-tour thing makes you look like you’re an angel, which is probably the last time I’ll ever put the words you and angel together in the same sentence.”
“My hairdresser couldn’t get it out after an incident with Ingrid’s kids, so we decided that sparkling me up like a Christmas tree was better, so it at least looks like it’s on purpose.” We get a lot out every night, but I’ll be digging glitter out of my scalp for the next ten years.
No question.
Shaving my head probably wouldn’t even get rid of all of it.
Tripp kicks his feet up on the deck railing, which is the height of my brother at his most relaxed, and pretty impressive considering he just found out what his oldest did to my car. Probably shouldn’t mention the time Emma took her own diaper off and redecorated my walls while she was going through her prunes phase.
“Heard you’ve been asking Beck how he dialed back so fast after he met Sarah,” he says.
“Yep.”
“You’re cutting back?”
“Yep.”
“For her?”
>
Tricky question. “She’s why, but the more my calendar opens up…I feel lighter than I have in years. I think I needed this for me too.”
It’s not a lie. I miss my family. I don’t remember what a real hobby is, and my golf game has gone to shit. I don’t like getting lost in the city I grew up in, even if this time, it turned out pretty fucking good.
Hopefully, anyway.
“Is her four-year-old as much of a handful as Mom says he is?”
“Probably more.”
“You gonna ask her to move to New York?”
“What the fuck? Why would I do that? Her store’s here. Her kids’ schools are here. Their activities are here. Her friends are here. Are you insane? Would you do that to your kids?”
He pretends to wipe a tear from his eye. “Aw, hell. It’s true. My baby brother’s growing up.”
“He means you’ve got this,” Lila says.
“If she’ll take him back. Look at him. Doesn’t know how to use a razor, wears pants so tight he has to sleep in them since he can’t get them off. And Cash is still single. Everyone knows he was the hot one in Bro Code.”
“Look at you, trying to be the funny one.” I tip my beer back too. Three more hours until the shop closes. Dammit. That’s forever. “Also, if she had her pick of the five of us, she’d take Davis. Her cash registers would never go down and her kids would never be able to lock her out of her apartment.”
“Speaking of…” Tripp eyes me.
I eye him right back.
And we have a silent stand-off over the last thing Tripp’s aware of Davis finding out in that sneaky way he has of finding out things.
In addition to being a melodramatic ass for missing Ingrid the past few weeks, I’ve changed the subject every time Tripp’s brought up Mom dating the car guy.
Not my news to share.
Especially if he was dumb enough to not see what was in front of his own eyes at the wedding.
Guess it’s true.
He only has eyes for Lila.
Tripp cracks first. “Stan Sheldon and I had a nice long chat yesterday.”
And I choke on my beer.
Lila stifles a whimper. Pretty sure she’s trying not to laugh.
“I was going to wait Mom out. Let her have her fun. Decide if he was worth introducing to us. But the guy had the nerve to call and ask about sponsoring a car giveaway if any of our players hit a billboard he’s proposing in center field,” Tripp continues.