Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
RYAN
I sighed as I checked my emails in case my real estate agent had somehow found new listings overnight. After an afternoon of unsuccessfully touring apartments and houses chopped up into smaller units, I was losing hope of finding a decent place within our budget.
It wasn’t like I had a huge budget to work with, either, since I’d taken a massive pay cut for this remote position in order to stay home with Karla. I figured it would be fine with the cost of living in Kither Springs being much lower than the city, but apparently, I was wrong.
The units our agent showed us were basically the same price as my old place in the city, but in much worse conditions, since most of the buildings here were older.
I heard Jones’ construction unit was working on a new apartment building.
It was one of the first apartment complexes in the west side of town.
At this rate, I might have to wait until the construction was finished to find a place of my own.
I sighed again. Living with my mom and grandma wasn’t bad, and I was grateful they were letting us stay with them in the first place. They adored Karla and showered her with love, though I had to admit it was a little cramped.
I didn’t mind sharing a room with Karla for now, especially since she still tended to crawl into my bed in the middle of the night after a scary dream, but it would be nice for her to have a room of her own.
Karla’s new therapist emphasized it was important for Karla to feel safe and get settled into a new routine. I was hoping to get her settled in our new place before she started kindergarten in a few months. My hope for us finding a place in the middle of the summer was quickly dimming.
I pressed my eyelids, trying to quell the incoming headache, when my phone chimed with a notification. I unlocked my phone and read the text from Jones that told me he was going to be a grandpa with at least a dozen crying emojis.
I couldn’t stop the smile that had wiggled its way onto my face. Jones was an unexpected, but extremely pleasant, bonus to moving to Kither Springs.
After what I did to him when we were teens, I’d been fully prepared to be snubbed by him if we ever bumped into each other in town. Jones, being the same Jones I remembered, not only didn’t do that, but even welcomed me and Karla with arms just about as open as they could get.
I was pressing the call button and Jones had answered before I realized what was happening.
“It’s official. Lily’s pregnant, and I’m going to be a grandpa.” Jones’ voice was grumpier than usual. There was the hint of a pout in it.
I smiled, imagining the giant of a man with his shoulders slumped, pouting like a kid. As dependable as Jones was—and he’d been a huge help these past few weeks with Karla—I loved it when he showed me his vulnerable side.
“Did you take Lily to the vet this morning?” I asked, and hearing her best friend’s name, Karla looked up from where she was coloring with my grandma in the living room. She abandoned her gigi and padded to where I sat at the kitchen table.
“Papa?” she asked, head tilting adorably in question. Mom had styled their hair in matching ponytails that were comprised of small strands of braids. Each braid was tied with some kind of hair accessory that jingled when she moved.
“No, baby. He’s not papa, he’s Jones,” I insisted and moved the phone from my ear. Jones muttered something that I didn’t catch while I was putting him on speaker. Karla just stared at me with her bright blue eyes and didn’tacknowledge my comment.
I doubted she even knew what a papa was since we’d never used that word around her before, and it wasn’t common to hear it in the city. But Jones had a habit of calling himself Lily’s papa, and Karla probably figured if he was Lily’s papa, then he had to be hers as well.
Karla had become attached to both Lily and Jones so quickly that I was terrified of what would happen if Jones decided he didn’t want to be with me anymore.
What if he got tired of being with a single dad and always being put in second place?
Because I was serious when I told him Karla would always be my priority.
“Is that my baby girl?” Jones asked through the speaker, and Karla giggled with so much joy.
A bit of my worry slipped away because this was Jones .
A decade might have passed since I last saw him, but at his core, he was still the same person I’d known.
The kind, gentle boy who reached his hand out to crying strangers.
Even if things between us didn’t end up going well, I had faith he wouldn’t do anything to hurt Karla.
Though the selfish part of me hoped that Jones and I were as steady as the hill we’d made ours on those bright summer days.
“Lily?” Karla asked, her face pressed hard into the phone. I laughed and loosened her hold on it in case she hurt herself.
