Chapter 17
CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN
“Thank you so much,” Joey said as she leaned in to hug Rosie. “Really, thank you.” She’d said it fifteen hundred times in the last five minutes as her cousins had all prepared to leave Adam’s new house.
All of his furniture had been put together and positioned in the places he wanted. Some of his boxes had been unpacked, mostly in the kitchen and bathrooms, and he could do his clothes to fill his master closet and his linens and his shoes by himself.
“Thanks for having us,” Rosie said. “We’re headed to Bryce’s now to help feed the horses.
I can’t wait to meet their new baby when she comes.
” She grinned from ear to ear, turned, and left the house.
Joey watched her jog after her brother, and then she brought Adam’s front door closed and twisted the deadbolt, locking herself inside with him.
She sighed, because it had been a very busy day already, and the clock had barely struck one. Her legs ached, and while Joey worked two pretty physical jobs in the kitchen, she somehow felt more tired now than she did after working both of those.
Adam had thanked everyone as a group and retreated to the couch while Joey continued individual conversations with her cousins. Now she sank down next to him, a hefty sigh pulling out of her mouth. “It’s done,” she said, and she actually laid down with her head in his lap.
He stroked her hair back, his touch gentle and soft and wonderful. “Thank you so much for arranging for them to come help.”
She turned and looked up at him. “Of course, and I didn’t even have to tell any of the uncles.”
It’d been a few hours since she’d been caught calling Adam “baby,” and her stomach vibrated as if the garlic knots she’d eaten for lunch had taken up arms and were about to revolt.
“You’re going to have to tell them, though,” Adam said, raising his eyebrows. “When are you going to do that?”
Joey groaned as she sat up and moved back to his side. “Have I told you about our family text?” she asked, knowing full well that she hadn’t.
“No, ma’am,” he murmured.
“Well, it’s a beast of its own,” she said. “It’s hard to describe until you’re actually on it. So let me show you.”
She tapped and swiped to get her phone open, and then she moved to the group messaging app, where she actually did have plenty of multi-person conversations. For example, she’d made a group chat with the people she’d asked to come help Adam move that morning.
On her phone, she’d named the whole Young family group chat “The Big Shebang,” and she tilted her phone toward Adam. “Every aunt, every uncle, every person over the age of fourteen,” she said. “That’s the rule we came up with. There’s like sixty of us.”
“Sixty?” Adam’s eyebrows went up. “That can’t be true.”
“Oh, it’s true,” Joey said with a chuckle.
“Leigh’s brother and his wife are on here, and so are Ev’s brothers and their wives, even though they’re not Youngs.
It’s definitely over sixty. In fact, I think Liesl added it up once and it was sixty-one, and that doesn’t include Denzel and Michelle, Kassie and Reggie, or Shawn and Enid.
Oh, and let’s not forget Abby’s brother and his wife—Wade and Cheryl.
You should see us when we get together for a party. ”
Joey sucked in a breath and turned toward him. “In fact, Uncle Tex is hosting Thanksgiving at his ranch.”
She cleared her throat, knowing she could ask Adam to come eat dinner with her that day, and Aunt Abby wouldn’t care at all.
There would be plenty of food. Wade and Cheryl and their kids would be there as well, and so would her parents.
Sometimes Georgia’s parents joined the big Young family as well, and sometimes so did Aunt Faith’s sister and her family.
“Would you want to come with me?” she asked. “What are you doing for Thanksgiving?”
Adam blinked as if he hadn’t even realized Thanksgiving was so soon.
“They’re actually having it on Sunday,” she said. “Instead of on Thanksgiving Day, because everybody seems to have their own core family things, and then they can come to the big family thing if they want.”
“What are you doing for Thanksgiving?” he asked.
“Well, I was going to go….” She trailed off and then reached way down deep for her well of bravery. “To my parents’ house. Grams and Gramps are going with Uncle Jem and Aunt Sunny this year, because Cole and Rosie are going to be in Las Vegas with their mom.”
She swallowed. “You could come to that too, if you want. I think this year it’s me and my two younger siblings, my momma and daddy, and they invited Graham and Laney Whittaker, because they’re technically OJ’s biological grandparents, and we do a lot with them.”
Adam looked away out the big windows to his right that showed his backyard. “What are you going to tell your parents?”
“I’m not going to tell them anything different than I tell everyone else,” Joey said, deciding on the spot. “My daddy’s going to call. I know that.”
“Do you think he’ll be upset?” Adam asked.
Joey thought for a moment, this question not new in her mind. “I don’t know,” she said thoughtfully. “I can’t imagine he would be. He knows you; he respects you. If he didn’t, there’s no way he would have signed on with you being the band manager for Country Quad.”
“Having someone be a band manager is totally different than thinking they’d be a good boyfriend for your daughter.”
“Well, it doesn’t really matter what he thinks, does it?” Joey asked.
Adam swung his attention back to her.
“I think you’re a good boyfriend for me, so it doesn’t really matter what he thinks.”
Adam cradled her face in one hand, and Joey loved it when he did that. She felt cherished and seen, as Adam never let his attention wander somewhere else when talking with her. He didn’t overlook her, and he wasn’t biding his time with her while he waited for something better to walk by.
