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“Then put your glasses on, honey.” Her dad folded her into a bear hug. She let herself sink into the safety of it, let herself enjoy one of the few places in her life where everything was still exactly as it should be. “You’re a smart woman. We trust you to make the right call, don’t we Jean?”
Her mom nodded. “Absolutely. Follow your heart. It won’t lead you wrong.”
“Even if what it tells me to do blows up my whole life?” she asked.
“Even then,” her mom said. “Who knows what will rise from the ashes?”
13
Nick looked across the sand, his sunglasses shielding his eyes from the worst of the sun’s glare. Down the beach, Chief was chasing the frisbee back and forth between Elise, Ronan, and Declan, waiting for it to land in the water.
“Ronan still there?” Julia asked.
He looked over at her, sitting in the beach chair next to him. She was wearing a black bikini, her round belly protruding over the top of the bottoms like a perfect, pale watermelon. Her dark blond hair was pulled back and big, dark sunglasses covered her eyes. He thought she’d been asleep.
“Yep,” he said.
“Thank god,” she sighed.
Nick laughed. “He just worries about you and the baby.”
“I know,” she said, “and it’s really sweet. But my god… I’d need an oxygen tank if he were any more on top of me. And the food! I had to start doubling up on the ice cream at night after I lost weight two doctor’s visits in a row.”
Nick grinned. “I’m thinking of giving him cooking lessons for his next birthday.”
“Please,” she said. “You can make it my birthday gift for the year too.”
They settled back into companionable silence and Nick let his gaze travel across the beach. It was still early in the summer, and they had most of the beach to themselves.
Halfway between where he and Julia sat and where the others were playing frisbee, a couple of teenagers made out on a blanket, oblivious to the toddlers building sand castles a few feet away. Three women sat nearby, clearly the toddlers’ mothers, scowling at the young couple and murmuring words Nick couldn’t hear, their disapproval crystal clear.
Farther down the beach, two men walked hand in hand, one in a suit, the other in jeans, both carrying their shoes, their pants rolled up to their calves. They were deep in conversation, the incoming surf rolling over their feet while they walked.
It was an almost-perfect Saturday. The only thing missing was Alexa.
He watched his family play frisbee, Elise groaning when Chief snatched the plastic disc out of the air and trotted with it into the water. He smiled, imagining Alexa out there with them, her long hair pulled back into a ponytail, a baseball cap shielding her face from the sun while she banded together with Elise to beat Ronan and Dec.
Nick would sweep her off her feet, carrying her shrieking into the water, kiss the salt from her lips while Declan told them to get a room. Afterwards, they would go back to the house and order pizza, spilling out of the house and onto the patio in the courtyard, taking advantage of the nice weather and arguing about who had won the game of frisbee.
Julia would feed Chief under the table and Ronan would pretend to be mad. Elise would talk about the rich women who shopped at the downtown boutique where she worked and they would all tease Declan about his latest all-nighter. Nick would squeeze Alexa’s hand under the table, feel the press of her thigh against his, look over at her with a smile she would understand without words.
“Do you want to spill it?” Julia asked next to him. She was still reclined in the beach chair, her expression — what he could see of it with the sunglasses hiding her eyes — impassive.
“Spill what?” Nick asked.
“You know what,” Julia said. “I don’t know what it is, and neither does anyone else, but we all know there’s something going on with you.”
“Why do you say that?” Nick asked.
She waved a hand at him. “Because you’ve been all broody.”
He laughed. “Broody?”
“Yes, broody. You know what it means. You’re just stalling.”
He was tempted. Nothing would feel better than finally spilling the secret, than offloading the weight he’d been carrying on his shoulders for the past few months.
But he couldn’t do that to Julia. Nick wouldn’t ask her to keep secrets from Ronan, and she wouldn’t do it anyway. Besides, he owed it to Ronan to tell him first. Other than Nick, Ronan was the most invested in MIS. He had a wife and a baby on the way. He stood to lose the most if the AG’s office decided to launch an investigation against them.