There was the sound of heavy breathing, then a soft bark as if answering her.
“Lily!” Karla called again, and the dog and child mumbled nonsensical noises to each other like they were having an actual conversation .
“Baby, can you let Daddy have the phone so I can talk to Jones?” I asked after a minute. She nodded seriously and handed me back the phone, but instead of returning to her coloring, she plopped her upper body onto my lap.
I turned off the phone speaker and put it back against my ear. “Can you hear me?”
Jones’ warm chuckle tickled my senses as he answeredaffirmatively. It reminded me of the way he’d rub his hands down my spine in the rare moments we were able to cuddle in bed together. I wanted more of those moments.
“If you’re not busy after work, how about you and Karla come spend the night? I can show you two Lily’s ultrasound?” he asked, voice hopeful.
My heart warmed knowing he was eager to spend more time with us, even after seeing us almost every day.
“You got her an ultrasound? I thought they could test for pregnancy without that,” I replied with my own question.
“I wanted to be doubly sure,” he grumbled. “The vet says she’s almost certain Lily has three pups on the way. My poor girl is gonna be a mother to triplets.”
I laughed at how mournful he sounded. I knew he was just worried about his girl going through pregnancy since he hadn’t been expecting this at all.
“I’ll have to explain to Karla what it means to be pregnant,” I mumbled mostly to myself.
“We can explain it to her together,” Jones replied .
“Yeah?”
“I think, as Papa, it’s the least I could do,” he said with a laugh. I wasn’t sure if he meant Papa to Lily or Karla, but a warmth settled in my stomach as I played with my baby’s hair.
Jones being Karla’s papa, maybe even the two of us raising her together? That sounded like a dream.
Later that afternoon, when Jones texted he was home, I packed our stuff into the car and buckled Karla up for the drive over.
Mom handed me the mac and cheese dish my grandma made for me to take over. I placed it on the passenger seat, then turned to find my mother watching me with a shit-eating grin I wasn’t fond of.
“You’ve been spending so much time with the younger Denn boy recently,” she stated.
“Mother,” I warned before she could speak and glanced at Karla, who was watching us while kicking her legs.
“What? Can’t a mother be interested in her son’s life?” she replied, eyes wide with shock. I shook my head, knowing how good she was at faking being innocent.
“It’s still new, okay? So can we just…not?” I pleaded, eyes flicking to Karla again. She was still young, bu t I swore she was smarter than her age and picked up things quickly.
I tried to keep the PDA with Jones to a minimum when Karla was watching, even if I wasn’t successful some of the time. I told myself I was doing this to protect Karla, in case things with Jones didn’t turn out the way I wanted. Though sometimes I wondered if it was Karla I was protecting or myself.
“Okay, honey,” Mom said, and I breathed a sigh of relief. “I just want to say you’ve been smiling more in the past few weeks. You look happy.”
I glanced at Karla, who was hugging Puppy and patiently waiting for us to finish our conversation so she could see Lily. Aside from the occasional nightmares that woke her up in the middle of the night, she’d been smiling and even talking more often these days.
Then I thought of the man whose warmth rivaled that of the summer sun. The man who held me when I broke down when reminiscing about my best friend, cared for Karla as if she were his own, and had unintentionally become a place of comfort for me, and, I believed, Karla as well.
“I am happy,” I told my mom, and when my words rang in my ears, I realized how true they were. Mom beamed and pressed a kiss to my cheek before going to do the same for Karla.
“Make sure to video call us before bedtime or else I won’t be able to sleep without seeing my little girl,” she teased Karla, causing more giggles to ring out .
After reassuring Mom I would call them tonight, we were on our way.
Jones was sitting on his rocking chair with Lily lying by his side, just like the first time we came to spend the night. This time, though, he immediately popped up from his seat, laughing and waving as he made his way toward us before I could even turn my car off.
The feeling of coming home washed over me, and I couldn’t shake it off even when Jones opened the back car door.
He unbuckled Karla from her booster seat, lifting her high in the air and making her giggle before pulling her in for a kiss on the cheek. Karla squealed in her happiness and pulled on Jones’ beard.
