Room for Just a Little Bit More (8 page)

“Is this hard for you too?”

“Of course,” he admitted. “Selfishly, I want them to love me more than Zach. I know he’s their biological dad, but they’re such an important part of me, it would sting like a motherfucker if they ever chose him over me.”

I nodded and looked down at their duffel bags filled with four pairs of pajamas, stuffed animals, and toothbrushes.

“Kind of like it stung for Fred the other night,” Brody continued slowly.

My head snapped up as my eyes bore into his. “Huh?”

“I watched him when you went on and on about that letter from your dad. He didn’t say a word, but I know it must have been hard for him to listen to you talk about wanting a relationship with your real dad.”

“Oh, it’s different with Fred and me.” I waved him off, not wanting to think for a minute that I’d hurt Fred’s feelings.

“Really? How so?”

“For starters, I was twelve when we bought this place, and secondly, he wasn’t even
with
my mom until a couple years ago.”

“Get real.” He took Piper’s stuffed bunny out of the bag and threw it at me. “They may not have told
you
they were together, but those two have been going at it for years behind your back. And regardless of when they started seeing each other, he didn’t have to be making out with your mom at night to care about you.”

“I guess.” I shrugged.

A knock on the front door cut our conversation short. I took a deep breath and puffed my cheeks out as I exhaled. “It’s go-time.”

As we walked out of my room, the girls came flying out of theirs, racing each other to the front door.

“You got this, kid.” He rubbed my shoulders, walking behind me.

“I’m opening the door!” Piper bounced up and down excitedly.

Lucy pouted, sticking out her bottom lip. “No, I wanna open it.”

“I’m opening it.”

I hushed both of them as I walked past, grabbing the knob and pulling it.

Zach’s head snapped up quickly. “Hi,” he greeted nervously.

“Hey.”

I tried to sound peppy, but I knew I was failing miserably. I’d had the girls almost solely to myself for the better part of the last five years and I wasn’t yet ready to share, but it had to be done. Like a Band-Aid, just rip it off.

Zach offered his hand to Brody, who didn’t hesitate in shaking it. While those two would never be best friends, they’d been able to come to an understanding of sorts. Zach didn’t interfere or question Brody’s role in the girls’ lives, and Brody didn’t try to stop Zach from starting a relationship with them. I felt so blessed that they were able to see past their pride and embrace what was best for Lucy and Piper.

“So, what’s on the agenda this weekend?” Brody stood with his legs apart more than usual and puffed his chest out. While he wanted what was best for his Twinkies, every once in a while he still had to let his alpha flag fly just a little bit.

“My sister is in town with her husband and new baby girl. I think we’re gonna take the kids to the zoo and maybe let them swim at the hotel pool. Nothing too exciting.”

Pool? Oh my God. I hadn’t even entertained the thought of them swimming.

“Zach, they’ve taken lessons, but neither of them are great swimmers yet.” My voice squeaked as I felt the panic rising in my chest. Brody must have sensed it too and instinctively found my hand, squeezing it gently.

“You mentioned that before, so I went to the sports store and bought these really cool suits that have floaties built into the chest area and actually make it impossible for them to be submerged,” he said proudly. “They can go down the slides and go under real quick, but they immediately pop right back up. They’re pretty cool.”

“Those
do
sound cool. We should get them for here too, Kacie.” Brody did his best to sound reassuring.

Oddly enough, I didn’t need it. Just knowing that Zach had thought ahead and taken the time to run to the store and get the girls something that would both protect them and satisfy my crazy overprotectiveness, made me feel so much better. It also showed me just how much Zach had grown over the last year. In the beginning, it was rocky. He didn’t know them and they didn’t know him, but he did his best to try learn all he could about them and have fun every time he was over.

But now, this showed me he was thinking like a real dad. In that moment, I relaxed. Maybe my relaxation would last five minutes, maybe five days, but I knew Zach was capable of being a great father to them. With him and Brody behind them, Lucy and Piper were gonna conquer the freaking world.

“How you doing?”

Kacie sighed and let her head fall back against the couch, turning it to look at me. “Miserable.”

I pushed a stray piece of hair from her forehead. “For what it’s worth, you make miserable look beautiful.”

She smiled at me and leaned over, resting her head on my shoulder. “Thank God I have you here with me or I’d lose my mind.”

“I know.” I squeezed her knee gently. “You’re doing good.”

I lied. She wasn’t doing that great, but some lies are just necessary. Lucy and Piper had only been gone two hours and she’d already texted Zach twice to check on them. I had to give the guy credit though, he was being very patient with her.

“How long have they been gone?” she whined.

My head fell against the couch, mirroring hers. “About ten minutes longer than the last time you asked.”

She grimaced. “No way am I going to make it.”

“Yes, you will.” I stood up and grabbed her hands, pulling her up too. “Come on. I wanna show you something.”

“Where are we going?”

I pulled her along behind me, out the front door. “Hush. You’ll see.”

Holding her door open while she hopped up, I stood back and whistled for Diesel, who was sound asleep on Kacie’s porch. “Come on, you lazy bastard.” He opened his eyes and slowly walked down the steps and over to my truck. I stared down at him and he stared up at me. “Well, come on. Get up there,” I ordered. Two steps back, one running start forward, and he leapt into the backseat of my truck, parking comfortably in the middle of the two booster seats in the back.

