Always Series Box Set

by Becs, Lindsay

  “She young, but your mom was younger when she had you, and you turned out not to kill people. She’ll be fine.”

  “I save lives, motherfucker.”

  “And with so much class.”

  “I am elegance,” he says, sitting up a little straighter. “Hey, you got any cookies from your neighbor?”

  “Nah, she hasn’t brought any over for a while. I think the kid is keeping her busy.”

  “Man, I don’t know what Tatum is going to do,” he says on a sigh, sinking back into his chair.

  “She can stay with us again.” I shrug. It’d be nice to have her around. “She’s always a huge help at Pretty Girl too. I’ll gladly give her back her old job if she wants it.”

  I don’t know if she’ll work things out with this guy, the father of her baby, or not; but I’ll gladly help be a stepping stone for her while she figures things out. Tate has helped me tremendously through the years with Penny, convincing me not give up when I wanted to and shit got hard. I’ll always give her a place to stay or work any time she needs it.

  “Yeah, you’re pretty OK, Gellar.”

  “Aw, shucks. Don’t make me blush.”

  * * *

  The last months have been great but crazy. This family has just about gone insane in the past year. Between Ollie and Bex and their fast-paced romance to Tatum and Benton getting ready to have a baby and working things out. All of them got engaged somewhere in there too. It’s hard to keep track of it all.

  It has been nice having Tatum back to help at the garage and run the business side of things, but I fear it won’t last. She’s going to want to travel with Benton during race season and be a family. I’ll never begrudge that. I really should hire someone else to come in and help, but it’ll never be the same as her bossy ass running the office.

  We all just helped Tate and Benton move into their new place today. She seems so grown up, and I really wish Josie could be here to see it. Hell, to become a grandma. That’s a crazy thought right there.

  I wake to my phone ringing. Sitting up in bed, I see it’s Benton and concern hits me as I answer.

  “Benton? Everything alright?”

  “Yeah.” He sounds a little winded. “Tate is in labor. I can’t believe the little bugger is coming early.”

  “We’re on our way,” I tell him. “Need anything?”

  “No, I think we’re fine. She made sure everything was sorted long ago. You know how she is,” he laughs. “I need to go, but let me know when you arrive.”

  “Will do. Good luck, man.”

  “Thanks.”

  I smile thinking about when Josie went into labor with Penny and how insane I was. I was about to drive her to the hospital naked if she hadn’t told me I needed clothes.

  I gently wake up Penny, and we head to the hospital. It’s early morning, so traffic isn’t bad, and we make it there fairly quickly. Not much later, Ollie and Bex join us in the waiting area.

  “I was thinking about how much your mom would be freaking about being a grandma already,” I say with a chuckle.

  Ollie snorts a laugh. “She’d be what? Forty…”

  “Four,” I help him. “She’d be forty-four.”

  “Damn,” he says.

  “Dollar!” Penny yells at him with her palm out, waiting. He slaps a twenty in her palm.

  “I’m paying in advance, you little twerp.”

  “Works for me.” She shrugs making us all laugh.

  “She’d love being a grandma though. Can you imagine how much she would have spoiled this little thing?” Ollie adds, no doubt still thinking about his mom.

  “Yep.”

  “Looks like I’m just going to have to step in. It’s like my duty, right?” Bexley asks.

  “I’m oddly alright with that, Sweetness,” Ollie tells her, kissing her on the temple.

  Not much later, we’re told that Tate had the baby, and we are ushered back to see them. When we walk in her room, Tatum is crying. She tells us that she is missing her mom, a feeling I know all too well.

  While everyone gushes over the baby and passes around Princess Poppy, I give Tatum a hug. “You did good.”

  “Thanks, Trav. For everything.”

  “I didn’t do anything. You’ve made things happen for yourself. I’m really proud of you.”

  “Gah! These tears won’t stop!” she groans, frustrated with her hormones. That I remember.

