Chapter 12: Rosie
“Okay take me through your plan with Boone for this week,” Cain asks me as we exit the train station in Manhattan and fall into step, heading toward our offices after a long, relaxing weekend spent at my lake house in Brookhaven.
Eden—my sister-in-law Rhiannon Carpenter’s younger sister—came over to check out the horrendously decorated den in my new property and talk design ideas for how we can make it better.
Eden lives across the lake with her older brother, Gabriel, in their childhood home while finishing school at NYU. She’s majoring in interior design and just like the rest of the Carpenter’s, has an eye for taking the ordinary and making it extraordinary. It’s something they learned from their parents who owned the furniture thrift store in town that they all manage which houses refurbished pieces by the siblings.
She scoped the place out, took a few measurements, and came up with some solid ideas to use as her capstone project for her junior year. And I couldn’t be more thrilled to start making progress on the place.
The thought of finally chipping away at my plans and making it feel more like a home feels like a step in the right direction. And the best part is that she can work on it during the week while I’m away working in the city.
“I have a meeting with the PR team this morning to check-in on the public’s acceptance of our first appearance Saturday.”
He nods. “That’s good. Rhiannon said from her perspective the photos looked great. The team did well.”
“I haven’t seen them yet.” Mostly because I was purposely avoiding looking and forcing myself not to do any work this weekend.
After I met up with Eden, I spent the rest of my weekend with my nine-month-old niece, Piper, Rhiannon and Cain. And it really doesn’t get much better than that.
Time with my brother and his family always leaves me feeling… something I can’t quite put into words. Fulfilled? A bit lonely? But also… happy?
Maybe it’s because I never felt like we had much of a family growing up. Connection was something that my father made sure never formed too deeply. And now, being around my brother’s family makes me realize just how much I’ve missed out.
I wonder if Cain ever feels it too or if he sees just how good he has it now and is grateful for the present.
We weren’t that close growing up. We’ve grown closer the last few years working together. But there was always this unspoken competition between us, something my dad nurtured to push us toward greatness.
With five years between us, the gap only widened as we got older. He went away to school while I stayed behind, andsomehow that distance always lingered until later in life when we reconnected.
Now, watching him with his new extended family and his little girl, I feel this ache every time I board the train back to the city on Monday morning. It’s a kind of longing I didn’t expect—a yearning for something like what he has. A home filled with love and laughter, and maybe even a family of my own someday.
For so long, I imagined myself in a sleek, modern home. Shiny appliances, sharp edges, and cool, minimalist designs would surround me like I was posing for a magazine.
It’s the aesthetic that defines my apartment in the city and the house we grew up in with Dad. But now, spending my weekends in the house that I own in Brookhaven—with its wild prints, mismatched furniture, and confusing, clashing paint colors, I’ve felt something shift.
At first, it made my anxiety spike. That fire engine red paint in the primary bedroom? Let’s just say it’s not going to last for long. I’m choosing to believe that the previous owners must have really loved the color red.
But as much as the chaos of the house and everything I want to do to it drives me crazy, I’m starting to appreciate its’ character. It’s small-town at its finest and I’m learning to embrace it.
At least the new mattress Cain helped me drag upstairs is making it easier to sleep there on the weekends.
“What’s the rest of your schedule look like this week?” Cain asks me.
“I’ve got the social media star who staged that flash mob at the Eiffel Tower last week,” I reply. “You know, the one that turned into an actual flashing incident? Yeah, her. Then I’ve got court at 2:30.”
Cain nods. “I have court this afternoon too. Maybe we can grab an early dinner before I head back to Brookhaven tonight? We need to talk through Boone’s case.”
I nod, twisting the engagement and wedding rings back on my finger. It had been nice not wearing them all weekend while I was tucked away in a town where no one knows me yet, or Boone, for that matter. But reality is staring me in the face, quite literally, in the form of Boone’s handsome face plastered across a billboard and newspapers in Manhattan advertising some new cologne.
I stop short, stepping toward a corner cart and handing the owner a few dollars for a paper. And there it is, right on the front page, a photo of us from Friday night.
The headline is practically screaming at me:Mayhem in Manhattan! NHL Player Boone Tremblay Marries Entertainment Lawyer Rosie Prescott in Surprise Wedding!
All the details we know inside!
We’d had dinner, gotten to know each other a little better against my initial protests and, surprisingly, it hadn’t been horrible. It’d been nice. Which shouldn’t be all that shocking. Boone carries conversation much easier than I do.
My stomach twists as I stare at the photo. I look so… flustered. Boone’s hand is resting gently on my lower back, shielding me from the cameras in a gesture that’s very protective.
