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63
Epilogue: ***Poppy***
ThefirsttimetheSummers family reunion was held at our house, I was a mess. There were so many things happening at once that I disappeared into a locked bathroom more than once to shed a few stress tears. Not only was my entire family coming to see our home for the first time, but the local shop I’d opened to sell my projects had been spotlighted on a popular channel and I’d been so busy that I barely knew which way was up.
Our home was overrun with family members, some that I didn’t even like. Aunt Bonnie had shown up as a surprise to everyone, like it was some treat. She even had the nerve to act like she hadn’t been judgmental and rude about my relationship with the guys over the last four years. The family tree had reported back so many different gross things she’d said about us, but did that stop her from showing up and putting her feet on the hand-carved coffee table I’d built out of a fallen tree on our property? No, it did not.
Possibly even more offensive than Bonnie showing up with her tuna casserole was that she’d had the nerve to bring Kaitlyn and her boyfriend. The boyfriend? Andrew. And they’d brought their four-year-old who screamed nonstop at everyone. I had to convince the guys not to start digging a hole to bury Andrew in and it wasn’t easy. My men were protective of me and stubborn as hell.
I had food spread out on every surface I could find, someone’s husband playing a basketball game in the living room so loud that I couldn’t hear myself think, and I couldn’t find my mother. That mattered even more than ever because my mother had watched me pee on a pregnancy stick and then run off with it before I could see the results.
That was the other stressful thing. Besides the family and the work and the ex still showing up at family events. I’d gone off birth control over a year earlier. I knew the guys all wanted kids and were ready to start our family, even if they hadn’t popped the question yet, blaming it on the fact that I had romantic pipe dreams. I’d planned the moment I quit taking my birth control perfectly and had planned on surprising the guys with the news right before their birthday season started. But month after month, every pregnancy test I took had come out negative.
My doctor said that was common and that I had nothing to worry about, but I wasn’t a patient person and each month that didn’t work had whittled away at me. I’d put so much pressure on making it a surprise for the guys that I hadn’t been able to talk to them about it, either. I’d just been stressed and sad for a few days each month and let the guys blame it on my period.
I’d taken another test with Mom, knowing it would probably be negative, but I needed to try anyway. Mom, who I’d finally broken down and told everything to a few months earlier, had gone from captain of the baby team to not mentioning children at all. She knew how sad I was and how much it crushed me to have it not happen. The guys had even started talking about whether or not they’d done something to piss Mom off because she wasn’t trying to force us to have babies anymore.
I knew that Mom meant well in taking the test and running, not wanting what I was assuming was another negative result to crush me while our whole family was here, but I needed to see it and start accepting another month. She couldn’t protect me from what was happening. No more than my big, strong men could.
Needing another break from our family, I snuck out of the patio door in our bedroom and sat on our deck that looked out over our lake. I pulled my knees up to my chest and rested my chin on them. I felt like throwing a tantrum. I wanted to kick everyone out and break things. I just wanted to give the world to my guys and I couldn’t do it.
“Hey! What are you doing out here?” Sara came walking up from the barn, her hair full of hay. I knew Charlie would go sneaking out a few minutes later. Those two had been married for two years and still went at it like rabbits. Rabbits who loved doing it in places that belonged to other people.
“Just catching a breath of air. There’s too many people inside.” I grinned as she sat down next to me. “You’ve got a little sex in your hair.”
She blushed and shook her hair out. “I tripped.”
Just then, Charlie came sneaking out of the barn like he wasn’t a fully grown man in neon yellow swim trunks. He turned in our direction, spotted me waving at him, and took off toward the front of the house.
I laughed. “You two are going to get caught one day and I’m not bailing my pervert brother and best friend out of jail. I don’t want that attached to my name.”
She rolled her eyes. “Like we’d ever call you. You would probably have to stop on the way to the police station to see what kind of contortionist sex you could have with four people in the back seat of a truck. You guys fuck in mathematics, I swear.”
I threw my head back and laughed even harder. She wasn’t wrong about most of that scenario being possible. My sex life did get complicated at times. We just didn’t work in a lot of places where stereotypical couples hooked up. There was nothing sneaky about four people wiggling around in a photobooth. “Are you two staying tonight? I know how much you like sleeping together in other people’s beds.”
She groaned. “One time. That happened one time and you’re never going to let it go, are you?”
“God, no. You slept withmy brotheron my bed. You could’ve slept with anyone else on my bed and I wouldn’t have cared. But having my brother put his bare ass on my things is fucking rude.”
“Yeah, that’s fair.”
I looked out over the lake and then back at her. “Have you seen my mom, by the way?”
“No.” She answered so fast that I immediately knew something was up.
“What’s going on?”
She jumped to her feet and shrugged. “Nothing. I’ve got to find a bathroom. I’ll see you in there.”
I stared after her and then got up to go searching. Something was definitely up and I hated being left out.
64
Epilogue II: ***Poppy***
Itwasstartingtoget dark outside and I was starting to get pissed. I’d been forced to listen to Aunt Bonnie talk about how advanced her grandson was while watching him alternate which nostril he liked the boogers from better. I’d searched everywhere I could think to search and I hadn’t spotted my mother, my men, my brothers, or Sara. I was basically hanging out with Bonnie and Kaitlyn. At least Andrew had left to do a work thing. There were plenty of other family members milling about, but I wantedmypeople.
The thing about Sam, Jude, and Cyrus was that they’d encouraged my bratty side. They loved when I argued with them and bickered. It was like foreplay for us. Unfortunately for them, that meant that when they pissed me off, they really got to deal with my unpleasantness. So after hours of not seeing them, I stomped down the front porch steps and stood in the middle of our driveway.
