Chapter 30
Michael
“Michael?” Ginny calls out.
I turn toward my best friend as she paces across her living room toward me. Her blonde hair has been thrown into a messy bun, and a burp cloth is draped over her shoulder.
“I am so sorry to do this, but can you take her? I have to pee so bad.” She grimaces, her gaze apologetic. I don’t get a chance to respond before she’s pressing her three-month-old baby into my arms.
“I—” Freezing where I stand, my arms bracket little Nina in an awkward hold.
I’ve never been so tense in my life. The baby looks up at me with the sweetest little expression, and something inside me melts.
In all the time Carson and Ginny have been home, I haven’t held Nina.
I’ve been terrified of how I’d feel holding an unpredictable human against my chest.
Nina’s wrapped up in a baby blanket burrito. I’d hate to have my body clamped down like that, but she seems happy as a clam.
She’s so tiny.
I hadn’t believed I could be capable of being gentle with something so small. It seems Ginny’s moment of need has forced me out of my comfort zone.
“You look good with a baby in your arms.”
I look up at Ginny as she comes back into her living room. “I hadn’t realized how small she is.”
“And yet I feel as if she’s growing like a weed. It’s gone by so fast.” In her black leggings and cropped T-shirt, she looks exhausted and yet happier than I’ve ever seen her.
“You holding up okay?”
“For the most part. The hormones have been a bitch to get a handle on. Carson’s been a saint throughout it all. I’m not sure what I’d have done without him.”
To my horror, tears well in Ginny’s eyes.
“Hey,” I say softly. “What’s this about?”
“Oh, just ignore me.” She sniffs. “This happens way more often than I’d like.” Ginny yanks a tissue from the box on the end table to dry her eyes.
“Uhhh… What’s going on down here?” Carson’s eyes bounce between me, Nina, and Ginny. He heads straight to Ginny, palming her face and wiping the tears streaking across her cheeks. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” She breathes out a watery laugh. “I got emotional thinking about how fast time has flown.”
“Ah. That’ll do it.” Carson presses a kiss to Ginny’s forehead. My best friends have been in love with each other since they were kids. Seeing them happy together always makes me proud. Our whole friend group has been rooting for them from the beginning.
I walk through the open living room into the kitchen to let Carson and Ginny have a moment together. Nina hasn’t made a peep, seemingly content to stay in my arms for as long as I’ll hold her. It’s not quite so scary anymore, now that I’ve gotten used to her weight.
I’ve never given much thought to having a family of my own.
My best friends seem to be on the path toward happily ever after, and I was happy to sit on the sidelines, cheering them on.
Adalaide was the only woman I’d ever imagined settling down with, and that seemed like a pipe dream.
It felt like self-sabotage to picture a life with her, so I just never did.
Now that I have her, I’ve started to wonder what it might be like to have Addie by my side forever.
Does she want a family? Is she looking toward the future with me by her side? She told me she loves me that first night we decided to pursue our mutual affection for each other, but she hasn’t said it since. Does she regret saying it?
I haven’t been able to form the words to say them out loud to her, despite being overwhelmed by my feelings.
They keep getting stuck in my throat until I have to swallow them back down or risk choking on my emotions.
What if I can’t ever say the words to her?
How can I believe I’ll be able to keep her if I can’t tell her how I feel?
She’ll get tired of waiting for me to get my shit together.
Then I really will be a shell of a man, broken into too many pieces to ever have a hope of being repaired.
“Guys!” Lottie bursts through Carson and Ginny’s front door in a whirlwind of brown hair and excitement. Gia follows closely behind her with Ryan on their heels. “We have huge news.”
“What’s going on?” Ginny asks as everyone congregates in the living room.
Ryan raises his eyebrows at me when he sees I’m holding Nina. I shrug, since I can’t offer any other explanation at the moment.
“We stopped at the historical society to drop off some groceries for Alice before coming over, and she dropped an epic bomb on us.” Lottie is practically bouncing in place.
She pulls a leather-bound book from her purse and holds it out as if we’re supposed to know what it is. “This is Victoria Ashcroft’s journal!”
“Shut up!” Ginny gasps, jumping up to grab the book from Lottie.
“Alice found it in a trunk when she was rifling through some of the stuff in her attic,” Gia says. She’s sitting next to Ryan on the couch, her head on his shoulder. Something about her expression makes me frown. She seems tired or sad or something. I can’t quite put my finger on it.
