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“Pleasure to be of service.” Jason grinned then plopped down next to Gem, dropping an arm around her shoulders.
“It’s still weird sometimes,” she said. “Like, Willow will wake up in the middle of the night, and for a second, I forget where I am and who I am. It takes me a minute to remember I have a kid now.”
“You forget about me too?” Jason quipped, towing Gem in closer to him.
“I could never,” she said sweetly. Then she added with a bit more bite, “You snore too loud to ignore.”
Jason jostled Gem playfully, whispering something in her ear that made her cheeks flame as she smiled. She elbowed him away to scoop Willow from her breast and onto her shoulder.
Laney finished Sam’s hair with a clap and leaped up. “Bobby snores too, but no matter what, I can never wake him up to stop.”
At that, Sam lifted her hands above her head, stretching. “That’s why I enjoy sleeping alone.”
Laney grabbed her phone, always one to document everything, a social media queen. “Jason, if you please?”
He stood to take her phone, while Laney, Sam, and Bronte all found seats on either side and in front of Gem and Willow.
“On three,” Jason said, positioning the phone up.
“Happy birthday, Bronte,” Sam said from her seat on the floor.
“One.”
“Hope it’s a good year for you,” Laney said, tugging on Bronte’s ponytail from the other side of Gem.
“Two.”
“And all your wishes come true,” Gem added.
“Three.”
Jason snapped a few pictures then handed Laney her phone back in exchange for Willow from Gem. “I’ll leave you ladies to it.” He kissed Gem’s forehead. “I’ll take the midnight feeding, okay? You’ve got enough milk stored.”
It was only eight o’clock, but Bronte suspected he planned on staying upstairs the rest of the night with the baby so Gem could have the last few hours with her friends.
“It was nice finally meeting you in person, and I’m really glad you guys could come for the weekend,” he said to the group. “Our guest rooms are open whenever you want them.”
A chorus of gratitude rang out and barely audible sighs of appreciation when he turned around with Willow in his arms, his long, confident strides on display as he walked away. After a few moments of silence, Laney, Sam, and Bronte all looked at Gem, who blushed with a laugh. “I know, right? He’s perfect.”
“Like a dream!” Laney crowed.
Sam grabbed the remote once again. “A literal real-life Ken doll.”
“I’m happy for you,” Bronte said, holding Gem’s hand. The two had come a long way since meeting on their college campus the first day as roommates. Bronte had been a mess, crying and already homesick, while Gem was excited to be out of her home state and away from her mother’s “douchebag boyfriend.” A few days later, they’d met Sam and Laney in a humanities class, but it wasn’t until two weeks after that they’d solidified their friendship at a party when some awful guy slipped something into Gem’s drink. Bronte, Laney, and Sam immediately swooped in to help her, and the rest was history. Best friends for life.
Gem glowed, her eyes watering, as she squeezed Bronte’s hand in return, bringing her back to the present. “Life is good.”
Bronte’s eyes watered too because she was physically incapable of not crying when someone else cried. “I can tell.”
“Are you happy?”
Bronte coasted her gaze around Gem and Jason’s living room, the walls a bold but soothing orange with pops of gray and green in the furniture and plants everywhere, and her friends scattered about but close enough to touch. Laney with her foot resting against Gem’s thigh and her head on the arm of the sofa, next to Sam, both of them laughing about something on Laney’s phone. This was the first time they’d been able to be with one another in person in over a year, and it was well worth the wait.
“Yeah,” Bronte said. She may have been jealous of Gem and what she had in this house, but these three girls were as close to her as her own family. This weekend was the happiest she’d been in a long time. “I’m happy.”
“Well,” Laney started, lifting the wine toward Gem. “Since Jason’s called dibs on the midnight feeding, that means you can have a drink, right?”
“You’re damn right.” Gem wiggled her fingers, and Laney passed her the wine. She drank right from the bottle—like the lady she was—and they all giggled, telling stories until after two when Gem finally had to go upstairs to pump. Instead of separating into different bedrooms, Laney, Sam, and Bronte piled into one bed, where they slept all crammed together until exactly six o’clock in the morning.
That was when Willow’s howl woke them up. Time for breakfast. Like clockwork, that tiny one was. A girl after Bronte’s own heart.
