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Which meant hewouldn’t. He might be it for me, but I wasn’t it for him. Deluding myself that this arrangement would have a happily ever after was about as effective as Jacey “wishing it true.”
“The point is, it’s thelosing youpart that’ll hurt, Brody, not the divorce part.”
Her words made me feel both better and worse. It helped to know the marriage bargain wasn’t going to make things worse for them, but knowing that eventually I’d have to leave—because, as Fen said, “every fairy tale has to end sometime, boo”—killed me as much as it did her.
“Have I mentioned today how very smart you are?” I asked roughly. “Because you are, Jacey Brighton. You’re absolutely brilliant. And I could not love you more.”
To my shock, her eyes welled with tears. “Back atcha. You’re like a dad… only cooler.” She sniffed and assumed her usual disdainful teenager expression to cover it. “Like, atinybit cooler.”
Oh, my fucking heart.
“It’s my musical taste that gets me the cool points, isn’t it?” I joked, nudging her arm. “Should I break into some ‘Exile’? You can sing the Taylor parts.”
She rolled her eyes but giggled, just as I’d known she would. “I lied. You’re not cooler. Not even a little cooler.”
I laughed, too. Then I looked out the clubhouse door at the late-summer sunshine, where my friends and her sisters waited. “What do you say we go home?” I asked abruptly. “We can get strawberry lemonade slushies on the way and do a backyard dance party this time…”
“And you can figure out how you and Dad should tell Mia and Cleo about being married before Mrs. Dewan spills the beans?” she asked shrewdly. “I vote yes. But,” she added in a judgmental Cleo-voice, “nolove songsat the dance party.”
I chuckled and made a cross over my heart. “I would never.”
I stood and grabbed her hand to help pull her to her feet, but she shocked me by throwing her arms around me and hugging me tightly. “Just don’t leave us, okay? Even if you and Dad have to split up someday, don’t leave like Mom did. That’s the only thing you could do that would…”
The wordsthat would breakus remained unspoken.
I leaned over and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I will never walk away from you. That’s something I can definitely promise.”
And I meant those words with every part of myself—nothing in the world could make me stop loving these girls.
But I was very afraid they were equally true for their father.
5
GRANT
Three weeks into the school year, I found myself standing on the sidelines, toying with the shiny platinum ring on my finger as I watched Brody set up drinks and snacks on a picnic blanket with the other soccer parents, and I wondered how my busy, structured life had suddenly veered into…this.
A life where I was spending my Saturday morning standing outside, on a field, in the September sunshine.
A life where my daughters were also voluntarily awake and outside, happily talking and laughing with their friends, despite the early hour, as though adjusting to their new school—and new stepdad—had been easy peasy.
A life where I was…
“Married.” My sister, Gwen, stood beside me in her Mountbatten sweatshirt, and for a startled second, I thought she’d read my mind. But then I saw that she’d followed the direction of my gaze and was watching Brody also, with a face full of fond affection. “Fuckingmarried.”
“I told you this weeks ago,” I muttered under my breath. “Yet every time I see you, you say it like you’re shocked all over again.”
“Because itisa shock,” she said with a laugh. “I still can’t believe that my brother—buttoned-up, oh-so-reserved Dr. Grant Brighton—married hisnanny. Hismalenanny. It’s the scandal of the century. Just ask the ladies in Mom’s mahjong club.”
“I really wish you hadn’t told Mom quite the way you did. She thinks it’s…” I darted a covert glance around the Mountbatten soccer field before saying in a whisper. “…real.”
“Dude. Shiny hardware you two have on your fingers suggests it’s very real.” She elbowed me lightly. “So does the marriage certificate.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, but there are special circumstances, as you know.”
“Oh, I know the circumstances,” she agreed cheerfully. “You’ve been in love with that kid since the day he walked his fine ass and threadbare jeans into your office and told you that as a ‘full-time childcare specialist,’ he believed in letting children choose their own interests rather than having their parents push them into things. Like he had any childcare experience to speak of back then.” She chuckled. “Little did he know, he was talking to the boy who’d been made to do after-school academic enrichment like it was a full-time job.” She patted my chest. “You were putty in his hands after that, Grant. Not that Brody’s realized it.”
I shook my head. Gwen was incorrigible, but she wasn’t wrong. And yet…
