I kissed his cheek. “You’re the best,” I said.
“I am.”
I turned back toward the mirror and picked up my mascara wand again. Ian believed I could do this, and I believed him. He’d been through this himself, after all. He’d stayed home with me for two weeks after James was born, before heading back to work to train their new junior partners. His VC group had absorbed the one owned by Liz, Ja, and Luisa, and they would handle—exclusively—the Fumetsu rollout.
Ian hadn’t cried when he returned to work, because he’d known our kid would be well taken care of. And now it was my turn. Now that the millennials were taking over most of the day-to-day stuff at work, Ian had decided to stay home with our three-month-old for another two weeks, to fill in the gap between the end of my maternity leave and my sister being able to nanny for us full time while pursuing her new career as a personal trainer.
“What are your plans for today?” I asked.
“Well, we’re going to walk to the grocery store first, then maybe hit up story time at the library. You know, or he’ll just nap all day and I’ll watch the talk shows.”
“All good options,” I said.
“And we’ll miss you all day long and wish you were here.”
“Sure, you’ll miss me terribly while you’re out at the park with all the hot, young moms.” I raised an eyebrow at him. We could joke about this. We were partners, and I trusted him. If something between us stopped working, we’d discuss it and we’d fix it.
“Those young moms have nothing on your old ass,” he said with a wink. “And you know it.”
“I do know it.” I waved a hand down my body to indicate my dress, which was bright blue and covered in ducks. “Honestly, this dress,” I said. “What do you think?”
“Honestly, it’s ridiculous.” He leaned in and kissed my cheek. “But it’s totally, utterly you, so I love it.”
I punched him in the arm, kissed the baby goodbye, and headed out for my first day back at work, ready to conquer the world.
…
Ian
“Okay, buddy.” I mimed covering my eyes and James mimicked me. I glanced over at my mom, who was perched on her couch next to her boyfriend, the infamous Blake. My dad sat across from them in the armchair. The three of them sipped coffee while watching their eighteen-month-old grandson play his favorite game—hide and seek.
This was truly the definition of paradise—spending time with my family in Hawaii during January, AKA the dead of winter back in Chicago. Though, if this were truly the perfect Norman Rockwell painting, I probably would’ve been sharing this with my dad and mom, who were still married and madly and love. But that wasn’t my life. This was my life. And Blake wasn’t all that bad, now that I’d given him a chance. Sure, he was kind of dramatic about recycling and solar power and liked to walk around barefoot everywhere, but that was part of his charm. And he made my mom deliriously happy, which wasn’t nothing.
Plus, my dad seemed to like him, too, so who was I to hold a grudge?
I crouched down next to James on the floor. “Let’s count to ten.”
James said each number with me in his adorable toddler voice—pronouncing “three” like “free” and singing the word “ten” like it was the most important syllable in the English language.
“Now it’s time to find Mommy,” I said.
James’s chubby hand wrapped around my index finger and the two of us waddled out of the family room and into the kitchen. “Where Mommy?” James asked.
“I don’t know…” I scanned the floor, hunting for Erin’s long blue floral dress. “Mommy’s a good hider.”
“Mommy?” James yelled, and his voice echoed through the halls.
We turned toward the lanai, and that’s when I spotted Erin’s six-months pregnant belly sticking out from behind a potted palm tree. I chuckled. This was how we met—the night of the bachelorette auction. She’d ducked behind a tree to scratch her butt, and…the rest was history.
I beckoned James around the corner and into the living room and whispered in his ear. “Mommy’s behind the tree.” Then I handed him a small velvet box. “Give this to her.”
I stood back as James toddled toward his mom, holding the four-carat ruby and diamond ring I’d been carrying around for weeks—ruby for James’s birthstone, and diamond for our baby girl, Lois, who was due in April. I’d planned on giving it to Erin tonight at dinner, when we had reservations for two at the fanciest restaurant on the island, but this was better. This was perfect. This was us.
James waddled up to the tree and handed the box to his mom.
“James, what is this?” Erin’s voice pivoted to her no-nonsense, boss-lady tone. “Where did you find this? Is this Nana Jeanne’s?”
I stepped into the room, pausing for a second to admire my family—my kid in his diaper and a Thor T-shirt, my girlfriend, swollen with our daughter, leaning down to talk to him. How could I have ever believed I didn’t want this? “It’s not Nana Jeanne’s,” I said. “It’s yours.”
With a skeptical principal look on her face, she opened the box. Her hand flew to her mouth immediately. I knew why. The ring was that spectacular. “Ian. What? What is this?”
I strolled over, plucked the box from her hand, and got down on one knee. James did the same, kneeling right next to me, gazing up at his beautiful mom.
“Will you marry me?” I asked.
Her eyes kept darting from me to the ring.
I winked. “I know you’re not about ‘defining’ things, but I think it may be about time that we admitted this thing between us is permanent.” I took her hand and slid the ring onto her finger. The sunlight through the window glinted off the rock. Scott and his new boyfriend, a famous silver-fox news guy he’d always had a crush on, had helped me pick it out. They’d done well. Really well. This was an oval ruby surrounded by tiny round diamonds. According to Scott, it was similar to the ring Prince Andrew gave Sarah Ferguson, but he was sure our marriage would meet a better fate.
I’d told him I didn’t believe in fate or bad omens. I believed in Erin and me.
“So?” I said. “What’s your answer?”
“Yes!” she squealed. “Of course yes!”
“Then why do you look so pained?”
She rubbed her belly. “Because I want to get down on the ground to kiss you, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to get up.”
I hoisted James into my arms, and our happy little family shared hugs and kisses behind the tree where we’d found Mom.
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Acknowledgments
Many, many thanks to everyone who helped get this book off the ground—Beth Phelan for getting the ball rolling and Louise Fury for kicking it in the goal. Last cheesy sports metaphor, I promise. (Read: no, I don’t.)
To everyone at Entangled Publishing for making this book awesome. To Kate Brauning and her team—especially Bethany Robison and Hoda Agharazi. I’ve loved working with you ladies over the past five(!) books. Bethany, I feel like I really do need to insert a sports SOMETHING here for you, so here it goes: you are all as lovely and wonderful as Christian Laettner in his prime. I can bestow no higher praise upon you.
Thank you to Liz Pelletier, Stacy Abrams, Curtis Svehlak, Holly Simpson, Riki Cleveland, Alethea Spiridon, Heather Riccio, and everyone else who saw this book to completion. Winky-face.
Thank you to my home team, especially John for getting everyone out of the house when I needed to work and the kids for being okay with watching way too much Gravity Falls this summer when I was on deadline.
Thanks to my mom and dad and John’s mom and dad for helping me out by watching their grandkids so they didn’t have to watch TV every afternoon.
And thank you—yes, you!—for reading.
About the Author
Julie Hammerle writes romance
novels that focus on nerds, geeks, and basket cases falling in love. On the YA side, she is the author of The Sound of Us (Entangled TEEN, 2016) and the North Pole romance series (Entangled Crush, 2017). A graduate of Butler University with degrees in secondary education and Latin with a minor in music, Julie lives in Chicago with her family and enjoys reading, cooking, and watching all the television.
Young adult novels by Julie Hammerle…
The Sound of Us
Any Boy but You
Artificial Sweethearts
Approximately Yours
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