Ryan catches my gaze, and I silently ask him if he knows what’s up. He minutely shakes his head, a look of concern on his face to match my own. Huh. We may need to push our prickly friend to open up to us soon.
Gia has never been good about telling us how she’s feeling. She and I have that in common, but Gia has always felt like she needs to be the life of the party even when she’s not feeling her best. I don’t have the compulsion to pretend I’m okay when I’m not—I just don’t want to talk about it.
“Has she read it?” Carson asks.
Lottie shakes her head. “Just enough to double-check the dates. She said it would only make her cry, so she wanted us to see if there’s anything in it we can use for our search for information.”
A while back, Lottie found some old letters in Carson’s brother’s house.
They were dated in the late 1800s and seemed to be love letters to a woman.
We decided to see if we could figure out who they belonged to, only to stumble across a murder mystery in the process.
Apparently, one of the authors of the letters we found went missing with his fiancée and was presumed to be dead.
We’ve been trying to solve the case ever since.
“This is so exciting,” Ginny squeals. “Should we take pictures of the pages and divvy them up?”
“That would probably be the fastest,” Gia agrees.
Lottie is flipping through the journal as she talks. “It looks like it starts a year before they went missing, so I think it would behoove us to read it from beginning to end.”
“I’ll do it,” Gia offers. “I just wrapped up a project and only have one other in the pipeline, so I’ve got some extra time.
” As a freelance graphic designer, Gia’s projects come in waves.
Sometimes she’ll be too busy to leave her office for days; other times, she’ll basically be on vacation for a week.
“We might have to work together,” Lottie says. “Her handwriting is beautiful, but the pages have aged pretty drastically. Some of this is tough to read.”
Gia’s hum is contemplative. “Let’s do what Ginny suggested then, and take pictures of the pages. We can print them out and write notes on what we can read and what we can’t.”
“Alice could probably help interpret anything you can’t figure out,” I suggest.
“It’s a little hard to fathom that this belonged to a real person. These were her inner thoughts about her life. It feels wrong to be snooping through her private things,” Lottie muses.
Ryan, ever the voice of reason, chimes in, “Since our intentions are honest, I’d imagine she’d encourage us to do whatever is necessary to bring her justice.”
“And Alice wouldn’t have given it to us if she didn’t believe in us,” Carson points out.
“Do you guys really think we have a chance to solve her disappearance?” Lottie asks.
Gia shrugs. “Probably not, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. We’ve gotten pretty far, given the limitations of time. Who’s to say that won’t continue?”
“I’ve got news.” The words are out of my mouth before I can even think about it.
Five pairs of eyes fall on me, overwhelming me with their attention. I stare down at Nina to escape their scrutiny.
“I… Well…” I take a deep breath. “Adalaide and I are dating.”
My news is met with a beat of silence before my friends explode into noise.
“What the hell?”
“Are you serious?”
“How long have you been keeping this from us?”
“Did you know?” That one was directed at Ryan by Gia.
Pride shines in his eyes as he looks at me before he turns to our friends. “Yes, I knew. I didn’t say anything because it wasn’t my news to share.”
I’m grateful he leaves out the part where he caught us instead of being told directly.
“This is so exciting.” Lottie claps. “How long have you been dating?”
“I guess it’s been a couple of months now. We weren’t ready to tell anyone until we’d established a foundation for our relationship. Now, it seems silly to have held it back.”
“No, it makes sense,” Ginny says. “Our family can be a lot at the best of times. You guys needed to figure yourselves out before we got in the middle of it.”
“That was our thought too.”
“How are you doing with the touching thing?” Gia asks. She’s not prying. They know I’ve struggled to date because most of the women don’t like that they can’t touch me as freely as they want.
“We’re making it work. She’s one of the few people who’s an exception to the rule, and she’s always careful.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. Addie knows you as well as, if not better than, we do,” Carson says.
“She sure as fuck does now.” Gia winks. I roll my eyes, but can’t help the chuckle that rumbles through my chest.
I’ve never told my friends where my sexual interests lie.
I’d imagine they have some general idea that I have to be careful, but I doubt they know the full extent of it.
The night at the club with Addie pops into my head.
She was so fucking beautiful. The way she surrendered to me was the sexiest thing I’ve ever experienced. I can’t wait to take her back.
The ideas that I’ve come up with since that night are too numerous to count.
But first, I have another fantasy to check off.