Chapter 28
My fingers pluck the same series of notes on the guitar strings. There’s something missing. I change the sequence of chords and switch from C-major to G-major. There it is. Taking my pencil, I scribble it down on my sheet of staff paper, then play the entire thing on my guitar from start to finish.
A series of knocks sounds from the other side of my bedroom door telling me who it is. Hailey quietly opens the door and peeks inside.
“Permission to enter? I don’t want to disturb you if you’re in the middle of something.”
Setting my guitar on the floor so it leans on the bed, I wave her in. Hailey spent the entire New Year holiday with Brea over at the Cutton’s. She wasn’t here last night when me and the guys got back from New York City.
Crawling onto my bed, she settles down across from me in a cross-legged position.
“Looks like you had some fun this weekend.” Hailey is covered in splotches of glitter all over her face, neck, and hair.
She huffs and wipes at her cheek. “Never trust a glitter cream that says it washes right off. It lies.”
She picks up my sheet of music and reads it. Even though Hailey doesn’t like to play, she still knows how to sight read. We are our father’s daughters and he made sure music was instilled in us from the day we were born.
“This is beautiful. Are you going to put lyrics to it?”
“I was hoping you’d help me out with that.”
I don’t know why what I said takes her by surprise, but she blinks at me, wide-eyed with disbelief, and I get angry. Not at her, but at her abusive scum of an ex-boyfriend. He destroyed her self-worth with his fists, cruel words, lies, and verbal abuse.
“Fallon is taking me to a recording studio next weekend. Number six on my YOLO list.” I leave out that the song I’m writing is for Ryder. He is not Hailey’s favorite person right now.
“Fallon is like your super-hot fairy godmother…godfather.” She laughs. “That sounds weird. Too mafia.”
“You think Fallon is hot?” I ask, poking her in the leg.
“Well, duh. And so do you,” she replies, then narrows her eyes when I look away. “Lizzie, is there something you want to share with the class?”
“Nope!” I clamber off the bed. “Have you had lunch yet?” I say over my shoulder as I walk out of my room and down the hall to the kitchen. I hear her coming up behind me and she hops onto my back.
“Deflection does not look good on you,” she says near my ear. I circle my arms behind me to hold her up and keep walking.
“Glad to see you finally got her up and mobile,” Daniel says from the living room when we pass.
I pivot and carry us inside the room. Daniel’s got his laptop perched on the coffee table and a cup of coffee in his hand.
“I do my best,” Hailey jokes and spurs me with her foot like I’m a horse.
I release my grip and drop her to her feet. “You are such a brat.”
“Have you eaten?” Daniel asks me, because like every other male in my life, he has gone uber protective to the nth degree since finding out I was pregnant.
“Getting ready to.”
He stands up from the couch. “There’s homemade beef stew in the slow cooker.”
That’s what smells so freaking good.
“No onion,” he replies.
Onions and the little gummy bear in my belly do not like each other. Once this baby is born, I am going to devour the biggest bag of Funyuns I can find.
We all walk into the kitchen, and Hailey and I sit on the stools at the counter island while Daniel makes us bowls of steamy beef, carrots, celery, and potato. I’m already drooling before he puts the food in front of me.
“How was your New Year, Uncle Daniel?” Hailey asks him, but she actually sings it in a sweet, teasing voice that says she knows a secret and is dying to tell it.
Pushing her bowl over to her, he props his elbows on the countertop. He looks at Hailey with squinted eyes as she blows on a spoonful of stew, a broad grin spreading across her face.
“Alright, who told you?”
“Told her what?” I ask, confused, because I have no clue what has my sister all wicked grins and my uncle blushing like mad.
“Our sweet uncle went on a date.”
My spoon clatters in the bowl as I drop it. “When?”
The entire time Daniel has been my guardian, I have never seen him interested in anything other than his work. He has no dating life.
He bows his head. “You girls are going to make this super awkward, aren’t you?”
“Yep,” Hailey and I both say, and we burst out laughing.
