Chapter 19
CHAPTER 19
EVIE
“Okay, I’m going to put you on the spot,” Gracie says to me halfway through dinner. Since Felix’s dining room table is enormous, all six couples are seated for dinner. Alec introduced me to everyone when we arrived, and it took me a minute to get everyone’s names, but I think I have them now. Eli and Bailey, Van and Amelia, Nathan and Summer, Logan and Parker, and of course, Gracie and Felix.
I’m seated between Alec and Bailey and directly across from Gracie.
So far, everything about the evening has been perfect and lovely. Juno fell asleep and settled into her portable crib without so much as a whimper, the conversation has been easy and comfortable, and Alec has basically stayed by my side all night long. A hand on my shoulder. Fingers brushing down my arm. A leg pressed against mine under the table.
Right now, he’s turned away from me, talking to Van and Nathan about their fantasy hockey teams, but at Gracie’s question, his hand slipped under the table to squeeze my knee, so he must be paying at least partial attention to my conversation too.
I swallow a bite of the most delicious chicken parmesan I’ve ever had and raise my eyebrows. “Should I be nervous?”
“Not at all,” Gracie says. “I just want you to talk about yourself. About your violin. Are you any good?”
When I met Gracie at the symphony concert, Victoria mentioned that I played, but only in passing.
“And don’t hold back,” Gracie adds. “I need you to legit brag. If you have any qualifications, I want to hear them.”
She seems like she’s asking for a very particular reason, so I swallow my first inclination, which is to deflect and self-deprecate and tell her what she wants to know. “I went to Juilliard. And I was concertmaster of the Julliard Orchestra my senior year.”
“Shut up,” Gracie says. “That’s amazing. Have you played anywhere since?” It’s a valid question. With a résumé like that, I could have gotten an audition at any number of symphonies around the country.
“I was seven months pregnant with Juno at my final concert,” I say. “I took a break, for obvious reasons, and I actually didn’t play again until just the other night.”
“She sounded amazing,” Alec says from beside me. So he was listening. He grins as nudges me with his shoulder. “A lot better than she did when she was eleven.”
I elbow him in the ribs, and he chuckles.
“Okay, so I’m just throwing this out there,” Gracie says. “I have this quartet, and our first violinist is moving at the end of November. It’s pretty low-key. We mostly do weddings, the occasional corporate function. But the pay is decent, and we only rehearse if we need to learn new music. Mostly, we just play standard wedding stuff, which I’m sure is music you already know. Are you interested?”
The thought of having a reason to play again makes my heart ache. Once upon a time, I had big dreams when it came to playing the violin. Getting into Juilliard was the first part of that plan. But I wasn’t going to stop there. I was going to work my way up through the music scene in the city until I was on stage at Lincoln Center, playing with the New York Phil. It wouldn’t even matter if my tiny Manhattan apartment was too cramped and too far from the subway because I would be living my art—my dream.
Until it wasn’t my dream anymore. Because it couldn’t be.
Still. With all my experience, I probably do know all the music Gracie’s quartet plays, and it would feel so good to make music again. But the idea of committing to anything when Juno is still so young feels really overwhelming. “I don’t know,” I say. “With Juno, I’m not sure I’d…”
“I could help out with Juno,” Alec says. “At least when I’m in town.”
“Me too,” Summer adds. “I don’t usually travel with the team, so I’m around more than Alec is. I’d love to babysit.”
“I would too,” Bailey says from beside me. “My schedule’s a little crazy with school, but if I’m around and not studying, I’d love to watch her.”
All the offers of support somehow make me feel both incredibly grateful and equally uncomfortable. I don’t like taking advantage of people. I don’t like being needy. Juno is my responsibility. Other than leaving her with Ruth so I can go to work, I haven’t used any babysitters. Maybe because I’m so determined to take care of her on my own. Or because it’s hard to imagine leaving in the evenings when we aren’t together all day long. I’ve mostly resigned myself to the fact that I just can’t do anything extra until she’s older.
At the same time, it feels really good to be at this table, surrounded by people who seem genuinely invested in offering their support. My friends in New York were always more Devon’s friends than mine, and it was always a very obvious division. But even though these are also Alec’s friends, it doesn’t feel like that at all. We just met, but there’s still an openness here, a sincerity and sense of inclusion that I haven’t experienced since I was a kid hanging out at Megan’s house all the time.
