Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Jaxi
Oh, my gosh. What are these people doing?
A stream—no, a river—of people come in and out of Boone’s house.
Everyone is carrying something. The women bring in containers of food and gallons of tea.
The men bring in boxes and packages. A girl with braids who showed up at the same time from a food delivery service brings in paper bags marked with a grocery store logo.
And, in the midst of it all, is a woman with a warm, motherly smile and a no-nonsense attitude who directs the traffic.
I hold Rosie’s hand and tuck her into my side. We stand by the kitchen door and try not to get trampled by the activity.
“What’s happening?” Rosie asks, her face a little pink from the afternoon in the pool.
“I don’t know. I think these people are Boone’s family.”
“Oh.”
Rosie nibbles on her bottom lip and watches the activity. Finally, she shakes my hand away and makes a beeline right in the middle of the thong of bodies.
I rush after her, afraid that she’ll get trampled. “Rosie!”
“Boone!” she exclaims, racing after a man who does look quite a lot like Boone. “Come here!”
The man stops and sets his bags down. “Well, hey there,” he says, kneeling. “What’s your name?”
“Boone?” Rosie asks, screeching to a halt in front of him.
I’m just a few steps behind.
“Nope. Not Boone. My name is Coy.”
“Oh.” She looks around. “Where’s Boone?”
I open my mouth to tell her that he’s outside when, out of nowhere, Boone races through the foyer. He scoops Rosie up, making her squeal.
“I’m right here,” he says, twirling her through the air.
He sets her back on her feet.
Coy stands up and looks at me. “Are you sure you want to do this? You’re going to have two babies to take care of if you stick around this guy.”
I laugh. “Did you know you could DoorDash a whole cake?”
Coy cringes. “I did know that, actually.” He laughs. “I’m Coy. I’m Boone’s best looking and most talented brother.”
“Are you talking about me?” Another man who heavily resembles them stops beside us. He’s about the same size but probably a little older. There’s something refined, slightly more sophisticated about him—like a movie star. “I’m Oliver. Nice to meet you.”
Before I can say anything, another lookalike introduces himself.
“I’m Holt.” The man waves as he carries a box down the hall. “That’s my lady friend, Blaire.” He points at a raven-haired woman with a box by the door.
“Stop calling me that,” she says. She then looks at me and smiles. “He’s mad that I won’t take off to the courthouse and marry him on any given day. Lady friend is supposed to make me feel guilty.”
My body relaxes as I put names to faces and absorb their genuine kindness.
I see where Boone gets it from now.
A hand presses gently on my shoulder and I spin around. A set of the faintest green eyes look back at me.
“Hello,” says the woman directing traffic. “I’m Siggy Mason, Boone’s mother.”
“She’s my mom too!” Oliver shouts as he takes another box to the back bedroom.
Siggy rolls her eyes. “I’m the mother to all of the males here. Let me clarify so no one gets their feelings hurt.”
I laugh.
“I really hope I’m not overstepping any lines,” she says, a hint of concern in her eyes. “I sprang into action this morning when Boone called and it wasn’t until on the way over here when Bellamy asked if I’d talked to you I realized that I probably should’ve done that.”
“Honestly, I’m overwhelmed in the best way.”
“If you don’t like anything we picked out, I’ll take it back. All of it. I’m the return queen,” she says, pressing her hands together as if in prayer. “But I truly just want to try to help out. It seems that you’ve had a lot put on your plate.”
I suck in a quick breath. “You could say that.”
“I’m terribly sorry to hear about your sister.”
A lump prickles against my throat. Instead of fighting it, I lean into it and acknowledge that it’s there. It helps it ease a little.
“Thank you,” I tell her. “We weren’t close so it’s not like that. But it still hurts. It’s still … sad.”
She nods. “Of course, it is. Do you have any family to help you at all?”
I glance around the room full of Masons. They laugh at and with each other. They show up to help each other. They bring what must be the entire children’s section of the local department store with them because their brother called needing help this morning.
“It’s just me,” I say, pulling my gaze back to her. “I have a cousin, but she’s … going through a lot right now. I haven’t even told her about Rosie.”
The prickling starts again in my throat as I look around the room for my niece. I can’t see her but hear her laughter coming from the kitchen.
I smile.
“Well, you have all of us,” Siggy says, returning my smile.
My body fills with an unimaginable warmth that starts in my toes and gets hotter as it floods my chest.
She winks. “We can be an overbearing brood, but our intentions are good.”
