“IS EVERYTHING OKAY?” Penny asks when I sit back down, thanking James for the cocktail he just gave me. Judging by the copper mug, it’s a Moscow mule.
I hide my grimace with a sip. It’s a little heavy on the ginger beer, but that’s forgivable. “I’m honestly not sure.”
“Should I go up?”
“She said she wanted to be alone.”
“She seems stressed out,” Bex says. She scoots a little closer to James on the loveseat, wrapping her arm around his.
“Her family is full of assholes,” Cooper says darkly. “It explains so much.”
“Hey,” I snap.
“Not about her,” he says. “Jesus. About why she’s kept her distance. The thing with her brother and that idiot cousin of hers? I’m impressed you handled it so well.”
“Believe me, I wanted to punch them,” I say. “I just figured it wouldn’t be a good look for my first meeting with my future in-laws.”
Bex clasps her hands together. “It’s that serious?”
“I sure as hell hope so,” I say, scrubbing my hand through my hair. “I love her.”
“I’m going to tear up,” she says. She actually sniffles. “That is the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“I won’t get into it, but things didn’t go well with her mom,” Penny says. She swirls her drink around, biting her lip. “The whole thing was just—hi, Mia.”
Mia, the makeup wiped away from her face entirely, her hair in a messy bun, sits next to me. I hold out my arm. She gives me a look, something that I can’t quite catch flickering in her expression, and curls against my side. Kiwi, realizing there’s someone new in the room to terrorize, takes a running leap into her lap. She startles, but hugs him tightly.
“He’s the cutest,” she says into the silence. “Why did you get him?”
If she cares that we’re all staring at her with concern, she doesn’t show it. I wish she wouldn’t put that armor in place right now, but I get it, too. I’m sure she wants James and Bex to like her as much as I wanted her family to like me. Well, at least until I met them.
Whenever I think about her father, I have to take a deep breath to calm myself. If he thinks I’m going to clip Mia’s wings just because we’re involved with each other, he’s delusional. What the hell was it like for her, growing up in that house? No wonder the death of her grandfather hit her so hard. If he was the only one who cared to listen to what she wanted, and she lost that at fifteen, she had years of their bullshit to endure before she made her way to McKee.
“What do you mean?” James says.
“Bex said she’d tell us why you have the dog.” She keeps petting him, moving her wrist away when he tries to gnaw on it. I wonder if she would want to get a dog one day. If we move in together for real after graduation, maybe we can go to a shelter and adopt one. “I’m dying to know.”
“Oh,” Bex says, looking at James again. “It’s… I mean…”
He gives her a little squeeze. “Go ahead, princess.”
She smiles widely, showing off all her dimples. “I’m pregnant.”
It takes half a second to sink in, but then I jump to my feet to pull her into a hug. Cooper does the same, his entire face lighting up in a smile.
“Holy shit,” he says. “Congratulations!”
“This is amazing!” I add, rocking her for a moment before embracing James in a tight hug.
“A baby,” Cooper says. “You’re having a baby.”
Bex wipes away the tears shining in her eyes. “Yeah. You’re going to be uncles, both of you.”
Cooper gives me a look that’s positively boyish. “We are going to crush the uncle gig.”
I high-five him. “Absolutely crush it.”
“Congratulations!” Penny says, stepping forward to hug them both as well. “How far along are you? You look fantastic.”
“Yeah, you look great,” Mia says. Kiwi barks, wagging his tail as he runs in a circle around us. “To be clear, I didn’t realize that would be the reason.”
Bex laughs. “No, no, it’s okay. We wanted to tell you all tonight. I’m fifteen weeks, so officially into the second trimester, thank God.”
“The first was a little rough,” James says with a wince.
“I could eat about three things without getting sick,” she says. “And everything made me cry. Actually, everything still makes me cry. The other day I saw a TikTok about a duckling who thought a cat was her mom and cried so hard James thought something was wrong.”
He gives me and Cooper a wild-eyed look, making both of us laugh. “Please don’t scare me like that again.”
“And then he got me Kiwi, since I was so anxious that I would be a terrible mother.” She laughs slightly. “Because obviously the answer was to give the pregnant woman more responsibility.”
“Clearly,” Penny says, a dry note in her voice.
“And it’s working out perfectly,” James says. “He adores you, and you take such good care of him.”
“Wait,” I say. “When are you due?”
Bex winces. “December.”
“We’re going to make it work,” James says, a soothing note in his tone.
“We wanted to have our first baby in the offseason,” she says. “December is not the offseason.”
“It was meant to be,” he says. “We just need to roll with the punches.”
It’s clear that they’ve had this conversation before. Bex draws her brows together, frowning as she looks at James. Cooper and I share another glance. I know they’ll be fine, but December is when the NFL is in high gear before the playoffs, so I don’t blame Bex for being stressed out. Depending upon when she goes into labor, James might need to leave mid-game to meet her at the hospital.
I didn’t choose to quit baseball because of Mia and what I hope we have in the future, but I can’t deny that I like the thought of making things easier on the both of us. I couldn’t imagine playing a whole baseball season, road trips included, while Mia is pregnant or home alone with a baby. She’ll have her own career, too, and the last thing I’d want is to make her feel like she needs to sacrifice anything for me.
“We’ll help out as much as we can,” Cooper says. “Did you tell Mom and Dad yet? What about Izzy?”
“Izzy knows, actually,” Bex says. “I got lunch with her a couple weeks ago and she could tell immediately.”
“That’s so weird and yet exactly what I would expect from her,” Mia says with a snort.
“I know, right?” she says. “Anyway, the plan had been to tell everyone once we were sure everything was going well.”
“And she’s doing great,” James says. “She’s healthy, the little chickpea is healthy. We’re going to tell Mom and Dad soon—we just wanted to tell you guys first.”
“Mom is going to flip out,” Cooper says. “I can’t wait to hear what she has to say.”
He’s right about that. Sandra has been excited about the prospect of grandchildren ever since James and Bex got engaged, although she wouldn’t have pushed them, or any of us, about it. They better get ready for the presents she’s going to lavish on them.
“You’re going to make great parents,” I say. “I can’t wait.”
Bex pulls me into another hug, her eyes shining. “Thank you,” she whispers against my ear. “I haven’t forgotten how much you wanted me to be part of this family.”
I squeeze her back. “You deserve this.”
I remember that snowy day at her mother’s old diner just as vividly as her. I told her that I hoped she’d become my sister-in-law one day, and I meant every word. Not just for my brother’s sake, but for hers. She deserved a family and a future that she was excited about. Same as Mia… and me.
Life is simply too fleeting for anything else.