  After a couple of hours, I pry Penny away from Tatum and the baby and head home. LP talks my ear off the whole way, chattering about new baby Poppy.

  “Poppy and Penny are so close to the same, aren’t they, Daddy? I think it means we’re going to be best friends. She was so cute! I just wanted to kiss and kiss her. I can’t wait until we play together, and I can teach her how to catch lightning bugs. Oh, it’ll be so amazing!” she goes on and on with her hands clasped under her chin in excitement.

  I chuckle to myself listening to her. She’s so happy to have a baby niece. I sure hope this kid lives up to her expectations.

  Once we’re home, she takes off to tell Jesse, the boy from next door, all about her Poppy. I go inside and search for a letter that I was thinking about earlier. One of the few I haven’t read yet. “If I’m a Grandma, You’re a Grandpa” is scrolled on the envelope and brings a smile to my face.

  I’m a grandma?! Which of my babies had a baby first? I’m guessing Tatum. Am I right? Oh, I know I’m right.

  How is she? I bet she was beautiful as a pregnant woman and will be even more beautiful as a mother.

  And if I’m wrong and it’s Ollie… was it a broken condom or is he miraculously with a woman who could tame his ways? You think you two hid that crap from me? Nope! A mother always knows when her children are bed-hopping.

  Either way, I’m so happy that our family is growing. And I mean it. If I’m a grandma, you’re a grandpa! I’m sure one of the world’s youngest grandpas, but still. So, Gramps, how’s it feel? You better spoil that kid rotten!

  My babies are having babies… I still can’t fathom that. I’m happy though. So happy.

  Always,

  Josie

  Chapter Six

  Travis

  Five Years After Josie

  Five years. It’s been five fucking years since I lost the love of my life. I’m still not sure how you move on from that. Can you? I try like hell not to dwell in the past or wallow in what I lost. I know I’m not the only one who lost Josie, but some days it feels like it.

  Everyone around me seems to be moving on with their lives, living them to the fullest. Meanwhile, I feel like I’m barely surviving some days.

  Penny and I still “fly” out to see her momma at least a couple of times a month. I don’t know if it helps her or if it is a terrible idea. She seems to still love it, and I can’t deny her anything that makes her feel close to her momma, who she hardly remembers.

  Some days it’s like a knife in the gut going to the pond, and some days it’s the oxygen I need to breathe. Most of my anger about Josie’s cancer returning, her choosing not to fight it, and losing her is gone completely. But I still miss her like hell. There are days, like yesterday when Penny gave a speech at school about the importance of regularly changing the oil in your car. Those days I wish she was here to see our incredible daughter.

  Just when I think it’s getting easier, something hits me and brings me right back down. It’s a rock pressing on my chest. Something constricting my lungs from filling with air. The ground shaking under my feet, making me stumble as I try to go through this life. I’m drowning, sinking below the surface. I don’t think it will ever get easier.

  * * *

  It’s a Saturday and a rarity that I’m home sitting on the couch watching TV. We got a foot of snow overnight, so I told all my guys to stay home and kept Pretty Girl closed for the weekend.

  I’m muffling my laughter as best I can as I watch Chandler Bing pluck Joey Tribbiani’s eyebrows in an episode of Friends. It reminds me of a time in high sc
hool when Ollie shaved off the eyebrows of one of our teammates when we had an away game. The whole football team stayed in a hotel.

  I can’t hold it in anymore and let out a hardy laugh until I feel tears hit my eyes.

  “I hate you, Jesse Jones!” I hear Penny scream as the back sliding door opens. That’s my cue to see what trouble these two are into now.

  “LP, what’s going on?” I ask, walking to where she stands, red-nosed from the cold and dripping wet as the snow that covers her begins to melt.

  “He pushed me into the snow. Face first! Then, when I got up, he threw a snowball at my head. My head, Daddy!”

  I try not to laugh at her, but when I sneak a peek outside to see Jesse smirk at getting the rile out of her that he was after, I can’t hold it in anymore.

