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Fun! You should’ve invited me to go with you. I’d love to see Debbie again. She has some kids close to Mitch’s age, right?
She does,Talulah wrote.Next time.
Okay. Send me a pic of the new baby.
Talulah had one on her phone from the day Abby was born, but she wanted to get a recent one. Newborns changed so quickly.
When she brought Scott and Brant their wine, she expected to see Debbie or Scott holding the new addition to their family. But Abby was cradled in Brant’s arms.
“Looks like she’s sound asleep,” Talulah said as he accepted his glass.
He smiled as he set it on the table beside him. “I want to see what she’s like when she’s awake, so I keep jiggling her, hoping she’ll open her eyes, but she won’t.”
Debbie laughed. “She’s too warm and comfortable.”
“Do you mind if I take a picture?” Talulah asked, and he smiled as she snapped one on her phone. This wasn’t a photograph she’d ever send to Averil, of course. But it was definitely one she wanted to keep for herself.
“You’re quiet,” Talulah said. “Are you tired? Want me to take over?”
She was sitting next to Brant in the middle of the bench seat, her hand on his thigh as he drove them home. He liked having her there, so close. It felt like she was his in a way no other woman had been. But he couldn’t get his mind off what might or might not happen in the future. He’d told her she could leave him at any time without blame or anger, but he had to admit that every minute he spent with her made the prospect of losing her harder. “I’m fine,” he said. “Just thinking.”
“About...”
Should he tell her? He’d promised himself he wouldn’t pressure her. But they were running out of time. He could easily imagine her getting swept up in her old life and forgetting about him after she went back to Seattle, so coming up with a plan seemed important. “Today, I guess.”
“What about it?”
“It was nice.”
“I enjoyed it, too,” she said. “But I’m surprised you did. The kids wouldn’t leave you alone.”
“That was my fault. I kept riling them up. I love kids. I’d like to have a couple of my own.” He glanced over at her. “What about you?”
“I’d like to have kids, too—someday.”
“We’re in our thirties,” he pointed out.
“Meaning what? We’re getting old, and it’ll soon be too late?”
He could tell she was joking—sort of. She seemed reluctant to have too serious a conversation, and he could understand why. He was the one who’d said they’d just have fun today. But after holding Abby and feeling the peach fuzz on her head and smelling that sweet, baby-powdery smell on her skin and clothes, he realized just how ready he was for something beyond work, hanging out with his brothers and drinking with his friends. It felt like he’d been stuck in one place for the past few years, waiting for something he needed before he could move on, and now he’d found it.
“I’ve been giving the prospect of a family some thought, too,” she told him.
He passed a slow-moving semi. “And?”
“I get where you’re coming from. If I’m going to do it, it should probably happen in the next five or six years.”
“Is that why you were thinking of settling down with Paul?”
“I guess. Partly. Then I wouldn’t have to try to meet someone else. I could give him what he wanted. And it would be easy, or at least comfortable, to share our responsibilities—taking care of both the diner and the children.”
“Paul would be the most convenient choice.” Brant couldn’t argue with that.
“So it’s a good thing I came home,” she said. “Or I might’ve gone through with it. I wouldn’t have let myself back outagain. And now I know for sure that I don’t want to marry him or have his baby.”
Brant turned down the radio. “What about mine?”
She looked shocked. He was kind of shocked himself. He was saying things to her he’d never said to any other woman. “We don’t even know how our lives would fit together, Brant. I mean... I don’t see you moving to Seattle...”