Before Juno, whenever I dreamed of my future, it mostly just involved my music. But I’m starting to wonder if my dream was missing something—missing this. Community.
It isn’t just about Alec, though I won’t deny the tiny thrill that shoots through me when I think about being here in a more official girlfriend capacity. It’s also about how easily Gracie complimented and appreciated my talent. The way everyone is volunteering to help with Juno with selfless ease. The way they all clearly love and support each other.
“Just think about it, yeah?” Gracie says. “We’d love to have you. And the rest of my quartet is so great. We have a lot of fun.”
“I definitely will,” I say. “Thanks for the invitation.”
The conversation shifts onto other topics, and I eat the rest of my dinner mostly just listening. Eventually, Alec stretches his arm across the back of my chair and leans a little closer, his voice soft enough that no one else at the table can hear him. “So, I didn’t know you were such a badass at Juilliard.”
I chuckle. “I was nothing of the sort.”
“With a fancy title like concertmaster? Doesn’t that mean you were the best one?”
“Look at you with your orchestra lingo.”
“I’ve done my research,” he says. “You got a head start on hockey. I need to catch up.”
Juno lets out a tiny cry through the baby monitor sitting on the edge of the table, and we both turn to glance at it, watching the tiny red sound waves dance across the front. As late as it is, I hoped she’d stay down for hours, but in her portable crib, in a strange house, it won’t surprise me if she wakes up. But after another moment, she settles back down, and Alec and I breathe out a relieved sigh.
“She’s being nice to you tonight,” Alec says, and I nod.
“Yeah, she’s doing great.”
Around us, couples are getting up from the table, carrying plates to the sink and moving into the living room. Alec motions his head toward the couch. “This will go on for a while. Just talking, hanging out. But whenever you’re ready to go, we can go. Just say the word.”
“As long as Juno keeps sleeping, I think we’re good to stay.”
He moves his hand forward from my chair to my shoulders. “You should say yes to the quartet,” he says. “Take a leap. There are a lot of people here willing to catch you.”
I lean into him like a reflex, and my head falls against his chest. He smells so good—clean and woodsy and a little bit spicy. “But they’re your friends, Alec. I wouldn’t want to take advantage.”
“They’re your friends now too,” he says easily. “And they wouldn’t have offered if they weren’t truly willing to help.”
I tilt my head up to look at him. It’s nice to feel close to him like this, especially after the discomfort of our conversation in the car. It wasn’t quite the wet blanket I feared it would be, but it was close. I credit the fact that we recovered at all to Alec. I’m not sure a guy my age would have responded with so much maturity.
“You’re making it all sound very easy,” I say. “But I know Juno. Babies are unreliable and unpredictable and total attention hogs. You don’t know what you’re signing up for.”
He smiles, drawing my eyes to his lips, and suddenly, I can’t focus on the actual words he’s saying. I’m too preoccupied with the curve of his mouth, the dusting of stubble along his jawline…
“You didn’t hear anything I just said, did you?”
Alec’s words finally penetrate my kiss-hazy mind, and I snap to attention. “What?”
He grins and lifts his hand to my temple, tapping his finger against it. “What’s going on up there?”
I bite my lip, thinking about the answer he gave me this morning. I can’t know for certain his mind went to the same place mine did, but I’m willing to bet, so I tear a page from his playbook and give him the same answer he gave me.
“I’ll never tell,” I say.
His eyes turn molten as he lifts a hand to my cheek, his thumb brushing across my jawline, and for a moment, I think he’s going to do it. He’s going to kiss me right here in a room full of his friends. But then he lifts his gaze and glances around and seems to think better of it.
“Not here,” he says, his voice low and sultry. His hand slides back to my hair, that torturous thumb tracing a slow line down the side of my neck. “But soon.”
I take in a stuttering breath, relishing the promise in his words. A month ago, I would have argued I wasn’t capable of feeling something like this. Of feeling any of what Alec has triggered over the past couple of weeks. Pregnancy and childbirth were obviously part of it, but the divorce was too. I stopped thinking about attraction or love or desire. About feeling any kind of connection.
But I’m thinking about it now, and it feels like finding a piece of myself that was lost. Like I’m waking up from a really long nap.
Alec stands and offers me his hand, and I let him pull me to my feet and lead me over to the only remaining empty seat in the living room. I sit down while he retrieves a chair from the dining room table and walks it back, setting it down beside me.
