Maggie tilted her head as she considered his point. Then, with a tap to his chest, she said, “Good point. I’ll have water until we leave, but for now, you all need to get your asses inside and we need to dance!” She grabbed Sully’s hand and dragged him in behind her. The majority of the crew outside followed her in.
After a minute or so, Levi and I stood on our own. I was ready to go in, but something about his expression made me want to check in.
“You good, man?” I asked, repeating his question from earlier.
He looked up at me in surprise. “Yeah, why?”
“You looked stressed. Wanted to check.”
He sighed, looking off into the woods. “Just a lot on my plate.”
“Work?” I wasn’t sure what else it could be.
“Yep. More work than hours in a day. Working for yourself is great until it isn’t.” He took another drink of his beer, then gestured to the house. “Want to head in?”
I agreed, turning to head up the steps, but paused when we hit the deck. “Sorry about the work, but let me know if I can help in any way. We could get out for a run tomorrow, or you can swing by for dinner one night next week if you just want to hang out, though you need to be cool with a baby.”
“Man, that isn’t a deterrent. And I haven’t set eyes on Baxter the wonder pup lately.”
“So both?” I asked as we stepped up to the door.
“Both. Run tomorrow around eleven?”
“You’ve got it.” We bumped fists and walked inside.
My eyes immediately found Grace. She was standing with the girls and Tim, who had just come in with Eric. They were swaying with their arms around each other, belting out “Head Full of Doubt/ Road Full of Promise” from the Avett Brothers. Her smile was wide, her eyes shiny with what looked like a few tears. Even from here, I could tell that she was happy.
My heart was full. For the first time since Mia had been born, she looked like she was that bird and she was flying free.
Several hours later, we were bumping down the country road and headed back to town. The country roads were clear of snow, and the plowed snow-covered fields were white landscapes stretching out in every direction as far as the eye could see. The moon lit the night, and a freight train was slowly moving against the horizon several fields away.
“You have fun, babe?”
“So much.” She was resting her head on the seat, her gaze on me.
“You need to pump as soon as we get home?” I asked, flipping on the blinker to head onto the main road into Highland. My mom should have Mia in bed, but if her gums were sore, they might be up. It wasn’t too late, but it was past the little one’s bedtime for sure.
She groaned, a hand to her breasts. “Yep, it just started to get bad. I only had one drink though, and it was several hours ago. If Mia’s up, I can just feed her. Or I can store it up for later.”
“You know it would have been okay if you wanted to drink more and dump the milk, right?” I asked, trying to gauge if this was a situation where she felt like she needed to set her desires aside again.
“I know. I really was fine not drinking.” Her voice was quiet.
She turned away from me, so I squeezed her knee. “You good?”
Gracie kept her gaze trained out the window. “Yeah, I guess this is just one more thing we need to talk about that is about as ‘unsexy as you can get.’”
What? I ran over her words in my brain before saying anything, hoping I didn’t fuck any of this up. “Umm, what’s unsexy?”
She dropped her head back on the headrest and looked to the ceiling of the truck. “Nursing? Pumping? Take your pick.”
Another turn had us rolling down Main and pulling into our drive. I turned off the car and unbuckled, leaning over to do the same for Grace before placing a hand on her arm. “Gracie, look at me.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Gracie…”
“It’s embarrassing, Aidan.”
