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Nora looked down at her daughter and murmured, “What is it, Evie-B?”
“It’s a baby.”
Having heard her little voice, Jill beamed as she crossed the space between them and sank down to her knees. “Hi. I’m Jill, and this is Eli. What’s your name?”
“Evie,” she answered softly.
Jill gasped, “Wow, you both have names that begin with E. How cool is that! My little guy is almost one. How old are you?”
Leaning into Nora’s leg, Evie held up her fingers and replied, “Four.”
“Four? You’re such a big girl.” Jill looked at Eli, who seemed as fascinated by Evie as she was by him, then suggested, “If you want, after you get something to eat, maybe you could sit with him for a little bit. I can even put on a Christmas movie. How does that sound?”
Evie looked up at Nora, and Nora smiled and nodded encouragingly. “Okay,” she replied.
“Okay. Let’s get you something to eat.”
Evie ate chips, salsa, and a single chicken wing—the latter only after a stern look from her mother and the threat of not getting a brownie if she didn’t. By the time she was finished with her brownie, the party had naturally split into two—the women in the living room and the men in the kitchen, hovering close to the remaining food. Jill put on Charlie Brown and sat with Evie and Eli on the floor as the women chatted.
“Lawson and I got to know each other a bit when I met him a couple months ago. It’s a really long story, not exactly Christmas party material, but he was assigned to keep an eye on me for a little while. He’s quiet, but he’s a really great guy,” said Kyra. The brunette, with the brightest blue eyes Nora had ever seen, was sitting next to her on the large, sectional sofa. “How long have you two been together?”
“Uh, technically a week—but we’ve known each other since we were young.”
“Rumor has it this is your second chance,” said Hanna, who sat opposite Kyra in the corner of the couch. “Though, my source is a man—so I’m sure you tell the story much better.”
Nora hummed a laugh, idly playing with Evie’s ponytail as she contemplated telling her and Lawson’s history. She barely knew anything about the women she sat with, but they were all connected to a group of men who played a part in bringing Lawson home and back into her life. In an odd way, she felt like she owed it to them—and to herself—to confide in them.
“We were your stereotypical, small-town couple. I was fourteen and a cheerleader for the football team. He was fifteen and a starting wide receiver. We were almost inseparable for years. His freshman year of college was the longest year of my life at that point. As soon as I could get to Knoxville, I was there. When he joined the Marine Corps, I followed him to North Carolina, too.”
“You were together all through high schoolandcollege?” asked Ruth.
“High school, college, basic training, a deployment to Afghanistan—we were pretty solid for about a decade.”
“Wow,” murmured Jill. “I haven’t evenknownLeo for half that time.”
“So, what happened? Why did you break up?” Hanna asked.
“It wasn’t easy, tetherin’ my heart to a solider who wanted to be on the battlefield more than he wanted to be home. We broke up in the middle of his second deployment. I moved back to Shelby, I moved on, I had Evie…” she paused, shifting her attention down at her daughter who was holding a sleepy Eli as she watched the cartoon on the big screen.
“And then what?” prompted Ruth.
Nora met Ruth’s eye, then Hanna’s, then Kyra’s before looking toward the kitchen. Lawson had his back to her, his overgrown hair almost reaching the top of his shoulders—much broader than they had been a decade ago.
“We grew up, I guess—and we realized we’d never love anyone the way we love each other.”
“My goodness, that’s romantic,” said Hanna on a sigh.
Nora laughed. “Al’right, enough about me. Someone else go. Ruth, how did you meet Brian?”
They exchanged relationship origin stories until Jill excused herself to put Eli to bed. Conversation shifted as they continued to fill Nora in on the details the group already knew about each other. After Charlie Brown had ended and Evie had entertained herself with her coloring books for as long as she had the attention span to do so, her tired restlessness started to show.
“Mommy, when are we leavin’?” she muttered after crawling into her mother’s lap.
“We probably should be headin’ home soon. It’s past your bedtime already, and we’ve still got a drive ahead of us. Why don’t you get Lawson?”
“Where is he?”
“In the kitchen.”
