Chapter 38
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
JESSIE
“ W ow, I feel like I’ve stepped into Disney World or something,” Mia says from beside me as we walk out into Jensen and Kate’s garden for Aster and the twins’ joint first birthday party.
“Their very own Animal Kingdom,” I reply, trying to take in one of the most lavish first birthday parties I’ve ever seen.
As soon as she sees us, Kate approaches, a glass of champagne ready to hand to Mia. “You made it! And on time.” She looks to me.
“Wouldn’t miss this for the world.” The garden is huge, but somehow, they’ve managed to fill it with balloons, activities, and huge models of giraffes, elephants, and every other animal you can think of. “Where are they?” I say, looking for Aster, Will, and June.
Kate points toward a window in their house behind me. “Oh, Jensen, Luna, and Zach are changing them into their costumes.”
“For real?” Mia asks with a squeak, obviously not fazed by this one bit.
“Yep. So, Aster chose to be a lion, June is a hippo—God knows why she chose that—and Will also wanted to be a lion, but we convinced him he made a better crocodile.”
Taking a soda from the tray as the waiter passes, I look down at the animal-themed straw sitting in my glass. “Jon is behind this, isn’t he?”
“Actually, no, thank you. He is not. This is all me and my husband. Zach and Luna too, obviously.”
“Well, you went to town. I don’t think I’ve seen anything like it.” Mia suddenly gasps, and I practically spill my Fanta down my white shirt. “Look!” she says, tapping her hand on my arm. “There they are.”
When Jensen walks out, holding Will, and they’re in matching crocodile outfits, the drink I try to swallow nearly sprays across my girlfriend.
Jensen’s mom, Claire, is the first to run across to the twins with Zach’s mom, Rachel, hot on her heels.
As soon as he hands Will over to his mom, Jensen makes a beeline for us, his scaly tail swaying behind him.
“What do you think of the look? Nailed it, right?”
My eyes ascend his costume slowly and pause on his painted green face, hiding inside a long and pointy mouth, complete with sharp white teeth. “It’s a look—I’ll give you that.”
He shrugs. “Kate likes it. She likes the bad-boy image.”
His eyes drop to the gift bags in my hands. “Oh, there’s a designated present table in the tent. You can just put them in there if you want. We’re going to open them all later.”
He must see the disappointment in my eyes and rolls his. “All right, you can give them to him now.” He tips his massive head over his shoulder to locate his wife, who’s over with June. “But if she gets pissed, I never knew a thing.”
The second I stand in front of Will—a mini version of his dad—he reaches his arms out to me, and I pass the bags across to Mia as Claire hands him to me, a bright smile on her face.
“Hey, buddy.”
When I make eye contact with Mia, I see the understanding in her eyes. My teammates’ children are like family to me, but my connection with Will is something special.
“Do you want to open it?” Mia asks Will, pulling his present from the bag and offering it out to him.
His little hands take it from her, and he giggles as he turns the wrapped cube around in front of him.
“Go for it, buddy,” I say.
“I still can’t guess what it is.”
I turn to Mia. “Time to find out.”
As I help Will pull back the green wrapping paper, the first picture comes into view, and Claire gasps as the glitter swirls around it inside the plastic cube.
“Oh my, it’s a picture snow globe. Jessie, it’s beautiful.”
When all the wrapping is on the floor by our feet, Will shakes the cube, and multicolored glitter swims around inside it. Each side displays a photo of Will throughout his first year. Two of them include me—one at the beach, taken when he was four months old, and another at his first Christmas. One is with Mia at Luna and Zach’s house party. One with Jensen, Kate, and his sister in front of their fireplace—I took it at Thanksgiving last year. The last two were snapped on the day he was born—one just with his mom sitting up in bed, holding him and June, and then with the whole group together.
“Wait, there’s a picture of me with him too,” Mia says, bringing her hands to the cube, and Will passes it to her, still mesmerized by its sensory nature. “Jessie, this is beautiful.”
“Wait, you started open—” Kate cuts herself off as she catches sight of what Mia’s holding.
Will’s mom has always struggled to show her emotion—something we’ve always understood about each other, even if we’ve never said it out loud.
Tears gather in the corners of her eyes as Mia hands it to her.
I watch Kate as she studies the images. “I don’t have many pictures of my childhood, but there is this one of me with my mom on the couch in our living room. It’s pretty special to me, and I thought maybe Will would like something he could keep. Something that reminds him that he’s been loved by a lot of people from the moment he was born.”
When Kate looks at me, the tears are now trickling down her cheeks, and she turns to my girlfriend. “Mia, would you just take Will for a second?”
The moment Will is in Mia’s arms, Kate’s are around me. “I know we don’t talk about it much, and that’s okay. But I want to say thank you, Jessie. Thank you for being a great friend to my husband, a great friend to me, and the greatest uncle my children could wish for. All I’ve ever wanted was for my children to feel loved. I know you get that.”
I swallow thickly. “I do, Kate. I’m so happy you got your happy ending.”
