Cherish & Blessed (25 page)

Fiancé’s. It was going to take a while for his brain to compute that.

“What?” he asked when Daisy and Bennett reclaimed Sadie and the picture taking began.

Jim pulled him close, dropped a kiss on his cheek. “Nothing.” Jim tangled their fingers together and didn’t let go.

T
HEY
WALKED
to the restaurant where Bennett had rented the back room for their lunch. Everyone settled into the covered patio, at one long table with Miss Sadie at the head.

She was already asleep in her car seat.

Bennett clinked his water glass gently before standing. The chatter quieted as Jim rested his arm around Griffin’s shoulder.

“Daisy and I wanted to thank you all for being here with us. We both are so very grateful for your friendship and your love and the way you each contribute to our lives. When Sadie gets older, I want her to look at the pictures of today and be very aware what a family of choice looks like.”

No one owned up to the sniffles that followed. Jim suspected Griffin, but Helena didn’t look entirely steady either.

They raised their glasses to Bennett, to a beaming Daisy, to little Sadie.

T
HE
TOASTING
from breakfast continued, with each person trying to outdo the other. Things started to get blue just in time for the waitresses to arrive with pieces of red velvet cake so incredibly decadent that Jim wanted to do jumping jacks after each bite.

“We ordered it without calories,” Daisy chirped.

Helena gave her a space high-five from the other end of the table.

“God, could you imagine if that was a thing? Bennett? Do we know scientists?” Shane asked.

“No.”

“Crap.”

“We seem to only know show-business types and cops.”

Shane looked up and down the table. “That’s so weird.”

E
VAN
WAS
quiet when they got back to the house. Matt let him be for a while, choosing a nap sprawled out on the plush carpeting of the television room, with a baseball game muted on the giant screen. He tossed his jacket, belt, and shoes onto one of the couches and settled down with a throw pillow under his head. When he woke up, the Mets were losing and Evan was lying on the couch, watching him.

“Damn, this rug is comfortable,” he muttered, sitting up.

“The rug, the pool, the shower, the coffee maker,” Evan teased. “Anything else you’re going to try to smuggle into the SUV?”

“I think we could take the television with us and they wouldn’t even miss it,” Matt declared. He crawled over to where Evan was, dropping a kiss on his mouth when he got there.

“This isn’t my jurisdiction, but I will pull out my badge if you try,” Evan said with mock sternness.

Matt smirked. “I love it when you talk dirty.”

“That isn’t dirty.”

“You said ‘pull out’—that’s sexy to me.”

Evan snickered, going up on his elbow to regard Matt with a bemused expression. “There is something seriously wrong with you.”

Silence dropped over them then, comfortable and easy. Matt regarded Evan, knew there was something going on in that busy and chaotic brain.

“What?”

“What what?”

“There’s something churning in that head of yours. Everything okay?”

“Everything’s absolutely okay.” Evan’s expression didn’t change, and Matt knew there was more.

“You’d tell me….”

“Everything,” Evan murmured, kissing Matt’s lips. “Is okay.”

“Okay,” Matt whispered, leaning up to deepen the connection.

T
HEY
MADE
out lazily until Matt’s stomach rumbled. It was nearly seven, and the post-Christening naps everyone had taken seemed to be breaking up. The kitchen became the hub of action again; Helena and Shane were shucking corn while Daisy and Griffin did something involving meat and marinade on the counter. She poured things while he read directions off his phone.

“Jim and Bennett are discussing levels of flame for flank steak. It’s a riveting discussion if you want to catch the tail end,” Griffin said dryly.

Evan was not surprised when Matt ducked out to the patio.

From her spot in the high chair, Sadie chirped a hello. Evan found himself without a kitchen job, so he dropped into the chair next to hers.

“Hey, cutie. How’s your big day been?” he asked. Sadie regarded him with big blue eyes; he could see Bennett in her coloring, but she’d inherited Daisy’s looks. Which meant Bennett was going to drive himself insane when she hit puberty.

Evan wasn’t going to miss that aspect of parenting once Elizabeth and Danny got a little older.

And that was what it was, that feeling of completion he had. The kids were numbered right; he wanted to look forward to quiet years with Matt, when the fridge wasn’t stocked with snacks and the laundry didn’t multiply at an alarming rate. He wanted to think of a future with grandkids, not starting over. He felt done.

He hoped Matt felt the same.

“Bring out the meat!” Bennett called through the open patio door, which cracked Shane up, which in turn startled Sadie into a lower-lip-shaking moment.

“No, no, none of that,” Evan said, distracting her with a gentle touch to her hand. “You’re fine. Uncle Shane is just too loud.”

“I keep telling him that, but does he listen? No,” Helena said breezily.

Shane smacked her with a corn husk.

D
INNER
WAS
raucous, the conversation boisterous, the laughter shared. Matt felt lighthearted and completely not happy with having to go home tomorrow.

