"I don't think Gary is a good name now that we know she's a girl," Brody said.
Cam laughed. "I guess you're right." She continued to chuckle. "How about Garina?"
Everyone groaned and shook their heads.
"That can't be your raccoon," J.J. stated. "That's the one that's been at Lee's house since I moved in. I recognize the missing chunk of her tail." He looked at me. "Right? That looks like Rascal, doesn't it?"
"It is Rascal," I said.
"It can't be. Your house is a few miles from mine," Cam argued. "Raccoons don't travel that far, do they?"
"I don't know," I answered with a shrug.
Corey sighed, rolled her eyes, and pulled her phone out of her pocket. "Let's Google it."
I bit back a laugh because even though Corey didn't have siblings, she'd seen how her uncles acted and she knew that a loud, good-natured argument was brewing.
As she typed away at her phone, I looked around and realized I was surrounded by my family. And I was happy.
Despite the chaos of the day, I could see myself doing things like this with J.J. for the rest of my life.
In fact, I looked forward to it.
Epilogue
"Is Lydia ready yet?" I called from the bathroom.
"Almost."
I rolled my eyes at J.J.'s response. That meant that she wasn't anywhere near ready and he was just pacifying me while he continued to play with our daughter instead of getting her dressed.
I heard a big, baby belly laugh followed by a deep chuckle and grinned at my reflection in the mirror.
Okay, so I couldn't be too annoyed when I heard them both laughing.
Six months ago, I'd been terrified that this moment would never happen.
Lydia Camilla McClane made her appearance in this world seven weeks ahead of schedule.
Despite the fact that I'd stopped cleaning houses in December after school let out and all the breaks that Cam made me take at work, I developed preeclampsia in January. Dr. Stubens put me on partial bed rest. She allowed me to continue school but refused to let me work at Crave.
Thank God for Harmony. When I'd first started working at the shop, she called in fairly regularly. Cam had been on the verge of letting her go when we learned, by accident, that her mother was ill and her father had vanished as soon as the cancer was diagnosed.
After that, Cam had worked with her on her schedule in every way she could.
By the time I'd been put on bed rest, Harmony's mother had finished chemotherapy and was doing much better, so Harmony was free to help more at the shop. When she'd graduated high school in May, I'd still been recovering and unable to work full-time, so she'd stepped in.
Now, she was doing the same thing I'd done at her age—she was living at home, commuting to college, and working part-time.
I fully intended to ask Cam if she could take over my assistant manager position at the new Crave location because now that I had Lydia, I wanted to stay at the original store since it was in Farley rather than thirty minutes away.
I had a feeling she would say yes.
Despite doing everything Dr. Stubens told me to do when my blood pressure started to rise, I ended up in the hospital after my seven-month visit. They monitored me closely for a week and realized that there was no way I was going to carry Lydia to term.
My blood pressure kept rising and I developed a persistent, agonizing pain in my right shoulder. After a final urine test, Dr. Stubens decreed that I was having a babythat day.
Within an hour, my little girl was introduced to the world.
