Chapter 27
TRAVIS
After the girls left, I turned to the group. "Anyone want a beer?"
“Let's see what the work is first," Tate suggested.
I motioned them to follow me and led them to the guest bedroom.
"Wait a second. How much furniture did you order? I thought we were just building a bed, son," Dad said.
"Six beds," I countered. "She ordered six and wants to see them all assembled to then decide which one is the best."
Luke jerked his head back. "Holy shit."
"That's intense," Sam said.
Dad just chuckled. "It's called nesting."
"What's that?" Luke asked.
"When a woman is about to become a mother, she has this urge to make the whole house perfect for the arrival."
"Usually that starts further down the road," Sam said. “I’d chalk it up to pregnancy nerves.”
"How do you two even know those terms?" I asked.
"I'm a doctor," Sam said easily.
"And I'm a father," Dad explained.
"So am I, but I didn't know that term," Tate said.
"I’ve got six boys. I've been through this process quite a few times."
"Okay, let's get the show started," Luke said.
We all started to open the boxes, laying out the assembling instructions in front of each. I then carried the empty boxes outside the room so we had space to move.
"This is going to need a beer," Sam said, looking around. "It looks like it's all rocket science to me."
I stared at him. "You're a doctor."
"Yeah, I fix people. I don't build things. Luke, this is your area of expertise."
"I do the drawings. I don't do the actual building."
Some architect he is.
"How about those beers?" Tate asked.
I shook my head. "Changed my mind. Beer isn't going to help the situation. Come on. First, we set this up, and then we go have drinks. See it as a reward."
"My, my, you're taking a leaf out of Declan's book."
I gave my brother a lot of shit, but I actually looked up to him, though I did think he needed to take the stick out of his ass more often. Though I wasn't exactly sure why they were comparing me to him yet. I needed to get all the facts before I got offended. "Meaning?"
"First you put us to work, and then you serve drinks," Luke explained.
I nodded. "Yeah, I remember giving Declan shit about this, but now I realize he had a point. Just don't tell him that. He'll never let me forget it."
The whole process was grueling, and as things got more difficult, the swearing really ensued. Good thing the girls weren’t around.
Thirty minutes later, Dad and I had managed to set up one bed. Luke, Sam, and Tate were almost done with the second one.
"Two down, a million more to go," Sam said in jest.
Yeah, this was brutal.
"Do those two look identical to anyone?" Luke asked.
"Yeah," I said, "but the packages are different."
"Didn't Bonnie tell you the differences between the cribs?" Tate asked.
"She did, and while she pointed it all out, it made sense. But I can’t remember any of that right now.”
I shrugged. "Let's move on to the next one."
"Happy wife, happy life,” Dad said, then added, “A piece of advice, boys: when she's in the nesting period, say yes to everything."
I chuckled. "Any more wisdom to share?"
“About what?” Dad asked.
"How not to screw up fatherhood,” I replied.
My brothers' mouths were all gaping at me. Whatever.
Then Tate put down the hammer he'd picked up. "Listen, it's a learning-by-doing thing. You're going to screw up."
"That's reassuring," I said.
"That's the truth," he went on. "You'll make mistakes.
That's normal. The important thing is to learn from them and to move on.
When I got divorced, I felt like I'd already failed Paisley because I couldn't even give her a stable home.
But things are never as bad as they seem in the beginning. You just need patience."
Dad nodded in agreement. "You can only take things one day at a time.
There's no handbook. And even if there was, it wouldn't apply to all kids.
Each child is different. Look at all of you.
You grew up in the same house, but I could tell by the time you were toddlers that all of you had your own personality.
Just take things as they come. One thing I've learned with babies is to stop overthinking.
It doesn't help, and planning ahead of time is a waste, mostly because they have their own mind. "
"That's good advice," I said. "All right, then. Let's get back to work. We've wasted enough time talking."
An hour later, all the beds were ready. Three looked absolutely identical, but I was sure Bonnie would know exactly what the difference was.
True to my word, I poured everyone beers. We relaxed in the living room, chatting about the hotel and my plans for it.
I had yet to talk to Kimberly about a formal job offer, but I was prepping for that.
When she mentioned that she'd thought about living in London for a while, my wheels immediately spun. I didn't have to expand in the US first; there was no reason I couldn’t start abroad. As soon as the launch was behind me, I was going to ask Tim to carry out an in-depth market research to see which was more feasible. I didn’t want him to start right now—I wanted to have my head in the game for the launch.
"I propose a toast," Dad said, "but we need something other than beer for that."
"I've got bourbon." I took out the bottle from the cabinet under the bar, filling a bucket with ice.
A couple minutes later, we were ready to go.
"What are we toasting?" Tate asked.
"The Maxwell family being reunited and growing at the same time," Dad replied.
"I'm proud of all my boys. You know, years ago, when we received the offer for the bookstores, we hesitated.
We thought it would be good if it stayed in the family.
It was our heirloom, after all. I'm sure it would've been in great hands had we not sold it. You're all very capable.”
“Not when it comes to building beds. We needed all of us for the job,” Sam pointed out.
Dad shook his head. “You've all followed your instincts and passions, and we couldn't be happier.”
Half an hour later, we were all semidrunk.
“How am I seeing double now?” Sam asked.
“We had no lunch,” Tate explained.
“Fuck. The plan was to order food,” Luke remembered.
"Speaking of that, where are the girls?" I asked. “They should've been here fifteen minutes ago.”
Dad chuckled. "Counting the seconds, son?"
"No."
Well, apparently yes, I was. I wanted to see the look on Bonnie’s face when she saw the beds.
