EPILOGUE
Merrick
One year later
“I didn’t take you for someone who would get freaked out by a little turbulence.”
“Hmmm?” I looked over my shoulder before merging from the airport onto the highway. “What are you talking about?”
“On the flight here,” Evie said. “You were so tense. Every time I looked over at you, you were white-knuckling the armrest.”
“Ohh…” The thought that a few bumps on a plane would bother me after all these years of travel was pretty comical. I’d once slept through an emergency landing. But I nodded anyway. “Yeah, I thought I hid it well.”
Evie chuckled. “There was sweat beading on your forehead at one point.”
We’d just landed in Atlanta for Kitty’s long-planned family reunion picnic, which was two days from now, though Evie thought the party was tomorrow. She also thought we were going straight to my grandmother’s.
I cleared my throat. “It’s only seven. My grandmother has her weekly card game until nine. I told her to have it since half the time flights are late anyway. Do you want to take a ride to your Airbnbs, to check in on things, since we have some time?”
I had no backup plan, so I was banking on her saying yes.
“Oh yeah, that would be great. Let me look on the app and see if they’re booked.”
Shit.
Of course it was booked. I’d booked it a month ago under a fake name thinking I was slick, but I hadn’t stopped to consider she’d want to check before we went and would find it was rented.
Evie typed into her phone. “They’re both booked.”
“You want to do a drive-by anyway, just check on the property? What about the glamping site?”
“No, it’s okay. Maybe if we have time on the way home. It looks like they’re open on Sunday, so that might be better.”
I felt like kicking her ass. Think. Think. I was nervous as shit, so my brain couldn’t come up with anything. “You sure?”
She looked over at me and squinted. “You don’t want to get to Kitty’s while all her card friends are there because last time they made a comment about your cute bum. Is that it?”
“Yep. Yep…you got me. They might look like sheep, but those ladies are wolves.”
Evie snickered. “Fine. You know, for a man with such a dirty mouth, you really can be a prude sometimes.”
I drove the rest of the way to the Airbnbs barely saying a word. I traded billions in high-risk stocks every year, and never once had I felt like this. Evie had been on my ass about softening my tone a bit when I spoke to the new traders, because I apparently made them nervous. If this was the shit they went through, I really was a dick, and they should all quit.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” Evie said. “I got tickets to Sesame Street Live for Abbey and Eloise for their birthdays. The show isn’t for a few months, but Abbey is obsessed with everything Sesame already. I thought Eloise might like it too. I got three tickets for two different shows. I wasn’t sure if you’d want us to take Eloise, or if you just wanted to gift them all to her for her birthday, and Aaron could take her and a friend.”
A few weeks after the day Aaron and I had talked, I took him up on his offer to get to know his daughter. It was awkward at first. I just wanted to stare at her and look for the baby I’d once thought was mine. But it didn’t take long before that wore off. Since then, I’d visited often. Aaron and I had even formed some sort of friendship. I never thought I’d be grateful to have that guy in my life, but I was. Because I couldn’t unlove a child I’d fallen for months before she was even born. I’d introduced Evie to them, and the last few times we’d gotten together, she’d brought along her niece, Abbey. Eloise loved her and treated her like a doll.
“Do you want to go?” I asked her.
“Sort of. My mom never had the money to take us to shows when we were kids. I guess I’m kind of curious what it is.”
“Okay,” I said. “So we’ll take her.”
“Really?” Evie’s eyes widened. “I never thought you’d agree to go to Sesame Street Live.”
I shrugged. “I’m going to spend a few hours with my little friend and then go home and get a blowjob because I did something you wanted to do, right?”
She chuckled. “Probably.”