“We should leave early, avoid the traffic,” he said quietly to Evan.

“Mmm—don’t even want to think about it,” Evan responded, tossing his napkin onto his empty plate. “Though I’m not sure I could keep eating like this for another day without taking out my pants.”

“I’ll love you even when I have to roll you up the driveway.”

Evan snickered. “Smooth.”

They held hands under the table. Matt tried to remember when this was weird or difficult, and couldn’t dredge it up. He knew it happened—it just didn’t feel like it could again.

“We have nice friends,” he said, apropos of nothing but just in time for Bennett to say something about a dunking and Shane to dart away from the table with his friend in hot pursuit.

When Helena whooped and followed, all semblance of adult behavior disappeared.

“We have crazy-ass friends,” Evan amended.

I
N
THE
morning, the driveway was full of cars: a new rental for Griffin and Jim, the saucy Fiat of Shane and Helena, the dusty SUV Matt and Evan drove.

Griffin and Daisy clung to each other like this was the deck of the Titanic. Jim didn’t say anything, just made small talk with Matt until the sniffling subsided.

“Call me when you get back—we have a wedding to plan,” Daisy said before surprising Jim with a hug around his middle. He returned it, giving her a quick squeeze before they separated, looking at each other nervously.

“Just tell me where and when. I will state at this time that I have no opinions about flowers or seating arrangements,” Jim said, accepting the punch in the arm from Griffin without flinching.

“Powder blue tuxes and all-you-can-eat ribs,” Matt called from behind them.

“You can handle security but nothing else. Clearly.” Daisy darted around, giving hugs and thank-yous to everyone as Bennett did the same. Everyone looked the same to Jim—a little sunburned, a little tired, and ready to head back to real life.

Jim did his handshake/half hug thing to the guys—except for Matt; he got a real two-armed hug—and kissed Helena’s cheek. Another round of good-byes and finally he realized they were going to Groundhog Day this ritual until someone broke the chain.

“Let’s go, Boy Wonder. We have a hell of a drive ahead of us.”

E
VAN
AND
Matt followed Griffin and Jim to the highway. They exchanged waves before parting ways; Matt slipped into the left lane while Jim cruised down the center. They lost each other in the post-Labor-Day traffic pretty quickly.

“Good weekend?” Matt asked, twining his fingers with Evan’s over the console.

“Yeah. Actually it was really nice.” Evan looked out the window, clearly lost in thought.

“Everything still okay?”

Evan rolled his head to give Matt a smile. “Everything is still really, really okay. Just thinking.”

“About?”

“Good things.”

They drove a little farther, comfortably quiet.

Matt wove in and around traffic, hopeful they could get close to the city before the real traffic began. “So, Jim and Griffin getting married. That was a surprise,” he said.

Evan startled a little. “Actually, I wasn’t surprised at all. Griffin’s kind of old-fashioned, and I think Jim would say yes to anything to make him happy,” Evan offered.

Matt let that roll around his head. Evan wasn’t wrong, but…. “You think people in love would do anything for each other?”

“Uh—well, no. I don’t mean anything.” Evan smiled at him. “Though you and I have seen enough people get into some pretty serious trouble because of love.”

“I assume you’re talking criminals.”

“Yeah.”

“So there’s a limit?”

“Well, yeah. You can’t give up everything for another person. Then you’re not yourself anymore.” He rubbed his forehead with his free hand. “Am I making sense? I think the sun and all that free-flowing champagne shorted out a few brain cells.”

“You sound perfectly logical, but then my liver is pickled at this point.”

Another few miles went by before Matt spoke up again. “You’d tell me if you needed… something more, right?”

Evan started fully awake at the question. “Is this a sex question? Because I’m fine,” he said, breaking into a yawn.

Matt laughed. “No. I mean—all these people getting married and having babies.”

In a quick movement, Evan turned off the radio and twisted in his seat. “Yeah?”

“That doesn’t make you feel….”

When Matt didn’t finish his thought, Evan took a deep breath. “It makes me feel a little nostalgic. There’s a big difference between raising someone Sadie’s age and our kids now.”

Matt made a little sound. Evan watched his fingers tighten on the steering wheel.

“What?”

“Our kids,” Matt said softly.

It took Evan a second. He realized what he said, and the expression on Matt’s face—his profile at least—told him it was meaningful.

Of course it was.

“Our kids are getting older,” Evan whispered, his heart full at the moment. He didn’t feel the agony of replacing Sherri burn him with guilt, or worry that he could even compare the two.

He couldn’t.

He loved them both, but he couldn’t compare them.

That line between before and after.

“Empty house. Weddings. Grandkids,” Matt said, his voice cracking a little—something he tried to cover up with a laugh.

“You think you’re so cute, Mr. Haight. All that stuff is what we’ll be going through together.”