He met Abby’s eyes and said, “Codi has only seen him for a few minutes,” his way of saying he couldn’t stay out in the waiting room for very long.
Abby leaned down and gave the baby a kiss. “Well, wecan’t keep him from his momma.” She took the baby over to Georgia, who stroked her hand down his head with tears in her eyes. OJ sat down next to her, and Abby let him hold the baby for a couple of minutes.
Kassie and Reggie came over, along with Harry and Belle and Adam and Joey, and they all gushed over the perfect, long, straight, Young nose, and speculated over whose eyes he’d have when he finally grew into them.
Bryce hugged them all, basking in their love, their support, the easy way they’d forgiven him and welcomed him back into the family. Finally, he returned to the room where Codi waited. Her eyes fluttered open as he entered, and she sat up a little straighter.
“Oh, goodness, I fell asleep,” she said. “Is he okay?”
“He’s amazing,” Bryce said. “I’ve already taken him out to everyone for right now, though, the second wave of Youngs is on the way.” He passed her the baby, and this time he did crowd into the bed with her, putting his arm around her shoulders and letting her settle into his chest.
“I love you so much,” he said. “You are incredible.”
She leaned into his kiss, and together they gazed down at their tiny Matthew—the baby who had made them a family.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
“I’m going to label all of these,” Adam said as histen-minute-until-pickupalarm sounded.
“Okay,” Joey said, sounding a bit harried and breathless.
He’d spent a couple of hours with her last night, both of them pushing a cart through the grocery store as she loaded it with all of the ingredients she needed to bake sixty-one pies today and tomorrow.
It was 2:51 p.m., and the first wave of pickups were slated to begin at three. She’d allowed eight people to pick up pies every hour, between three and eight p.m. tonight, or ten and four p.m. tomorrow. It was more than enough slots, and it allowed her to work on pies in the order of which they would be picked up.
“I printed the three o’clock orders right there,” she said.
“I know,” Adam replied. “I have them all taped on thecounter—three, four, five, six, and seven.” He nodded to the sheets she’d printed and he’d taped down.
Five hours of pickup tonight, but only twenty-one pies would leave the kitchen of Pork and Beans. Instructions had been emailed to everyone, as Adam had typed them up himself and sat with Joey as she’d sent them out this morning.
That done, she’d been baking all day, and he looked at the three pies that needed to be ready by three, the four by four, and the two by five. The other twelve pies needed to be ready by six p.m., by which time Joey said she would be working on the ten a.m. pies for the following day.
Her aunt Faith had printed the stickers for her and called in an emergency order to get the pie boxes here on time. Adam loved that Joey had so many people around her supporting her, but he could admit he wanted to be the loudest and biggest cheerleader of all.
So he picked up the apple pie, carefully placed it in the box, and closed it. The buyer’s name had been printed on a sticker that he put on the back top of the box, and then he peeled off a large, four-inch round sticker that indicated this was an apple pie by Rooelle Pies. He smiled at the logo of a kangaroo with a joey poking out of the pouch and holding a pie. Both cartoon animals grinned for all they were worth, and Adam hoped that through all the chaos and craziness that this pie-baking adventure made Joey happy.
He wanted nothing more than for her to be happy, and he’d almost gone onto her website yesterday afternoon and bought all of the remaining pies himself. He could put anote in the comment section that said,You don’t need to really bake these. I just want you to have your own place.
He didn’t mind going to her grandparents’ place, as Cecily and Jerry were exceedingly kind to him, but Adam knew Joey wanted her own apartment, and therefore he wanted that for her as well.
He labeled the second apple pie, and then the pumpkin, and continued to box and sticker all the pies that were ready. Joey worked on chocolate custard, and when a timer went off, she moved like flowing water over to the industrial ovens and pulled out three trays of two pie crusts each. She slid them effortlessly into the cooling racks and moved down to the fridge, where she loaded three more trays with weighted pie crusts. She put those in the oven and went back to her custard.
“Can you come help me with the Oreos?” she asked, and Adam abandoned his labeling station to do that. “Two whole packages, baby,” she said. “And a whole stick of butter. It should do four crusts, and that’s all we need for the chocolate.”
“Okay,” he said, and he looked at the food processor that she had already taught him how to use. He felt like a walrus with flippers instead of hands as he opened the packages of cookies and poured them into the food processor.
“Pulse,” he muttered to himself, and he pushed the pulse button a couple of times to get the cookies to break up before he simply jammed his thumb down on the button and let the processor whir.
He’d tried to multitask before, and that had ended badlyfor him, with dark cookie crumbs everywhere and Joey blinking at him like she’d just happened onto a horrible baking crime scene. So this time, he stayed with the food processor until the cookies were finely ground, then he moved to the fridge to get the cube of butter. He unwrapped it, dropped it in a bowl, and stuck it in the microwave.
“I’m here to pick up a pie,” someone said, and Adam spun, his heart in the back of his throat.
“Yes,” Joey said pleasantly. “How are you, Miss Myers?” She moved over and hugged the woman lightly around the shoulders. “I think you have the pumpkin.”
“Yes,” she said, glancing down the table of boxed and labeled pies. “And I’m getting my sister’s, but she’s not supposed to pick up until five. Is that okay?”
