Just after 9:00 p.m.—Luna long asleep after three chapters ofMagic Tree House—I was curled up on the couch with a glass of that rosé Luke had been keeping on hand for me when the front door opened.
“Hey,” Luke said. His eyes crinkled when he took in my glass of wine and the romance novel in my hands.
“Hi, how’d it go?”
“It’s done.” He ran his hand down his face and started to kick off his boots. He looked at the clean bench—which had previously been covered with junk mail and a number of Luna’s socks, shoes, and tennis accessories—and paused what he was doing.
“Val,” he said in an admonishing tone.
“If there’s anything you can’t find, check the downstairs office. Or if it’s Luna’s, it’s in her room.”
He narrowed his eyes at me, finished taking off his boots, and walked into the kitchen. I got up to follow him and found him gaping, holding himself up with both hands on the counter. There was a bowl full of apples and bananas on the island, but otherwise it was spotless and gleaming, showing off the many attributes of the stunning custom kitchen.
“I told you you didn’t have to.”
“Well…I didn’t listen.”
His head shook before he looked up at me, his shoulders releasing down from his ears.
“The guest bedroom is all set,” I went on. “I dried and put the sheets on the bed, and washed all the towels I could find so there’s lots of clean towels in the bathroom now. I cleaned the bathrooms, too. Well, not yours. The only rooms I didn’t touch are your bedroom and your office.”
His head nodded slowly. Then he noticed the full bowl of fruit for the first time, and he pivoted and opened the fridge.
He closed it and turned to face me again, his expression full of meaning, his eyes shining. “Thank you. No one ever…” He swallowed. “Thank you.”
I felt his relief in my own chest. And the realization hit me like a blow—I’d do just about anything to make him happy, to make things easier for him, to make him cry tears of joy again.
This wasn’t a shallow fixation at all.
I needed to lighten some of the emotions building in my bones, so I lifted the corner of my mouth and said, “Don’t thank me too much, I charged everything to your credit card. I took a load of your laundry out of the dryer, but I didn’t fold it. I just put it in a basket and left it in your room, so it’s probably all wrinkled. Also, I did Luna’s laundry, but she is missingseveralsocks. Like, there are almost no matches. It’s just all singles. She must hide them somewhere? Or the dryer eats them? I scoured her room and the rest of the house, all of her bags. Nothing.”
He’d started shaking his head halfway through my diatribe, a smirk tugging at his lips, and he was fully laughing by the end. It was music to my heart.
“I have to buy her a new pack of socks like every other month,” he choked out between laughs, gripping the counter. “It’s a scientific phenomenon.”
I beamed at him. “I’m glad it’s not just me.”
He watched me from across the kitchen, not saying anything for a moment, the relief mixed with disbelief still shining clear in his deep brown eyes. “Now that you picked out all of this awesome food, it’s only fair if you get to eat some of it. What are you doing on the Fourth?”
21
Fourth of July. New England’s favorite summer holiday. Fireworks and cookouts, parades and parties. Everyone clad in red, white, and blue. It had been years since I fully enjoyed one. It was so often an arbitrary deadline by which clients wanted their deals to sign or close. So, I usually spent the days leading up to the Fourth working around the clock.
This year was different. I had plans I was looking forward to. I’d gotten full nights of sleep the last few days. I snuck over to the gym before Mimi woke up. I showered, dried my hair, lathered a base layer of sunscreen on my unusually sun-kissed skin, and put on a blue and white patterned dress that hit me at mid-thigh (but was designed to avoid wardrobe malfunctions with built-in shorts underneath). I spent some extra time on my makeup and added white sneakers and pearl jewelry.
“Don’t you look beautiful,” Mimi said when I walked in the kitchen.
I twirled. “Thanks!” I felt good, too. “Alright, Mimi, chop chop, gotta get ready for Luke’s.”
She took a big gulp of her coffee and popped out of her kitchen chair, surprisingly spry for an eighty-three-year-old. “Iwish I could still wear dresses like that,” she grumbled as she climbed the stairs.
“You’ll look fabulous anyway, Mims!”
The plan for today had worked out better than expected. Luke was having a few friends over to join him, Luna, and his parents for a lunch barbecue before the parade at 4:00 p.m. and had invited Mimi and me. Max and his parents were planning to take the boat out before the parade to avoid the chaos of downtown. Which meant I could go to both. I’d bring Mimi to her friend’s house near the parade route before joining Max.
“Val!” Luna jogged over and hugged me around the waist when we arrived in their backyard. Then she ran back to where she was playing a game with Clara, her new tennis partner. The sun beat down, but gratefully, the trees provided some shade to the yard and a retractable gray awning covered the deck. I wondered if Luna had sunscreen on.
I scanned the yard for Luke but didn’t see him. An older couple stood on the side of the yard, watching the girls play and chatting with Clara’s mom.Luke’s parents.An attractive, younger couple pulled canned drinks out of a cooler on the deck. Mimi took a seat in the shade, and I told her I’d grab her a drink before slipping in through the slider.
