Chapter 16
CHAPTER 16
B eatrix
The late afternoon heat hangs like a blanket over Dash’s backyard, a flat grassy patch ringed in rosemary hedges. I’m always hot these days, so I’m wearing a tank top and sitting under a patio umbrella on the wooden deck that separates the clapboard house and the yard. A light scent of barbecued chicken wafts from the grill, where Jax chats with PJ’s fiancé, Colin, and moves things around with a pair of tongs. The rest of my siblings are huddled around a picnic table on the grass, where PJ is assembling chips, dips, and appetizers.
“Hey, will you try this guacamole?” The back door of Dash’s house slams behind him as he exits with a basket of chips in one hand and a bowl of guacamole in the other. He walks it straight over to me for the first taste. “Is it too lemony?”
I feel myself go guacamole-green at the idea of lemons, and fortunately, Mallory is hot on his tail to rescue me. “Lemme try it,” she says, swatting him with a dish towel. “Only chocolate ice cream and potato chips, remember? Everything else makes her queasy.”
“Ooh, sorry, sis. I wasn’t thinking.”
“It’s fine. And I can eat stuff other than ice cream. Potato chips, mainly.”
“Check! They’re on the picnic table.” Dash points to the table and swivels to give Mallory a taste of his guac. She nods her approval. “Maybe a little more salt.” He goes back inside to make adjustments before the rest of our family arrives. We get together every couple of weeks for a barbecue or casual family dinner, but this one has me on edge for obvious reasons. I have no idea how my siblings will react to my baby news, despite Dash’s reassurances that it’ll be fine.
Dash puts the chips and guac on a picnic table shaded by a tree in his yard. I follow him back to the house, where he grabs a saltshaker and returns to fix the guacamole. “Not sure it really needs salt because the chips are salted, but I guess it couldn’t hurt.”
“Plus, you love her, so if she wants it salty, you’re gonna do it,” I say, wondering what that feels like. Wondering if I’ll ever have that with Ren. It’s absurd to even think about it when we’re just getting along, but I can’t help entertaining an idle fantasy.
“That too.” Dash takes a seat next to Jax, who watches his fiancée Ruby play with his daughter’s hair. Fiona is almost eight years old and is more of an adult than some of my siblings. She sits calmly on a chair made from a stump of wood while Ruby winds the strands into a long braid.
“You miss doing her hair?” I ask. Jax was a single dad for years before he met Ruby, and he’s the best, most protective dad I've ever met. But the pigtails and braids always tripped him up. I sometimes got a panicked call on the way to school some mornings when he felt outmatched by whatever style Fiona was requesting that day. They’d stop by, and I’d twist her hair into a ballerina bun or french braids while Jax muttered things about how Fiona learned her eye-rolling from me.
“Not a bit. Styling that long hair was going to be my undoing. If I hadn’t met Ruby, Fiona would probably be sporting a pixie cut by now.”
I inhale a mock gasp. “You wouldn’t.”
He shrugs, much less grumpy these days than he used to be, now that Buttercup Hill finally has more black ink than red on its balance sheet. That’s mainly thanks to PJ’s fiancé, Colin, who pitched in and invested in the vineyard to keep us afloat.
“I wouldn’t have really done it because she’s adorable, but there were days I was tempted. Do you remember when I pulled up in front of your house, and she had the most hideous knot in the back?”
“Oh, yeah. That was something.”
I laugh, thinking back to the agonized expression I could see from ten feet away. I’d just received a panicked text asking me if I was home. Before I had time to respond, Jax tore up my driveway, and I raced outside, worried someone was sick or dying. Jax flung open the door to the back seat, revealing his tiny blond daughter, who couldn’t have been more than five years old.
“She wants a messy bun.” My brother, normally a strapping, tall man who intimidates other people by merely glaring at them, looked utterly defeated. “Everything I do with her hair is a mess, but not the right kind of mess, apparently.”
Fiona sulked, twirling a strand of hair around her finger.
I used some conditioner and unmatted her hair before twirling it into the kind of bun I knew she’d probably seen on a Disney show. She nodded and hugged me when she saw the result in the mirror, and Jax looked almost annoyed that I’d gotten it right when he couldn’t. “Thanks,” he’d said, grudgingly.
Maybe he’s finally over it.
