I couldn’t explain it, but seeing her had everything inside me shifting. Settling. As if I knew that her being there meant everything was going to be okay. After three days of uncertainty and turmoil, it was like a balm to my soul.
Nash’s honk pulled me out of my thoughts. He waved from his truck before pulling out of the driveway, and I could only manage a chin lift in response since my hands were full of sixty pounds of pissed-off and/or hyper children.
“He’s already late for a meeting, thanks to my delays, but he said he’ll stop by later.” Nat glanced to Owen, who was still screaming, his face a mottled red, and then to June as she clung from my neck. “Sounds like maybe you need some help.”
“Nat!” June yelled, releasing her grip on me to throw her arms wide.
My muscles tightened as I compensated for June’s lack of leverage, holding her up with my forearm. “Gotta hang on, Junebug, or you’re gonna be flattened on the ground like a real june bug.”
She giggled and threw her arms back around my neck, though she miscalculated and accidentally thumped Owen in the head. His screams only intensified.
“I’m sorry, Bubbie,” June said over my shoulder as she peered down at a wailing Owen and rubbed a hand over his downy soft thatch of hair. “I didn’t mean to, promise!”
Without missing a beat, Nat stepped into the house, dropped her bags next to the front door, and scooped a contrite June off my back. To me, she said, “You’ve got the screamer.”
“That means you’ve got the one hopped up on sugar.”
Nat only shrugged. “Perfect, then we match. I’ve eaten nothing but chips and peanut M&M’s for three days.”
With that, she tossed June over her shoulder before spinning the little girl around in helicopters. After a few moments, she dropped a giggling June onto the couch and stared down at her, fists propped on her hips. “I have a deal for you. What do you think of that?”
My niece, ever the skeptic, narrowed her eyes. “What kind of deal?”
“Whoever picks up the most before your brother stops cryin’ gets a cupcake from The Sweet Spot. Agree?”
I was pretty sure the last thing my niece needed today—or this week, for that matter—was more sugar. But there was no denying that Nat’s tactics worked because June agreed immediately, flying off the couch and dashing around the disastrous living room to get started.
The house was strewn with enough toys to fill an entire store, not to mention the dirty dishes I hadn’t been able to get to or the handful of discarded outfits June insisted on tearing through each day. Then there were all the pee-stained shirts of mine, as well as Owen’s—the kid hadn’t woken up dry once since I had arrived.
Nat may not have been the maternal type, but shewasthe see-something, do-something type, which was why her immediacy didn’t surprise me. No matter how long we spent apart, it was never weird when we saw each other again. Whether it was after five weeks or five months, we fell right back into the same easy rhythm we had always had between us.
She wore jeans and an oversized hoodie—her standard airplane uniform—and I knew from experience she was dying for a shower. While she loved traveling and seeing the world, she didn’t love airplanes or being stuffed like sardines with a bunch of random people she didn’t know, breathing in recycled air.
“Quit starin’ at me, creep,” Nat said as she bent to pick up a discarded sippy cup, not even bothering to look over her shoulder.
I huffed out a laugh at the exact moment a particularly sharp wail sounded from Owen. I adjusted him into a different position, lifting him upright and propping his butt on my forearm. He stared at me, as if I were the one responsible for all of this, his bottom lip quivering as he rubbed an angry fist into his eyes.
“I know, buddy.” I rubbed his back as I walked us toward his room and away from the peals of laughter from June and Nat. “Now that Nat’s here to take care of your sister, maybe I can finally get you to sleep.”
CHAPTER THREE
ASHER
Somehow,beyond all hope, Owen actuallydidfall asleep—on top of me while I rocked him in the chair in his room, which meant I fell asleep, too. I woke up to my nephew’s hands slapping happily on my cheeks and his face pressed so close he was blurry.
He babbled around a drool-filled smile, his mood a complete one-eighty from when we’d stepped foot into his bedroom who knew how long ago.
I pulled out my phone and glanced at the time. Shit, I’d been in here for two hours while Nat had been on Sugar Satan duty. What a welcome.Hey, thanks for coming, but I’m gonna crash. So, do you mind handling, well, everything?
“Up we go,” I said. “We should probably get you—” Before I could complete the sentence, a wet sensation registered across my torso, and I held Owen out at arm’s length. The kid was soaking wet, which meant so was I.
I exhaled a sigh. “I don’t understand how one tiny thing can produce so much pee.”
Owen’s happy babbles continued, even as I got him wiped down and changed into a fresh diaper and clothes. I hadn’t yet figured out how to manage taking a shower while both kids wereawake, so that meant I’d handled previous pee explosions by simply changing shirts and continuing to smell like urine until I could shower after bedtime. Now that Nat was here, hopefully she could watch them for five minutes so I could get cleaned up.
I strode into the living room with Owen, careful to hold him so he didn’t rest on the wet patch of my shirt. Nat and June sat on the floor, an explosion of coloring books and crayons spread out in front of them.
“Uncle Asher, we’re doin’ a contest! You get to pick the winner.”
