“Mmhm.” Nash paused midway through pouring water into the coffeemaker. “And I want to tell my sister. Properly introduce you, since you’re Rosie’s teacher too and Rosie is…”
I laughed. “I think the word you’re looking for is loud.”
“Yeah,” he deadpanned. “That.”
“Okay,” I nodded. “So we tell Nell. We tell your sister. Then…I’ll request a meeting with Principal Daniels Monday morning, before school. Delia can help me navigate any paperwork or anything like that, purely to keep Nell safe and the two of us safe.”
Nash nodded, walking over to the couch with two cups of coffee now. He handed one to me and sat down, then put his free arm around me, looking down at my planner.
“Are you…making a color-coded relationship reveal to-do list?”
I looked up at him with an embarrassed smile. “…yes.”
He kissed my temple. “You’re fucking perfect, sunshine.”
TWENTY
nash
Yesterday,I’d told Nell that Maggie was going to start having breakfast with us sometimes because she was my friend.
Today…Maggie was pregnant.
And I was going to tell Nell that Maggie was going to start staying with us. And that she was Dad’s special friend.
I had absolutely no idea how to do this.
I was fully convinced I was going to mess it up.
Claire’s neighborhood was about ten minutes outside of town proper—one of those quiet suburban streets that had sprung up in the nineties when Juniper falls had a brief optimistic growth spurt. Her house was a blue colonial with Andy’s truck in the driveway and a basketball hoop that Henry took extremely seriously. I pulled up and sat in the car for a second, trying to figure out how to say this, how to tell my sister…then my kid.
Maggie is pregnant. We’re together. We’re looking for a house.
I’d said all of those things out loud this morning and they were all true and I still wasn’t entirely used to the fact that my life had become all of this in approximately seventy-two hours. I tried to think back to when I’d told Claire about Nell, which had gone even faster.
I have a kid. Her mom wants me to take full custody.
Claire…she was used to this. She didn’t ever seem surprised when I jumped into something headfirst.
It would be fine.
I got out and knocked on the door, Claire opening it about thirty seconds later. Their mutt, Sammy, wagged his tail as he circled around our legs, where he would inevitably bark until I gave him the attention he very much deserved. I took the excuse to kneel down and pet the dog rather than have this conversation, Claire walking into the kitchen.
“I was just making brownies,” she said. “Andy took the kids to the park.”
“I’m not in any rush,” I said. “Wanted to talk to you first, actually.”
“Is this about Miss Laine?” she asked.
I froze right there in the entryway. “Why do you ask?”
She snorted, peeking around the corner. “You really thought Nell wasn’t going to lose her mind over the fact that Miss Laine made her pancakes yesterday and that she said she could call her Maggie?”
I stood with a sigh, rubbing my hands on my thighs.
“Well…I guess it feels stupid when you put it that way.”
Claire laughed. “Oh, and it gets worse. She also said it was, you know…a little weird thatMaggie was wearing Daddy’s shirt?”