“So I’m just gonna tell him,” Joey said, tapping in the message box at the bottom of the family text. She grinned. “And it might as well be fun, right?”
“I don’t think any of this is fun,” Adam growled, and that made Joey laugh. Her thumbs flew over the screen and she typed out whatever came into her mind.
Hey, everyone, since the holidays are coming up and we’ll be spending time together as a big group, I just wanted to let everyone know that I started seeing someone, and I’d like to invite him to the big Thanksgiving dinner at Uncle Tex’s.
She sent that and held her phone out so Adam could see it.
“Ten seconds,” she said. “My young adult cousins and I tease how no one can put anything on the family text and not get a response within ten seconds.”
“That can’t be true,” Adam said.
Sure enough, a message popped up from Aunt Hilde.
Oh, that’s great, Joey, I’m sure it’s okay if he comes.
It’s absolutely okay, Aunt Abby said. I can’t wait to meet him.
You’re seeing someone new? Georgia asked, and Joey pointed to the text. “That’s my momma.”
Have you told your mother? Georgia asked.
The real question is, if she’s told her father, Luke sent.
Does this boy live in Coral Canyon? Uncle Gabe asked. Or Dog Valley?
She pointed to that one, even though it blipped up as more messages came in. “He’s asking that because he knows I’m in Dog Valley a lot to see my momma.”
“Hmm,” Adam said, humming somewhere deep in his chest.
I’m sure it’s not a boy, Uncle Gabe, Bryce said. Joey’s twenty-two, so I’m sure she’s dating a man.
It’s definitely a man, Harry said, with a laughing emoji.
She tilted her phone toward Adam so he could see Harry’s text. “He and Belle asked about us. I told them we went out last weekend.”
Adam grunted. “He’s texted me a couple of times too.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Nothing.” Adam pulled her closer, keeping her warm and safe under the protection of his arm. “I ignored him.”
Well, I’d like to know who it is, Mav said. Unless you’re not telling.
She’ll tell when she’s ready, Aunt Faith said.
She has to tell, Uncle Tex said. She’s bringing him to dinner in a week. A FULL FAMILY dinner.
Besides, she wouldn’t have texted on here if she didn’t want to tell, Boston said.
More and more messages poured in, and Joey giggled with each one. Adam scoffed and said, “Look how many there are.”
“Oh, and here comes Grams,” she said, as the first message from her grandmother came in. If it’s who I think it is, I’m thrilled, she said.
She looked over to Adam. “She’s saying that, so my daddy won’t be upset.”
“He hasn’t answered yet at all,” he said. “Do you think he hasn’t seen it?”
“Oh, he’s seen it,” Joey said. “He’s probably talking to Georgia about it, and she’s probably calming him down, and he’s going to be dying.” She trailed off, trying to decide if she should give her father five minutes or one.
“Are you going to tell him privately?” he asked.
“I bet Daddy’s waiting to say anything until I do,” she said. “He grew up here, and he knows a lot of people here. He’s been raising his family here for a long time. He’ll definitely want to know who it is.”
“So does everyone else,” Adam said, gesturing to the phone. “Even your cousins who saw us are asking.”
“That’s because they’re trying to thread the needle,” Joey said. “That’s what we do for each other in the Young family.” She looked over to him, suddenly insecure. She lowered her phone. “My family is huge, Adam, and you’re used to being by yourself.”
He searched her face, and she wondered what he saw. “I’m a people person,” he said softly. “I can handle your family, because at other times it’s just me and you like this.”
She softened into his side and kissed him gently. That gave her the strength she needed to say, “Okay, I’m gonna tell them.”
She leaned her head closer to his and said, “With picture evidence. Are you willing to be on my family text?”
She prayed with everything inside her that he would say yes, and she tapped on her camera app, and held her phone out to take a selfie.
Adam pressed his temple to hers and smiled. Joey snapped the picture and could not stop grinning at it. “We’re so cute,” she said. “Look at us.”
“Well, one of us is,” he said.
Joey nudged him with her shoulder, and then navigated back to the family text string so that she could upload the picture. Below that, she captioned it. This is him. In parentheses, she added, (It’s Adam Harmon, by the way, for any of you who don’t know him.)
Her thumb hovered over the arrow that would send the text to the sixty-five-plus people on the string.
“My daddy will call within thirty seconds,” she said.
“It’s fine,” Adam said. “You can put him on speaker, and we can both talk to him.” He swallowed, the only sign of nerves Joey saw in him. Her heartbeat stampeded through her veins, and she wished she could be calmer, more confident.
“You know what you want,” Adam said. “You’re a grown adult, and you’re one of the strongest women I’ve ever met.” He gently put his thumb over hers, and they pressed the send button together.
Messages streamed in, even faster now, some of them only emojis of the mind-blown smiley face or a heart. Only seconds later, her phone rang, and Daddy Dearest sat there.
“Told you,” she said, and she jumped to her feet, because she couldn’t have this conversation sitting down. She swiped on the call, and then tapped the speaker button. Then she drew a breath as she waited for the call to connect, and then she said, “Hey, Daddy, you’re on speaker with me and Adam.”