Juno sleeps for another hour while everyone talks. When she finally wakes up, her cry sounding through the monitor, it’s Amelia who speaks up first.
“Don’t leave,” she says, not even lifting her head from Van’s shoulder. “Is she hungry? Can you just feed her here? If you leave, then we all leave, and I don’t want to get up yet.”
Alec stands before I can and moves toward the bedroom door. “I’ll grab her and bring her to you,” he says.
When he reappears with Juno in his arms, he holds her for a long moment, swaying back and forth a few times just beside my chair, like he isn’t quite ready to give her up.
“You seem good at that, Cap,” Nathan says.
Alec grins as he finally lowers Juno into my arms.
“You really are a sucker for this baby,” I say.
He meets my eye, his hands shifting to either arm of my chair so he’s hovering over me, his face as close as it was in the kitchen when we almost kissed. His grin turns mischievous, and my heart skips a beat or two as he leans even closer. “I’m definitely a sucker for something.”
He leaves me there, breathless and flustered and completely forgetting that I’m holding a baby who needs my attention. But then he’s back with Juno’s diaper bag, unzipping it and holding it open so I can retrieve her blanket. Then he’s in the kitchen, filling up a cup of water, one of the portable, tall ones with a lid and straw. He returns and holds it out, offering it to me like it’s not a monumentally big deal that he just anticipated my needs without me saying them out loud. That he helped without being asked.
That while I’m caring for Juno, he’s caring for me.
As soon as I see the water, a sharp craving moves through me just like it usually does whenever I start to nurse. I lift my eyebrows in question, and Alec shrugs.
“You once said feeding her makes you thirsty.”
I take the water, fighting an inexplicable wave of emotion. He brought me my baby. He remembered how thirsty nursing makes me. He’s sharing his friends, making me feel seen and welcome and like I belong here. I can’t with this.
I can’t experience all of this and not start to fall in love with him.
“Thanks,” I say, taking the water.
“It’s so sweet,” one of the women in the room whispers, but I can’t tell which one because I’m still staring at Alec. He maintains eye contact until his phone buzzes. He’s standing close enough for me to hear the vibration, so I’m still watching him when he pulls it out of his pocket and frowns at the screen.
He runs a hand through his hair and groans. “Oh no.”
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
He breathes out a sigh. “It’s the twins. They’re at the police station.”
My stomach sinks. I’ve spent enough time with the twins over the past week that I’m really starting to care about them. I know Theo gives Alec trouble, but he’s always been sweet to me, probably because I don’t have anything to do with hockey, and Carter is as good as they come. I hate to think about what this will mean for them. And for Alec, too, who has been trying so hard to figure out what they need.
“What happened?” I ask. “Were they arrested?”
Alec shakes his head. “I’m not sure. Carter is texting, so he still has his phone. That has to be a good sign. Wait…” He pauses, his eyes on his phone, then he sighs again. “Theo was picked up for drunk and disorderly conduct. Carter is asking if we can come down to the station.”
“I’ll come with you,” Summer says. “If charges have been filed, you’ll need a legal rep from the team.”
“I’ll come too,” Nathan says. “I can drive, then we’ll take you home after so Evie can get herself home.”
Alec looks at me. “Is that okay? Sorry. I hate to leave you, but…”
“Don’t apologize. It’s totally fine. As soon as Juno finishes, I’ll head home and meet you there.”
He nods and drops a hand onto my shoulder, giving it a light squeeze before he looks at Nathan and Summer. “Okay. Let’s go. Actually, wait one sec.”
He disappears into the bedroom, returning a few minutes later with Juno’s portable crib broken down and packed up in its travel case. He sets it by the door.
“Alec, I could have done that,” I say, but he shrugs and offers me a sheepish grin.
“Just one less thing for you to do before you go,” he says.
He thought of everything.
He’s never been a dad, never had a wife, and still, he anticipates my every need.
In the conversations I had with Devon leading up to our divorce, he always talked about fatherhood like it was some mysterious skillset he lacked and would never acquire.
But maybe it’s not so complicated. Maybe fatherhood is just a matter of paying attention, of noticing what your family needs, then stepping up to take care of that need. It’s being present. Invested. Willing.
Alec looks back and meets my eye one more time before he leaves. “I’ll see you at home?”
I nod, and he follows Summer and Nathan out the door, taking a tiny piece of my heart with him as he goes.