Her no-nonsense mother tone snapped something in my brother-in-law. He wrapped his arm around Ginny’s back and supported her on the slow trek up the stairs.
I tossed the contents of the dust pan in the trash and turned to find Owen munching on a piece of garlic bread.
“Glad to see your appetite hasn’t been affected.”
He shrugged and took another bite.
By the time I’d finished mopping up the floor, Ginny and Eric stood at the base of the stairs.
“Drew?” Ginny’s gaze held a question.
I gave her a gentle hug. “Go. I’ll hold down the fort. I know you’d rather have Mom there than your brother, even if Iama doctor.”
Her body stiffened, and she sucked in a breath. She waited until the contraction passed. “Thank you.”
I gave her a miniscule shove. “Go bring another terrific nephew into the world for me.”
Once they’d gone, I turned to Owen. “Want to play Xbox?”
“Will you play Minecraft with me?”
“Sure.”
He set the game up and handed me a controller. “Survival or creative?”
“Let’s start in creative. We can mine and build everything we need before switching to survival.”
The world generated, then Owen teleported my boxy character Steve to his character’s location. Owen built a crafting table and started moving ingredients to basic recipes to create building material. I clicked on dirt and started placing blocks in a row.
“Only newbs build with dirt, Uncle Drew.”
“My bad.” I clicked into my inventory.
“You’re dating Sierra’s mom, aren’t you?”
My thumb hit the B button too hard. “Why do you think that?”
He focused on the game. “I’m nine, not blind.”
Well, all right then.
“She’s cool.”
My neck craned in his direction. “Nicole?”
“Sierra.” He didn’t bother looking over at me. “I’m just saying, if I’m getting a cousin that’s not a boy, I like Sierra well enough. At least she can play football.”
I laughed under my breath then reached over and tousled his hair.
What would Nicole think of meeting my family? She hadn’t freaked out when I told her I was all in. Opposite actually, as we’d shared so much of ourselves—including kisses—beneath the projected stars. I wanted to move forward, but I didn’t want to scare her in the process.
19
Nicole
Katy Perry’s “Roar” filtered through the salon’s speakers. Camille swayed to the beat at the front, straightening the product display as she lip-synced to the lyrics.
“Belt it out, girl,” I told her. “There’s no one here but us.” A lull in walk-ins and no reservations gave us both a nice break.