“She and Ruby are thick as thieves, and I couldn’t be happier,” Jax says, leaning an elbow on the picnic table and sipping from a bottle of beer.
Eventually, the rest of our siblings join us at the table, and Mallory brings out a vegetable platter big enough to feed my family three times over. “What?” she asks when we all look at her with wide eyes. “I’m an only child. I don’t know how to feed a group this big, and I don’t want to run out.”
Dash slides onto the bench, pulls Mallory onto his lap, and looks at me expectantly.
“So, I have some news,” I begin.
“If it’s about the inn being delayed again, that’s the kind of news that can wait until the work week,” Archer says. He has zero sense of humor about anything related to Buttercup Hill and its ability to turn a profit.
“No! It can’t be delayed. My wedding, remember?” PJ gasps.
“Like any of us could forget,” Dash drawls.
I shake my head and pick up a potato chip. The green shade of the guacamole nauseates me, so I turn away and take a bite of the chip.
“It’s not about that.” I eat the rest of the chip and take a deep breath. This is your family . They’ll support you no matter what. I just need to get the words out, and then I’ll feel much better. So I close my eyes and speak quickly. “I’m going to have a baby. I’m pregnant, ten weeks now, and I wanted you all to know. It wasn’t planned, but I’m getting my brain around it now and I want this, so I hope you’ll all support me.”
Fiona is the first to react. She jumps from her seat and runs around the table to hug me. “I’m really excited. Ooh, I’ll babysit! Is it going to be a girl?”
“Um, oh. I don’t know yet,” I tell her, realizing that people are going to keep asking me that question, and I should have a better answer prepared. “I’m not sure if I’ll find out beforehand. I may just let it be a surprise.”
Fiona squeals once more and then excuses herself to bake cookies in the house, which she does every time we have a family dinner. I watch her go until she disappears inside, stalling before turning back to my brothers and sister, all of whom look at me with varying degrees of surprise and opinions on their faces.
“That’s great,” PJ says. Colin, sitting next to her, nods enthusiastically but says nothing.
“Yes, congratulations,” Dash adds, offering me a wink.
“Who’s the dad?” Jax asks. The air around us goes silent as everyone leans in and waits.
“Um…” I begin feeling my face flush. “That’s an interesting story. Do you remember Dominick Renaldi, who I used to date in college?”
“Of course I remember. Wait, your baby’s dad is Renaldi, as in the GOAT of the NHL?” Archer says, perking up for the first time.
“Yes.” I fill them in on the details, how we ran into each other, how he’s going to be involved, how we’re not a couple.
They pepper me with questions about how it’s all going to work out, but the main message is that they’re excited about a new family member, and they’re happy if I’m happy.
“But you could be a couple. Right? It’s possible after all this. Remember Ross and Rachel in Friends ?” Archer is more animated than I’ve seen him in a while, and I can’t understand it.
“Arch, you sound kind of personally invested here,” I tease. “What’s up? You looking for a bromance with him? Or, like, the inside scoop on hockey GOAT life?”
Archer shakes his head, but I notice that he’s suddenly turning pink. “No. Nothing like that.”
“Archer, do you have a guy crush on Dominick Renaldi?” Jax asks, never able to pass up a chance to rib his older brother.
Archer pushes himself up from the table and crosses his arms. “Hardly. I just like the sport and I respect the players. That’s all.” He stalks off toward the house and Jax high-fives Dash .
PJ laughs. “Well, if you do decide you want to be a couple, it looks like you may have some competition.”
I exhale a sigh of relief, grateful that my family seems to be taking this well.
“Hang on. Is he being a good guy about it? I mean, are you not together because he’s being an asshole or because that’s what you want?” Jax asks, sweetly protective of me.
“He’s not an asshole. Not at all. He wants to be involved, but we’re still figuring out how it’s all going to work. I’ll keep you posted, I promise.”
“Okay,” Dash says. “Leave her alone. You can jump all over her once you get a plate of food. Get it while it’s hot.”
I shoot him a grateful glance, and he nods. Then, he slips me an empty bowl from behind his back. “There’s chocolate ice cream waiting for you in the freezer.”
It’s either because he’s the best brother ever, or it’s the hormones, but I burst into tears. Fortunately, they taste good mixed with the chocolate.