  “Daddy, it’s not funny!” she yells at me as I stand there laughing at her.

  Stepping into the untied boots by the door, I pick her up and throw her over my shoulder. She’s yelling at me to put her down and to stop laughing, but there’s no stopping me now. Walking out into the snow, I finally toss her down into a big snow drift. I hear Jesse cackle with laughter as Penny tries to right herself but keeps falling back down since the snow is taller than her.

  She finally gets her footing and looks like she could bury me alive. I start running away from her, but I soon feel a snowball hit my back. “Oh, that’s war, LP!” I holler at her, ducking behind a tree.

  “Just remember you started it, Daddy! And Jesse is on my team!”

  “Traitor!” I yell after the boy who’s more trouble than good most days but seems to look after my daughter as much as he antagonizes her.

  “Jesse! Time to come in!” I hear Tilly call out the back of her house. I’m about to warn her that it isn’t safe when I see a snowball fly in her direction and hit her straight in the face. She looks more confused than angry as she wipes the wet snow away.

  She must hear me laughing, because she looks my way and shoots me a dirty look. My hands go up in surrender as a sign it wasn’t me. I point out toward the open field behind our houses, and just then, more snowballs start flying toward us both.

  “Duck!” I yell as Tilly runs to where I’m not tucked around the corner of her house.

  “Aren’t you freezing without a coat on?” she asks as her eyes wander down my body.

  “Uh, not really but I just got out here.” I look at her, noticing she’s without a coat too. “What about you?”

  “I’ve been baking all day. It feels good to cool off. Although, I could have done without the snow in the face,” she laughs. “What are we up against?” she asks then, turning more serious.

  My lips twitch to smile at her as we team up against the kids. We make a battle plan and after almost an hour, all four of us surrender with frozen hands and soaked clothes.

  “Why don’t you and Penny come over for some hot chocolate and cookies after you change?” Tilly asks as I begin to shake the snow out of my hair.

  I pause and look up at her, swallowing hard. “That’d be nice.” It’s just hot chocolate with my neighbor, the caregiver of my daughter’s best friend. But then why do I feel guilty?

  Penny takes a hot bath to thaw out while I jump in the shower. Once we’re both warm and dry, we make our way next door. We’re greeted with the most heavenly scent of chocolate and sugar.

  “Come on, Nugget, let’s go finish our game from the other day,” Jesse calls to Penny from his room.

  He’s called her Nugget for as long as they’ve been friends. I always figured it was because she was younger and smaller than him, but who knows with those two. They’re always teasing each other for one reason or another. I’m too afraid to ask and get in the middle, if I’m being honest.

  She looks at me, and I nod at her before she takes off to play.

  Tilly smiles, shaking her head as we watch them. “Those two are something. I can’t ever decide if they love or hate each other.”

  “Fine line,” I say, following her back to her kitchen where she has mugs of hot chocolate and plates of cookies set out and ready. “Wow, you didn’t have to do all this.”

  She shrugs as she sits across from me. “It’s what I love to do.”

  “You’re a wasted talent at the market bakery. You should open your own place,” I tell her, biting into one of the best cookies I’ve ever had.

  “Thank you,” she says softly, and I see her cheeks pink in a blush.

  “I mean it.”

  “I’d love to. I dream about it even. But I don’t have the funds to do something like that or have any idea how. Unfortunately, I think it’ll stay a dream.”

  I shake my head at her. “No way. You need to share this deliciousness with others.” I pause then. “Wait, but you’ll still bring me cookies, right?”

  She just laughs and shakes her head. I don’t know what that means. I might have just screwed myself here.

  “I could help you, you know,” I tell her. “I know a thing or two about running a business. I didn’t start it though. That’d be new to me, but we could figure it out.”

  “You’d do that? Help me?” she asks innocently, like no one has ever helped her before.

  “Of course I would. Cup of sugar, right?”

  “Right,” she shyly smiles.

  “Know what you’d name it?” I ask after a few too many seconds of silence between us.