With a mouth full of food, Hailey relays, “Jamie told Brea who told me that she saw him on New Year’s Eve at Ana?s with a—and I quote, ‘Smoking hot redhead.’”
My brow quirks up at my uncle who blushes harder.
“Eat your lunch, Lizzie.”
“Do we get to meet her?” I ask.
He scans the ceiling as if it holds all the answers. “Not yet. It’s still new. Once I know her better, maybe. You girls will always come first.”
“Daniel, you deserve to be happy. You deserve a life outside of this house and your work. Hailey and I aren’t little kids that need round the clock care and supervision. We want you to date. Go out and have some fun.”
Hailey nods her head emphatically at him, agreeing with me. Daniel has given up so much for us. I would feel absolutely awful if he thought he had to stop living his life because of us.
As Daniel ladles himself some stew, I casually ask Hailey, “So, um, did you see Ryder at all while you were there?”
My question has the effect of Medusa turning people into stone with one look. I’m met with complete, utter silence. Okay, then. Sorry I asked. I continue eating.
“How was New York, take two?” Hailey asks, ignoring my previous question as if I never said it.
I can’t help the smile that forms. “It was great. I wish you would have come with us,” I tell her.
We invited Hailey and Brea to join us, but they declined.
Why? I have no clue. I mean, who in their right mind would pass up flying on Fallon’s private jet, staying in the Montgomery penthouse suite in one of the fanciest hotels in the city, and watching the infamous New York City New Year’s Eve firework bonanza?
Maybe I should talk to Hailey about Fallon kissing me and me waking up in my bed as the bologna in a Jayson/Fallon sandwich. She always gives great advice.
“Are you girls sticking around today, or do you have plans?” Daniel asks us.
I blow on my steaming spoonful of beef tips and carrot. “Since school starts back tomorrow, I need to stop by Target and grab a few things.”
My stomach may not be showing it yet, but my boobs sure are. It’s like they grew an entire cup size overnight, which means I’m in desperate need of new bras. Apparently, this is supposed to happen during the second trimester, and I’m only nine weeks along. Yay me.
“I can come with,” Hailey offers, and she goes over to the sink to wash out her bowl before putting it in the dishwasher.
Daniel does the same with his bowl and washes his hands. “What do you girls think about moving back into your old house by the end of the month?”
“It’s ready?”
Daniel mentioned to me at Thanksgiving the idea of moving us all back into our old home.
I told him I would do whatever Hailey wanted.
She said yes. It looks like I’ll be neighbors once again with the twins, just like old times.
My stomach begins to flutter at the thought of Jayson crawling through my bedroom window.
Or pushing me on my swing that he gave to me which still hangs from the old oak tree between the two houses.
Or the back patio where he and I would sit out under the stars and watch the sky as we held hands. So many good memories.
“It will be by next week. Just waiting for the painters to finish.”
“Do we need to start packing up our stuff?”
“Only the items you want to box up yourself that you don’t want the movers to touch,” he says. “Okay, girls. I need to get some work done. I have a meeting in RTP tomorrow. I’ll be gone most of the day, but I should be back by eight at the latest.”
“Okay,” Hailey and I both say just as the doorbell rings.
“I’ve got it.” Getting up, I go to the front door and open it wide. My smile is luminous when I see who it is. “What are you guys doing here?”
“What’s up, Ace?” Trevor greets me, his head covered in a winter beanie. Meredith is standing beside him.
They had been out of town for the holidays, and we had texted back and forth almost every day, but they never mentioned they would be dropping by.
Meredith pushes a pink cupcake box at me and when I take it, I almost drop it. The white-frosted treats have little green pacifiers and yellow baby booties on them.
“Oh, crap,” Hailey says, coming up behind me and seeing what I’m holding.
“I suggest we tear that sucker open while you fill us in on what the hell, Elizabeth?” Meredith tells me. She then shoots forward, and I have to raise the box above my head to prevent her from crushing it between us as she wraps me in a tight hug.
“Who told you?”
“Everybody,” is her and Trevor’s reply.
Double crap.