I walked around to my side of the truck and climbed up, smiling at Kacie, who was looking at me out of the corner of her eye.

Shooting her a big cheesy grin, I started the engine and pulled out of her driveway. After driving north for fifteen minutes or so, she asked again, “Are you gonna tell me where we’re going?”

“I want to check on something and figured you might want to see it too.”

That answer appeased her for the rest of the ride as we held hands in silence, with Kacie checking the time on her phone every ten minutes or so.

A little while later, we pulled into my parents’ farm. The gravel popped and leaves crunched under my tires as I drove the truck all the way up past the house and to the left, where vehicles don’t usually go.

“What are you doing?” Kacie exclaimed.

“You’ll see.” I winked at her.

I steered the truck carefully around my dad’s shop and past some tall grass until the barn came into view. Kacie grinned when she saw it, still with
Will You Marry Me? #30
painted in red on the side. While the rain had faded it a tad, it wasn’t gone completely. I hoped it never would be.

“What are we doing here?”

Parking the truck, I jumped out and went around to her side to open the door. “Come on out and you’ll see.”

Diesel almost knocked her over as he jumped out and chased a flock of geese into the lake, which was tinted orange from the setting sun. Kacie checked her phone one more time and took my hand. We walked up to the barn doors and I turned to face her. “I have no idea what it’s going to look like in here, but I had a crew come out the last two days. They’ve been cleaning out all the old hay and cobwebs and stuff.”

Kacie’s lips curled into a wide smile as she bounced up and down excitedly, clapping her hands.

Laughing at her reaction, I pushed the heavy door open and propped it so we had as much light as possible. The barn looked fantastic, better than I had imagined.

“Oh my God.” Kacie’s mouth hung open as she walked wide-eyed around the first floor of the barn. Every corner, every nook, had been swept and wiped completely spotless. Not one piece of hay or one speck of dust was visible. “This looks incredible.”

“It does.” I was pleasantly surprised as I wandered the first floor too. “They even cleaned the windows.”

“This is gonna look so pretty, Brody.”

I was happy to hear joy back in her voice. It was an added bonus that she hadn’t looked at her phone in a few minutes.

“It is. Where do you want to put everything?” I had no idea how this was actually going to work.

“I’m thinking the band will go over here in this corner so they don’t take up too much floor space.” She walked from the corner over to the far wall with the window above it, which was missing half its glass. “And I think the head table will look good here.”

“What’s a head table?”

“It’s where the bride and groom eat with their wedding party, but I’m pretty sure Alexa and Lauren are going to want to sit with Derek, Tommy, and Max, so we might switch it up and just have you and me. What do you think?”

“I’m thinking we make it a table for four and have it be you, me, and the Twinkies. What do
you
think?”

“Brody.” She tilted her head to the side as her eyes focused on mine softly. “I think that’s incredibly sweet. They’re going to think they are so cool sitting up front with us.”

“It’ll be our first official family dinner. We have to be all together.”

Kacie swallowed hard and sighed. “I still ask myself every day what I did in a previous life to deserve you, and I’m convinced I must have saved a bus full of children and puppies from falling off a cliff onto a senior citizen home or something.”

“Super Kacie. Got a nice ring to it, don’t ya think?”

“More like Super Brody.” She walked over and tucked her arms under mine, resting her head on my chest. Our hug didn’t last long as a loud chirp came from Kacie’s back pocket. She took her phone out and squinted to see the screen better. “Awww,” she cooed. “Look.”

She turned the phone my way. It was a picture of Lucy and Piper holding their new baby cousin.

“That was nice of him to send that,” I said sincerely.

She nodded, still staring at the picture. “Yeah, it was. He’s really trying, isn’t he?”

“He sure is.”

“Are you okay… with all of this?” She bit her lip nervously.

“Honestly, I was nervous at first, but he really seems to be making an effort with the girls and with you. As long as he keeps that up, I have no problem with him.”

“You know,” she murmured as she wrapped her arms around my waist again, “there is one
big
bonus to Zach taking the girls from time to time.”

“Oh yeah?” I reached down and grabbed her butt, squeezing gently. “I’m liking the way this sounds, Jensen. Go on.”

“It does allow us a little, uh, alone time in the evening. Something we don’t get often.”

“This is true, and if we can keep scheduling Zach’s days with the girls on my off days, that’ll work out
real
nicely.”

Hockey season was back in full swing, but Kacie and I had gotten very good at making use of the time we had together. Her and the girls had even started traveling with me every so often when they were off school or it was close enough to do a quick weekend trip.

She was rising up on her tippy toes, her lips less than an inch from mine, when her phone chirped again.

“Okay, if he’s going to text you every two minutes, I might have to kill him.” I groaned as she reached for her phone.

Kacie’s mouth fell open as her eyes read left to right quickly.

“What is it?” I craned my neck to peek over the top of her phone.

“It’s Derek. Alexa’s in labor—a month early. Come on. We gotta go.”