  “Tilly’s?” she laughs. “No idea.”

  “Cookie’s.”

  “You want more?” she asks, not understanding what I mean.

  “No. You should name it Cookie’s.”

  “Why’s that?” she asks, sitting back in her chair with her knees pulled to her chest.

  “Seems a fitting name for you, Cookie, since you’re always feeding me cookies. So, naturally, Cookie’s seems good.”

  She busts out laughing at that. “Cookie? That sounds like a stripper name!”

  “That is not how I meant it,” I say, raising my hands in defense.

  “I know, I know,” she says, still laughing, waving her hand in front of her face.

  I finish my hot chocolate and stand to leave. Penny asks to stay, and since Tilly didn’t mind, I didn’t either.

  Tilly walks me to the door, and I pull on my boots. “Thanks for the hot chocolate.”

  “No problem.”

  “Talk to you later, Cookie,” I tell her as I make my trek in the snow next door. I hear her laughter behind me, and it makes me smile. It felt good to smile and laugh. It’d been too long.

  Today was a good day.

  * * *

  The next day Penny asked me if Santa was real. I told her the truth and she burst into tears, running into her room yelling that she was so stupid for not knowing sooner. And I died at the fact that I killed my little girl’s dreams.

  “Penny?” I hedge into her room, where she’s lying on her bed, crying into her pillow.

  “Go away, Santa!” she yells at me. I can’t help it; it was funny. I snort a laugh at her. “It’s not funny, Daddy!”

  “You’re right; it’s not,” I agree, sitting down by her feet. “Would you have rather I lied to keep it up?” I ask, wondering how badly I just screwed up my kid’s childhood.

  She shrugs her shoulders as she sits up to face me. “Does that mean the Easter bunny too?”

  I nod my head at her. “And the tooth fairy.”

  “It’s alright; she was cheap.”

  “Hey!” I yell, tickling her side.

  “Other kids at school got five bucks a tooth, and I only got twenty-five cents. Cheap.”

  I laugh, pulling her into my side. “Yeah,” I sigh. “And I only forgot once.”

  “Twice.” I look at her confused because I swear it was only one time. “I tested a theory last week.” She shrugs.

  “Oh?” I raise a brow at her. “Did I pass?”

  “Nope. I knew something was up.”

  “Ah, so that was the beginning of the spiral to this point, huh?” She nods her head.
“I think I have another letter for you,” I tell her. She perks up and looks at me with expectant eyes full of excitement.

  I find the letter in her box and bring it to her to read. She opens it and reads it aloud to me.

  Uh oh, Baby Girl. Did you find out some devastating news today?

  I know it can be a little confusing when you find out that something you believed for so long isn’t true. Santa, the Easter bunny, the tooth fairy, all those elves on the shelves… all parents.

  But before you get mad, just think about all the trouble all those parents go to to make their kids happy. To see smiles on their faces. To keep them young and innocent and believing. Your daddy did that. Now that is what is so unbelievable. Your daddy loves you so much that he did all those things, gave you all those gifts and surprises because he wanted to. Because he loves you.

  How many bottles of nail polish did you get? Or other girlie things? Now, imagine your daddy shopping for all those things. Pretty awesome, right? And a little bit funny. So, give your daddy a big hug. And another from me. And remember how amazing he is.

  I love you, Penny!

  Momma

  Penny barely finishes reading her letter before she throws her arms around me, hugging me tightly. “I love you, Daddy. Momma’s right. You are amazing. I’m so lucky to have you.”

  “I love you, too, LP.” I clear my throat, fighting back emotions. “I’d buy all the girlie shit all over again.”

  “You owe a dollar, mister.”

  “And that’s why you only got a quarter from the tooth fairy,” I tell her, pulling a dollar from my wallet to add to her swear jar.

  Chapter Seven

  Travis

  Six Years After Josie

  Groaning, I reach for my buzzing phone on my nightstand. It’s just past two in the morning, and Tilly is calling me. This can’t be good.