She pulls back and tips her head toward Mia, who is busy helping Claire count Will’s fingers. “You got yours too.”
MIA
“Do we break them up now … or later?” Felicity drawls as I stand in the backyard with her, Luna, and Kate, watching Jon, Jensen, Zach, and Jessie race around a makeshift track on Hopper Balls.
I fight to hold back laughter as Jessie bounces up and down on something that is designed for elementary children.
“I don’t know,” I say with a smirk. “We could take bets on who’s going to end up on their ass first.”
“They were meant for the children!” Luna brings a hand to the side of her mouth and shouts.
“He looks like a giant green dick.” Kate points at her husband. “He started talking about more kids last night, and for a while, I was considering it. Now, I need to erase this image from my mind forever.”
I turn to Kate and waggle my eyebrows. “He said you liked the costume.”
“When he’s holding my son and daughter, yes; when he’s bouncing around like an overgrown child, no.”
“Somehow, they have to turn everything into a competition.” Felicity shakes her head as Jon breaks from the group and bounces toward us.
When he reaches his wife’s feet, he looks up at her. “Hop on, Angel. There’s space.”
Felicity looks over at us and then back at Jon. “I’ve got a better idea. How about boys versus girls? There’s another four Hopper Balls, right?”
I swear I see Jon visibly gulp. “Yeah, there’re a few spares, but …”
Before Jon can finish his sentence, all four of us are across the grass. Kate, Felicity, and I grab the Hoppers, and Luna takes Aster from Rachel.
“I’d better not since I don’t want to go into labor this early.”
Zach pulls off his sunglasses and eyes her as I bounce up alongside Jessie, stopping at the makeshift line Jon drew earlier with white chalk. “Watch the master at work, Rocket.”
Flicking her auburn hair back, she brings Aster’s hands between hers and claps them together. “We’re cheering for the girls.”
Jon looks down the line at the rest of us. “All right, three laps around the circuit. First to cross the line wins. I’ll go easy on y?—”
“Three, two, one, GO!” Felicity rushes out, setting off at a crazy speed.
In protest, Jon throws his arms in the air. “Hey! Wait up. I didn’t—damn it!”
He sets off after her, and I hit the gas, chasing after Kate, Jessie, and Zach.
“This is hard work!” Kate shouts a couple of places ahead of me as we take the first corner, and Zach almost skids off the ball, desperate to catch up to the front.
“My ass is already going numb!” I holler back, painfully aware I’m in a skirt and there are at least a dozen other people watching us with their children.
When Felicity overtakes me on the second lap, I quickly realize that this is probably not my wheelhouse.
“Yep, Hopper Balls are not for me,” I shout ahead.
“It’s the taking part that matters, Sweetheart.” Jessie laughs as he overtakes me too.
“Oh, really?” In a last-ditch move to save face, I bounce to the right and straight into him, knocking him off course. “Ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaa!”
He narrows his eyes at me and straightens himself up, ready to bounce back toward me, when he suddenly stops and lets go of the handle on his Hopper, redirecting his hand to the pocket of his pants.
The second he pulls out his phone and looks at the screen, I can tell something isn’t right.
Abandoning his Hopper Ball, he stands and rushes off in the opposite direction, speaking into the phone, although I can’t make out anything he’s saying with the noise and music around us.
I jump to my feet and call after him, stumbling over one of the blankets set out with toys as I chase my boyfriend down across the yard. “Jessie?”
When he pulls up at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the house, he drops his head between his shoulders, and my heart sinks into the earth beneath us.
Oh no.
“Jessie?” My voice breaks this time.
“Okay,” I hear him say. “I’ll be there. Yeah, on the next flight.”
As soon as he disconnects the call, he spins around, his eyes red; he’s stressed and breathing erratic. “I have to go.”
He’s not even looking at me.
“Jessie, I’m here.”
Blinking a couple of times, he focuses on me and scratches his nails down the side of his face. “My mom,” he pushes out. “The stairs. She fell down the stairs, and I need to get back home. Now.”
I step up to him, throwing my arms around his neck and standing on my tiptoes.
“Everything okay?” Jensen asks, approaching us carefully.
“I need to get to the airport, like, right now,” Jessie says to him, his hands coming to my waist. “My mom is … she’s in bad shape, and I need to get back.”
“Wait, I can come with you.”
Jessie looks down at me and shakes his head. “No, Mia. I need you to head back home and wait for me there.” He looks back to Jensen. I know why he isn’t asking me to drop him at the airport, because I’ll insist on taking the flight with him and he wants me nowhere near his dad.
“Let me grab my keys,” Jensen says, already unzipping his costume.
Setting a kiss on my forehead, Jessie pulls away from me and races up the stairs.
“Is she okay? When will you be back? I don’t care if he’s there. I can come,” I blurt out.
When he spins back around, I see the tears in his eyes.
“I don’t know. I’ll call you when I get to Dallas.” He brushes a hand over the scruff of his jaw. “Just stay here, where you’re safe, yeah? For me.”