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“It’s very nice of her, but I’m sure she has better things to do than take care of my son.”
“Actually, I don’t,” Wynter says. “And I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t want to take care of Xavier. In case you haven’t noticed, I love him, and I’d love to take care of him if it would help you.”
I love the way Wynter can shock and surprise us in the span of two minutes. That’s her special gift.
“What do you think, Adrian?” Joy asks.
“I’d love to have you help with Xavier, but only if you really want to.”
“Duh, I just said I did.”
“Then it’s settled,” Joy says, seeming pleased with herself. She’s a bigwig corporate attorney and is good at mediating situations of all kinds.
“Good work, Mama Joy,” Kinsley says. “Solver of problems.”
“It’s what I do all the livelong day,” Joy says.
“Has anyone seen Lexi this morning?” Hallie asks.
“Not yet,” Naomi says.
Lexi lost her husband Jim to ALS after a four-year battle that devastated her financially as well as emotionally. She said she couldn’t afford the weekend away. We told her we didn’t mind covering her share, but she hadn’t felt right about that. We eventually talked her into coming anyway, but she’s been quiet.
“I wish she wouldn’t worry about not having the money for this,” Adrian says. “Who cares about that? With so many of us chipping in, it hardly cost much of anything.”
“We’ve all told her that,” Naomi says. “I hope she can just relax and enjoy the time away.”
Hearing about widows like Lexi, who were financially devastated by the loss of their spouses, makes me so thankful for Mike and his insistence on making sure we’d be okay without his income. As a corporate pilot, he had all the insurance he possibly could—and thank God for that. Some of it hasn’t paid out yet, as we’re still waiting for the accident report from the NTSB, but we have enough to get by, and for that, I’m thankful to him.
Gage and I insist on cleaning up the kitchen and send Hallie on a beach walk with Naomi, Kinsley, Joy, Wynter and Adrian. Roni and Derek took Dylan in for a nap and never came back out, not that we expected them to.
“That breakfast was incredible,” Gage said. “I’m stuffed.”
“Hallie is in her element cooking.”
“She seems to be doing a little better.”
I can barely bring myself to look at him without wanting to rip his clothes off and pick up where we left off. “Maybe.”
“Iris.”
I glance at him. “Yes?”
“What’s wrong?”
3
GAGE
She’s barely looked at me since I came back from the beach earlier, and now I’m worried that we made a huge mistake last night, even if it didn’t feel like one at the time.
“Nothing’s wrong.”
“Why won’t you look at me, then?”
In a past life, I never would’ve forced the matter. I would’ve waited out Natasha while hoping whatever was going on didn’t devolve into some big emotional battle. I’ve had a lot of time to think about why I did that, and the only thing I can come up with is that I was so afraid of making her mad that I didn’t engage with her on things I probably should have. I hated when she was unhappy for any reason, especially if I had caused it.
I don’t want to be that way anymore, thus my question to Iris.
