Page 62 of Pretend it’s Forever

I missed her. With every ounce of my soul, I missed her and it had only been two days.

Two days since I had touched her, two days since I had broken both of us.

I missed her, her smile, the way she made me laugh. I missed the way the little girls made me laugh. And that wasn’t who I was normally. I wasn’t a man who knew what to do with a family like that. And yet here I was, wanting something more.

And that’s how I knew I was in trouble. The plane dipped for a second, and I frowned, looking up at the pilots.

“Everything okay, Josh?”

“We’re hitting a bit of turbulence, everybody make sure that you’re settled in.”

There was an odd note to his voice, and that worried me more than anything. Because I had worked with this team for years now, and they did not get worried.

I met Rose’s gaze, her eyes wide, the fear there startling more than anything. Rose was stronger than I was in so many ways and now I had to be the one who held it together.

“Everything will be fine, let’s get home. Then you can tell me exactly how I’m supposed to fix this with Sophia.”

“Well, good. You came to the right person for advice,” Rose said, although there wasn’t a hint of humor in her tone.

Then the plane dipped again, this one sharper. Rose let out a scream, and I reached out, gripping her hand. Andy was behind me, doing the same for our other team members.

And when the plane dipped once more, there were more screams, and all I could do was think of Sophia.

Chapter Thirteen

SOPHIA

Sometimes a girl just needed her family. And with the number of family members I had, I’d take any assortment of them at this point.

“Since when were we making this a girls’ day?” Kyler asked as he pulled another beer out of the fridge and gestured towards me with it. “You want one?”

“I’m good with my Diet Coke,” I said softly. “You know my addiction.”

He raised a brow, his eyes brightening. “Ah, yes. The white woman’s addiction to Diet Coke. It must be studied.”

“Excuse me, if you add a Caesar salad and French fries, it is the perfect lunch.”

“You know, I had that before. Add some steak on top, perfection.”

Kyler opened his beer, then moved into the room to slink gracefully onto the armchair.

He had one leg resting over the arm, and he slouched as if he had practiced it. Considering I had grown up with the man who was now a world-famous rockstar, I knew for a fact he had practiced. He’d even practiced that little smirk that he did in the mirror when he was a child. That was what happened when you were the only boy out of five siblings and was the middle child on top of it.

“There is nothing wrong with a girls’ night, or a Diet Coke,” Emily said as she strode into the living room with us, a glass of sparkling wine in hand.

“I see you’re not the one drinking a soda,” Kyler commented.

Emily shrugged and took a seat on the couch, with Isabella following her.

Phoebe had a family dinner with Ford’s family, as the Montgomerys met just as often as the Cages did, so we weren’t quite a full family of five, but close enough.

“Do you think you would be so good at dealing with women and sisters if you hadn’t grown up with us girls?” Isabella asked, and I held back a smile. It surprised me that I could even do so, considering I hadn’t smiled at all in the past two days.

It broke me ever so slightly to know that we were meeting as a family to yes, be close to one another, but they were here because I was in pain, and they loved me.

The fact that we were at Kyler’s place was kismet. As he was rarely in town these days, it was nice that we were able to get together at all.

“If you mean that I’m used to having to deal with all of you up in my business? Of course being the sole brother of the five of us growing up helped with that.” Kyler winked and took another sip of his beer, as I sipped my soda.