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“Y’all disgust me,” Keene said as he turned and input the key code into the side door that led into the circus. “All these ‘I love yous’ and ‘can you watch my kids’ and unprotected sex. I swear to God, y’all can’t figure out how this pregnancy thing works. How are we going to keep the circus up and running if all of y’all are shooting out kids, or babysitting kids, or adopting them?”
All of us chuckled.
“It’s okay if you’re sad that you’re alone, Keene,” I teased.
“We still love you even if you’re not loveable by someone who’s not related to you,” Hades continued to tease.
“Oh my God,” Keene groaned. “Shut up!”
“Work isn’t going to finish itself, ladies and gentlemen!” I heard Autry, our chaos coordinator, call out. “And you have a new performance tonight! Let’s go!”
“Such a grumpy boy,” I heard Hades call out. “You should find yourself a woman, too!”
“I’m working on it!” he called out. “Now, get to work!”
• • •
The funeral was beautiful.
The funeral home had done a wonderful job.
And God, there were so many flowers.
One would think it was because of Nash’s popularity, but honestly, Dr. Whitney Christopherson was a famous woman in her doctor circle in her own right.
There were so many patients and doctor friends who had sent their condolences in the form of flowers and small plants that the entire room was filled with the scent of them.
We all cried.
Nash and all of the brothers included.
Keene and my sisters’ husbands were likely the only ones in the entire place who had a dry eye, but I even saw Winston look down at his hands as he wiped away a lone tear.
“Ready?”
I looked up at Nash, who was talking to Kendall.
“I think it’s time for you all to go home,” Kendall said carefully. “I just… need some space.”
Nash, Aracelli, Cory, Tyson, and Hoyt all started to argue, but I placed my hand on Nash’s arm and talked over them. “Do you want us to come over for breakfast in the morning?”
Kendall looked at me with gratefulness in his eyes. “No. Maybe over the weekend.”
I nodded. “How about you let us know when you’re ready?”
Kendall nodded once. “That’s good.”
“We’ll come over and grab our things,” I said. “You head to get something to eat. We’ll be gone by the time you get back.”
Kendall’s shoulders slumped. “Thank you.”
Then Kendall walked away.
The entire Christopherson bunch turned to me with a plethora of confusion on their faces.
“Why are we leaving our own house?” Cory asked curiously.
“Because your dad needs to process. He can’t do that with five adult children, who also all have their own houses, in his house, hovering,” I said. “I’m guessing he needs to process everything and figure out how to get to a new normal. He can’t do that with y’all all there.”
Cory sighed. “You’re right.”
“But there’s no way we’re leaving him alone for days on end. I’ll go check on him tomorrow. The rest of you can check on him once a day. Sound good?” Tyson asked.
“Sounds good.” Nash nodded and caught my hand. “We’ll see y’all for sure this weekend for breakfast. I’ll bring donuts.”
It was an hour later, as we were lying in bed snuggled up to each other, that I said, “I’m glad you made it, Nash. I don’t think I could do half as good as your dad is doing right now.”
“I’d have been a complete mess, collapsed on the floor, trying to figure out how the hell to live life when I’d lost half of my soul.”
He pulled me in closer, not making a move to take it further than just cuddling, and said, “I will do my level best not to leave you like that, baby. I can’t make any promises, though.”
I curled my hands into his hair and pulled his face into my chest. He came willingly.
And we lay like that for hours before we both fell into an exhausted sleep.
My last waking thought was ‘fuck cancer.’
EPILOGUE
Zip: You have a missed call.
Nash: I know, I was staring at it when I missed it.
NASH
Two years later
The last thing I wanted to do today was give someone a ride in a race car.
Truthfully, I’d rather spend my day with my kid and my wife, soaking up the break that we both had from work.
Yet, I still had certain responsibilities to my sponsors that required me to make public appearances when and where they wanted me.
So, there I was, at the racetrack, ready to give the woman who paid through the nose a ride in my car.
When she arrived, something about her seemed familiar, but since she was wearing a black hoodie and loose pants, I wrote it off as her just being weird—or possibly hiding her identity because she was some rich bitch who felt that she needed to be out of the spotlight—and went up to her to shake her hand.
