And given her previous day’s activities,thatwas a horrible idea.
So she went to shower instead. This time, she didn’t step on the scale first, because there was nothing it could tell her she didn’t already know.
She was probably always going to have her curves, and it didn’t matter, because she was finding she also had a whole heaping of happy. So she was going to hold on tight to it for as long as it let her.
The thing about perfection, she realized,staring at that damn scale, was that it didn’t really exist. It’s a phantom that drove her to try to do better when she was doing her very best to begin with.
Turned out, sometimes making a mess of things actually made her happier.
Chapter Thirty
“Pretty much all the things I say as a mom are ‘things I didn’t expect to say.’ ‘Stop punching your brother in the penis’ is a favorite.” — Shasta, New Hampshire, USA
Rachel
“The Puffle Yum Momster poisoned you?” Molly said…well…really, she shrieked the statement. She punctuated this shriek by smacking two hands on the table in front of her.
Rachel shushed her. “The boys will hear you. And, no, she didn’tactuallypoison me, but she thinks she did. Thus, she’s now being super awesome.”
So far, Evelyn had not brought up Gavin plus Rachel equals true love since they’d been back. She also offered to take the boys for an evening so Travis and Rachel could have some time alone. More than that, she’d added Rachel to the family text chain.
This last one was both a blessing and a curse.
Turned out,Evelyn texted her kids alot.
“I’m confused,” Kaiya said. Turned out she sold the hell out of skin care products. Who knew?
And she needed a whole lot of Rachel’s help. During working hours.
Kaiya had no problems with boundaries and set her own firm office hours. It made for an excellent working relationship.
She also paid on time and provided all the free lavender skin cream Rachel could ever need.
This get-together was taking place in Rachel’s backyard. All the kids were bouncing on the trampoline, April poured margaritas, and Sadie served cookies she’d brought along from Heather’s Cookie Co.—the good kind with extra icing she got because she was friendly with the owner.
“What are you confused about?” April asked, topping off Kaiya’s glass.
“So Evelyn is just okay with everything because she thinks she accidentally gave you guys food poisoning?” Kaiya confirmed. “That seems unlike her, from what you’ve said.”
She was right, it did seem unlike her. But it wasn’t about food poisoning. It was about Evelyn realizing things might just be okay anyway, even if she didn’t get her way.
“That’s her excuse,” Rachel said with a sly smile. “But I think she came around because she realized her sons aren’t going to beat the crap out of each other over the situation between Travis and me.”
“How do you feel about it all?” Sadie asked.
“I have Travis. So things are pretty great.” Rachel settled back against her chair, gripping the cocktail with two hands.
On the scale of great, things were magnificent. He’d found her toothbrush three times just that morning before she kicked him out before the boys woke up.
He ate dinner with them every night in the week they’d been back—except two nights he had corporate dinners. On those nights, he stopped by afterward to say goodnight and give Rachel what he referred to as “a proper goodnight.”
To be clear, there wasn’t much proper about the way he said goodnight. Hence the,ahem, magnificent.
Even the thought made her cheeks heat and her heart flutter like it always had when a relationship was brand-new. The thing was, this relationship still had the flutter, but it was definitely not new.
In truth, they’d been working toward it for years. She just hadn’t realized. For the record, the bedroom activities weren’t the only thing she adored about Travis. They were a definite perk, for sure, but more than that, he fit seamlessly into her life.
Like he was always meant to be there. Like the splintered pieces of the life she’d planned all pointed straight to this place. To him, and to her boys, and to her family.
