The party had started.
Gavin hadn’t shown up.
Again. As his wedding inched closer, the slacking on his dad duties had gotten worse. He was practically becoming Travis. Rachel wassodone with covering for him.
See, Gavin was Rachel’s ex for lotsa reasons, all of which had become abundantly clear when he had two additional live beings hand delivered to her front door. Without. Asking. First.
This was the second timethathad happened.
The first, the twins, was also her fault. She’d consented to the activities that led to their conception—even if she hadn’t meant for that outcome.
But no one even tried to give her an orgasm before twin puppies showed up at her front door.
Gah, there were puppiesin her house. Puppies that were now hers to tend.
God, she wished someone would read her sign and bring her some freaking margaritas. Don’t get her wrong, she adored dogs. Was, in fact, totally a dog person. Her family had always had a pup or two living with them during her childhood.
But there were six kids in her family, and a mom, and a dad, and the dogs they brought into the home were from rescues—older, with adequate bladder control.
So, yes, she loved dogs. However, there were no hours left in the day for her to manage two more living beings under her care. Keeping them fed and watered, veterinarian appointments, picking up after them…
Puppies were an exponential exercise in both adorable bouncing and what-the-hell-have-I-gotten-myself-into?
She needed sleep and she needed the two months she’d been counting on to focus on her business. Her to-do list last night hadn’t shrunk. Even with Travis and Dave taking pity on her—or maybe just sticking around to prevent her from flying to Boston to cause bodily harm to their brother—she’d made only minimal progress on her to-do list.
The dogs were up like four times each. Add to that her Down Under client’s emergency wardrobe malfunction on MyTube needed Rachel’s immediate help to fix the video, and Brady woke her with a tummy ache. So she hadn’t had over sixty solid minutes of shut-eye before something, someone, or some canine needed her attention.
All of that probably contributed to her lack of fucks left about Gavin’s feelings when he was late to his kids’ birthday party.
This was their birthday and it would be goddamned perfect.
Perfect after she got everything finished up. She had an eight-year-old mad scientist party plan, and that plan included watermelon slices shaped like the number eight. By God, she’d serve this watermelon in eight-shaped slices, unless she gave in to her baser desires and beat the shit out of it while pretending it was her ex-husband.
Her puppy-delivering, twin-producing, going-to-Boston-sans-children ex-husband.
“It’s Rachel,” Evelyn said, like she did every single time she walked up to her former daughter-in-law. She popped into the kitchen like a Meemaw fairy godmother. “Can I help?”
Oh, yes. Yes, yes, yes.
“Can you tie the ribbons on those?” Rachel nodded toward the gift bags she’d stayed up until two a.m. packing make-your-own slime kits, DIY rock candy, and all the necessities for a marshmallow catapult. That last one wasn’t really a mad scientist thing, but it looked super fun on Pinterest.
“Of course.” Evelyn started tying ribbons. “What else do you need?”
“I need to see if one of the uncles will supervise the games outside, someone needs to add the figurines to the cake, punch needs refilling, puppies need let out to do their business—supervised—and the watermelon needs cutting into slices that look like the number eight.” Somehow, she said all of that in one big breath.
Evelyn’s expression didn’t change, thanks to her latest facelift, but she did not start tying ribbons. Instead, she threw open the door to the backyard and called, “Bob. We need your help.”
Bob was one of Rachel’s favorite Franks because he smiled all the time, respected that she and Gavin would never reconcile, and sometimes brought her chocolate. He strode through the door to the kitchen and didn’t even get to say hello before Evelyn had him tying the bows.
“Which do you want done next, dear?” Evelyn asked.
Um.
“Punch bowl.” Rachel decided on the spot.
“Of course.” Evelyn went right to work.
Huh, this was new. Evelyn hadn’t mentioned Gavin or his whereabouts or how he’d spent the week before telling her all about Rachel and the boys and what they were up to.
