Epilogue
Six months later
The screaming.
Holy shit, the screaming.
Sawyer stared at her six-month-old nephew and, not for the first time, wondered how the hell something so small could make a noise so incredibly big.
Doing a favor for her sister and taking the baby overnight for the first time was one thing, but sacrificing her own eardrums—not to mention her sanity—was quite another.
She stood there, hands over her ears, and just watched as Ethan Sawyer Jacobsen did his very best to shatter all the glass in his aunt’s home with nothing but his voice. And his lungs.
As she debated calling Courtney and telling her to get her ass back here and pick up her devil child, Jenna hurried into the room with a bottle in one hand and a cloth slung over her shoulder.
She was completely calm—how? How the fuck was she not rocking in a corner like Sawyer wanted to be?
But she wasn’t. She was softly smiling, and the second she reached down to pick up Ethan, the smile grew.
She scooped his little body up, cradled him in the crook of her arm, and gave him the bottle.
The screaming stopped.
Bliss.
“Oh my God,” Sawyer said on a whisper, afraid speaking louder would disturb this newfound silence, and let her hands fall from her ears.
Jenna looked at her with a radiant smile. “You okay?”
Sawyer looked at her in baffled awe. “How does he make that much noise? How is it possible for something so small to be that loud?”
Jenna laughed softly. “I know, right?” She turned back to Ethan. “Poor little guy was starving,” she said in baby talk.
Ethan’s big blue eyes were fixed on Jenna as he drank, watching her with fascination, not that Sawyer could blame him.
She was breathtaking in this role, something that had surprised Sawyer, though she wasn’t sure why.
Jenna was a natural when it came to maternal instincts, and it was beautiful and unexpectedly sexy to watch.
Arnold nudged Jenna’s leg, Sawyer noticed, so Jenna squatted down and let the dog smell the baby. He was gentle, sniffing him all over, then giving him a little nuzzle near his chin, probably trying to taste the bottle’s contents, which were dripping a bit into Ethan’s neck folds.
“Good boy,” Jenna whispered and gave Arnold a kiss on his head.
By unspoken agreement, they moved to the porch, where they’d installed a porch swing.
It was early June, not too hot yet, not too buggy in the evenings, and the porch swing had rapidly become their favorite spot.
They sat, and Sawyer put one foot up on the railing so she could gently push them.
Ethan drank greedily, and Jenna stopped to burp him twice before the bottle was empty.
“Dude.” Sawyer held it up. “You’re a little piggy.”
“You tell Aunt Sawyer you’re a growing boy. You gotta drink all your milk, huh?” Jenna bounced him gently on her knee, then handed him over. “Here. I’ll take the bottle in, he’s gonna be asleep in minutes, and I need a glass of wine. How about you?”
“God, yes,” Sawyer said with a sheepish grin.
Jenna laughed and dropped a kiss on the top of her head before heading inside.
Sawyer held her nephew and pushed the swing with her foot, and the two of them watched the neighborhood go by.
It wasn’t quite dusk yet, so people were busy.
Across the street, two kids were having a game of Horse in the driveway, shooting hoops.
She could see Mr. Creeley two doors down watering the potted flowers he’d put out the day before.
A young couple walked by with two Boston terriers on leashes, followed not far behind by a woman pushing a stroller.
“Do you know how much my life has changed in the past year?” she asked Ethan softly.
“No, of course you don’t. How could you?
You’ve only been here for six months.” She shifted his pudgy body so he was sitting up in her lap and could see the activity too.
“Well, let me tell you, I was kind of a different person when I moved in over there.” She pointed to her own front door.
“Your Aunt Jenna didn’t like me much, not that I blame her.
I was kind of a di—er—a jerk to her. But not because I didn’t like her.
It was because I was struggling with my own stuff, you know?
Like, I didn’t know who I was. At all. And your Aunt Jenna?
She helped me figure that out.” She played with his chubby hand, stroking his tiny fingers between her thumb and forefinger, everything about him just so small and soft.
He grasped her finger in his fist tightly.
“Oh, that’s a good grip, buddy. You could play baseball with that grip.
Or golf. Or tennis. You could be a star and make millions of dollars and support your aunts in their old age. Right? What do you think? I like it.”