“Gentle, baby,” Jones said in a pained tone. Karla thought it was hilarious and tugged harder. Jones groaned dramatically in pain, though I knew from experience that he wasn’t completely faking it. The girl was small, but she already had a fierce grip!
“Baby, you’re giving him an ouchie,” I gently chided her and tried to pry her fingers open. She protested by clinging to Jones’ neck and pasting herself to him.
I watched helplessly. Jones laughed at the action with a soft look in his eyes as he patted her back.
“Don’t you want to say hi to Lily? She’s been waiting for you,” Jones commented.
The mention of her best friend immediately got her attention, and she waved her legs to be put down. Jones obliged, and the two ladies ran around in the yard chasing each other.
As soon as their attention was off us, Jones stepped close enough for me to get a whiff of the scent of clean soap.
It was nice, but I preferred the smell of sun and fresh dirt that lingered on his skin when I could get up close and personal to him…
and I quickly shook that thought out of my head, because this would be the absolutely worst time to get a boner.
“I missed you,” he murmured. He glanced toward the lawn, probably double-checking Karla wasn’t watching us, then brought me in for a sweet kiss that ended entirely too soon.
He was pulling away before I could properly melt into him. “I missed you, too,” I said, and I couldn’t resist pressing a kiss on his slightly darkened cheeks when I noticed him acting all shy.
We let the girls play a little longer, being sure to keep an eye on them in case Karla got a little too rough on the future mama.
Now that I looked closer, Lily was a lot rounder in her middle than everywhere else, and her nipples hung low on her belly.
It was a wonder we hadn’t realized she was pregnant sooner.
When Karla was tired from all the running, we called them inside for dinner.
I reheated the mac and cheese my grandma made while Jones plated up the rest of the food.
He grilled up steak and tossed a salad for the two of us, and whipped up some homemade chicken nuggets for Karla since she was picky with her food.
He told me in private that he’d mixed carrots and cauliflower into the nuggets to make them healthier.
I was skeptical that she’d like them, but I was also touched that he was thinking about her health.
When he saw she was happily babbling and eating them, Jones beamed like a proud father who’d sneakily gotten his kid eating vegetables.
Jones and I worked together to clean up after dinner while Karla rolled around on the carpet with Lily. Afterward, we took them outside and sat on the rocking chairs on the front porch.
I pulled Karla onto my lap, Jones brought his rocking chair close to ours, and Lily lay down at our feet as we slowly explained to Karla that Lily was about to have puppies.
Every time I mentioned the word baby, she kept pointing to herself and claiming herself to be a baby. Jones kept laughing and agreeing with her, which was totally not helpful in this situation, even if I also found it amusing.
She understood, eventually, I think. Jones showed us a picture of the ultrasound he took on his phone and explained that Lily was going to be a mama and there were puppies inside her stomach.
She got wide-eyed after that and wiggled out of my lap and plopped herself down beside Lily. She stared at the dog’sbulging belly, eyes shining as she reached her little hands toward her.
“Baby, gentle, okay?” I quickly reminded her.
My sweet girl nodded and moved extra slowly as she placed her hand on Lily’s belly.
Lily was patient as she lay there and watched our girl giggle and softly pat her belly.
If dogs could look indulgent, that was how I’d have described how Lily looked at that moment.
Jones reached over to my lap and twined our fingers together. He smiled, teeth pearly white, and the evening summer sun had turned his skin into a beautiful caramel.
This wasn’t the first time I’d seen him like this, not by a long shot.
Almost every day during my summers here as a teen, we’d sit at the peak of our little mountain and watch the very same setting sun paint the world in the hazy yellow I loved so much.
We’d laugh and smile at each other, just two kids who were probably already in love with each other.
I’d run away back then, too scared to admit it to myself, but I wasn’t a scared kid anymore. I was proud to admit my soul screamed for our summer days and the very man who made them so special in the first place.
I was completely and undoubtedly head over heels in love with Jones Denn.