As if on cue, the front door opened.
"Hey, this place smells like alcohol," Lexi said. She turned toward us, and her jaw fell. “You're all drunk."
Bonnie and Megan came in next.
"We are not drunk," I corrected. "We finished on time and wanted to cheer to our success."
Bonnie kept glancing toward the guest bedroom out of the corner of her eye. She was fidgeting, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. I knew she was itching to see the cribs, but she was being polite.
Straightening up, she said, “Thanks so much for assembling them. Should we order lunch?”
"No. I think if we stay together for much longer, we're going to embarrass each other," Tate said.
"Wait, you mean more than usual?" Lexi asked, sass thick in her voice.
Tate frowned. "What do you mean?"
"It's like a competition between you guys to give each other shit when you're together,” Megan elaborated.
“Speaking of which, no one's told me any of Travis's deep dark secrets yet," Bonnie added.
"Oh no. Tate’s right," Luke said. "Don't rile us up when we’re drunk."
"Why not?"
"Because our stories become unreliable."
Tate grimaced. "Very unreliable."
"Remember that time when we scared away Sam’s date with this weird story that wasn't even about him, it was about Travis?" Luke said.
"Hey, don't scare my girl, now," I said.
"Do tell!" Bonnie sat down next to me. She looked hot as hell in her yoga outfit. It molded to her curves. She had a small bump now, and I couldn't wait for her to be visibly pregnant. "Come on. This is my chance."
Sam cleared his throat, standing up. "Bonnie, I give you my gentleman’s word that you'll hear the story one day, but that day is not today. It needs the right flair to be fun, and we're all past the stage where we can add flair to anything."
She laughed. "Does it count if you're not a gentleman?"
He shook his head. "What have you been telling her about me? Why would she say that?"
"Oh, I just put two and two together from various stories," Bonnie said with an impish smile. I fucking adored this woman.
"Boys, come on. Let's get going,” Tate said.
We all rose from the couch.
Sam came up to me. “Dude, I like your girl.”
“Good. I like her too.”
He frowned. “Damn, I need to be sober for this."
Luke groaned. "Come on, man. Now you gave our plan away."
"What plan?" I inquired.
Sam pointed at Luke. "This one wanted revenge for the fact that you made him jealous when you went on that trip with him and Megan."
Megan burst out laughing. "Is that how Luke tells the story? Let me clarify it for you. Travis didn't make him jealous. Luke simply decided to be out of the blue." She glanced at Dad. "I’m so sorry you heard that.”
"I'll pretend I heard nothing," Dad said.
Gran liked to say that she raised all of us to be gentlemen, but honestly, Dad was the only gentleman in the family. The genes got diluted with us.
"All right. I think this is turning into Operation Let's Embarrass Luke," Luke grumbled.
"My love, you've turned it into that all by your lonesome," Megan said, grinning from ear to ear.
"Okay, everyone. Let's head out for real this time," Dad said. "Bonnie, we did our best. We hope you like at least one of the beds. See you at the grand opening."
After they left, I turned her around, holding her tightly against me.
"Oh wow. You're lovely when you're drunk," she said.
"Lovely?"
"Yeah."
“I don’t like that word, but I’ll let it slide this once. Let’s take a look at the beds.”
"I can't wait," she said. Her eyes were wide and full of joy.
Taking her hand, I led her to the baby's room. She stepped inside and immediately danced from one foot to the other.
"Oh, they're so tiny and cute." Turning around once, slowly, she looked at them, then at me. "Full disclosure. I know I'm a big idiot for doing this, but I literally couldn't decide.”
“So what do you think? Which one do you want to keep?"
“We’ll keep two anyway, right? One at your place and one at mine.”
I stilled. “I see. Moving in together still hasn’t crossed your mind?”
“It has, but I think it’s way too early. What if when the baby comes, we're both stressed out and start fighting? It’s gonna be stressful enough without having to search for a new place if you want me to move out.”
What the fuck? Where is this coming from?
“When did you already play this out in your mind and get to that conclusion? I don’t like it one bit.”
Her shoulders slumped. “Neither do I, but I like to be cautious.”
“This isn’t cautious, Bonnie. It’s dramatic.”
She rubbed her belly, blinking quickly. I put my hands in my pockets, weighing the pros and cons of pushing this topic.
The truth was, if I pursued it, we’d end up fighting.
I was building beds with my family and doing everything I could to make her feel comfortable at home, and she was already making contingency plans for our breakup? This was fucked-up.
“No, it’s not,” she whispered. “People in my life leave, okay? That’s what they do. I met you four months ago. Don’t ask me to just blindly believe that everything will work out. That’s not how I function.”
“Fine. We’ll revisit that another time.” My voice was tight, but it couldn’t be helped. I was trying to see things from her point of view, but I was doing a shit job at it.
I motioned to the beds. “So, which two are we keeping?”
"I can't decide now. I need to look at them for a couple days, see which one fits the mojo of this place, stuff like that."
I tried hard to keep a straight face. The truth was, this seemed insane to me.
“FYI, your poker face is shit when you’re drunk.”
I walked up to her, putting my arms around her. "I'll admit I don't understand, but that doesn't matter."
"It doesn't?"
"No. It's what you need. And I'm making a promise to you right now that I will always give you everything you want and need."
“Stop being so charming. I’m going to tear up for no reason at all.”
“That’s fine by me, babe.” Without a warning, I lifted her into my arms, carrying her to the master bedroom.
She giggled, laying her forehead on my cheek.
Dad’s advice to take things one day at a time echoed in my head.
Today was a good day.