Ethan made a gooing sound, and Sawyer grinned.
“Exactly. So, anyway, I just want you to know that your Aunt Jenna? She’s the most amazing woman.
She’s like…hmm. Okay, let me explain this to you: There’s these things called genres in books.
That means what kind of story they are. Okay?
And Aunt Jenna’s favorite is a genre called romance.
It’s all about people finding love.” She kissed his head again.
“Which you have plenty of, so you don’t have to worry about it for a long time.
But anyway, within romance, there are things called tropes.
” She lowered her voice. “Don’t worry, Aunt Jenna had to teach me all this stuff, too.
It’s okay if you’re confused.” She gave him a squeeze, and he blew a raspberry, which made her laugh.
“I totally get it. Anyway, there’s a character trope called the girl next door, and that’s what your Aunt Jenna is.
Literally and figuratively, which is kind of crazy if I really think about it.
You know? Like…” She sighed heavily and watched a couple stroll by holding hands.
“Like, I didn’t even like romance. I didn’t read it.
And it’s still not my favorite, but I do enjoy it at times.
My point is, I ended up in my own little romance novel.
With my own girl next door. Isn’t that crazy?
And she’s changed me in so many ways.” She said that last line softly, almost more to herself than to the baby on her lap.
It was so true. She shook her head and just sat there, in awe of how completely, unabashedly happy she was in this new life. She kissed Ethan’s head again.
“You want one of those?” Jenna’s voice was soft as she asked the question.
She handed Sawyer a glass of red wine as Arnold sauntered to his dog bed in the corner and made himself comfortable but kept his attention on the tiny boy in Sawyer’s lap.
Jenna took a seat next to her and cooed at Ethan.
He touched her lips with his chubby hand, and she kissed it.
Sawyer was only slightly surprised by the question, given how incredible Jenna had been with Ethan.
She’d seen it a hundred times since he’d been born, in all their visits, but this was the first time they’d had him on their own, just the two of them and a baby.
“I might want one of these,” she said, meeting Jenna’s gaze and holding it. “Do you want one of these?”
“I might want one of these. I might want three of these.”
“Three, huh?” Sawyer grinned. “Well, you’d be an amazing mother. You’re so calm and patient while I…am not.” She laughed softly.
“Are you kidding? You’re great with him. Look how happy he is right now, sitting with his Aunt Sawyer.”
“That’s because his belly is full.” There was a sudden gurgling sound, and they both looked down at Sawyer’s lap. “And so is his diaper.”
They laughed together, and Jenna stood back up and held out her hands. “Gimme.”
Sawyer handed the baby over with relief, so glad that Jenna understood how much she hated changing diapers.
“If we have our own kids, you’re gonna have to suck it up, you know,” Jenna said, as she pushed through the storm door. “I refuse to change one hundred percent of the diapers. I will divorce your sexy ass in a heartbeat.” She laughed and the storm door shut behind her.
“You hear that, Arnold?” she asked quietly, then took a sip of her wine. “She’ll divorce me. You know what that means, right?” Another sip, but this time, she couldn’t stop the smile that spread across her face and stayed there. “It means she’d have to marry me first.”
She had a ring already. She’d bought it a month ago.
She was just waiting for the right time, but it would happen.
There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that she’d make Jenna her wife in the near future.
That knowledge settled comfortably within her, made itself a little home around her heart and kept her warm.
She hadn’t been kidding when she’d told Ethan she’d changed. She had. She was easy now. Less stressed. Less worried. About anything. About everything.
Jenna returned, sans baby. “He was getting sleepy, so I put him in his bed and he settled right down.” Courtney had brought a portable camera for them, and now she set up the little video baby monitor on the table next to them so they could see him as he slept.
Jenna pulled her feet up underneath her, picked up her wine, and leaned into Sawyer, who lifted an arm to cradle her close.
They swung silently, happy in their togetherness, and Sawyer marveled at that, at how this simple, uncomplicated evening could create the most precious of memories. Life was so strange, wasn’t it?
“I love you,” she said softly, pressing a kiss to Jenna’s temple.
“I love you, too.”
She continued to push the swing gently with a foot as Jenna snuggled into her, and they rocked together, watching the neighborhood go by.