“I honestly can’t thank you enough. All of this is just …”
“You’re welcome. And if we miss anything, please let me know. I love shopping, and the only son of mine out of five to have a child is Coy, and it’s not here yet. And he and Bellamy—you haven’t met her, have you?”
I shake my head.
“She’s Coy’s wife. A complete and utter doll. You’ll love her. Anyway, they’ve put me on a spending cap, and it’s making me twitchy.”
I laugh. “That sounds terrible.”
“It is.” She gestures for me to follow her to the kitchen. “I’ll survive, I’m sure, but I would like a little freedom. It’s hard when your children start giving you boundaries. I’m not good with them. So, if you don’t mind, please use me. I’m a mom. That’s what my job is.”
“I appreciate you, Siggy, I do. And while I’m here, I’ll remember that.”
She looks at me over her shoulder. “Are you going somewhere?”
We stop in the doorway. The refrigerator is propped open while Blaire fills the void with milk, eggs, fruit, cheeses, meats, and piles of other food items. Boone and his brothers argue about jets over large pans of steak and gravy, mashed potatoes, and the yellowest corn I’ve ever seen.
Rosie sits on top of the counter right in the middle of it all.
I don’t know her well yet, of course, but the look on her face seems like contentment.
Even though her whole life has been turned upside down, there’s a tiny smile on her adorable, sweet face, and it brings tears to my eyes.
She’s calm.
She might even be happy.
I sniffle and turn my attention back to Siggy’s questioning gaze.
“Well, yes, eventually,” I tell her. “I mean, I’m sure Boone doesn’t want a woman and her niece living with him for the rest of his life.”
“Hmm.”
I have no idea what that means, so I smile.
“Can I do anything to pay you back for all of this?” I ask her. “I can—”
“You can keep this child of mine fed so he stops coming to my house and raiding my refrigerator.” She grins. “Now let’s eat. Coy, get your finger out of the potatoes. Were you raised in a barn?”
“It was my plate, Mom.”
“I don’t care.”
I laugh as the Masons continue razzing each other. Oliver wraps his arm around Siggy and kisses her cheek.
The vibe in this room is what I want in life.
My gaze falls to Rosie. Someday, little girl, I’ll find this for us.
As if she can hear my thoughts, she looks up at me. “’Mere.”
I walk over to her. “How are you doing?”
“Good. They’re loud,” Rosie says.
“Yes, they are.”
Rosie scoots around and rests the back of her head on my chest. I swipe the hair off her forehead and kiss the top of her head.
“Jaxi,” Siggy says, coming around the counter. “While they’re occupied, could I show you what we brought? Just in case you don’t want something or have questions?”
“Sure.”
“Can I come?” Rosie asks.
“You sure can,” I say, picking her up and putting her on the floor.
Rosie takes my hand immediately. It causes the breath in my chest to hold.
I normally feel really alone in situations like this. I think I stick out like a sore thumb. But having a child need me, be mine, is something that I always expected would be a joy.
I never realized just how different it would really make things.
When the house empties this evening, Rosie will be here.
If Boone tells us we’re screwing up his life, Rosie and I will leave.
If I find myself in another shitty apartment in the city with a douchebag of a landlord, I won’t sit alone at night while I cry into my ramen.
And while I don’t know what Rosie has been through in her life, she’ll always have me.
She looks up at me and smiles.
That feels really, really nice.
The three of us walk down the hallway and into a bedroom on the right.
I helped Boone carry a bunch of boxes and suitcases and totes from this room into the garage earlier.
It’s a decent-sized room with a big window overlooking the driveway.
Once we opened the blinds, the room was bathed in sunlight.
“That box is a toddler bed with removable rails so you can still use it as she gets older,” she says, pointing at a long box against the back wall.
“There’s a dresser to match.” She moves into the room and looks around.
“We got a couple of lamps and a bookcase. And books, of course. And a few stuffed animals because I wasn’t sure what she loved. ”
“Is this for me?” Rosie looks up at Siggy. “Will this be where I sleep?”
Siggy kneels. “Do you like it here?”
Rosie nods.
“We wanted you to feel happy here, so we got you some fun things for your room,” Siggy tells her. “A big girl like you should have her own big girl bed.”
“I slept on the couch at my mommy’s house. Mommy and Kurt slept in the bed.”
I twist my lips and close my eyes.
“Well, now you’ll have your own bed,” Siggy says softly. “Right across the hall from Boone and Jaxi.”
My eyes fly open. Thank God Siggy isn’t looking at me.