Page 5 of Christmas with the Baby Daddy

“I wasn’t expectingyou, that’s for sure.” She grinned as she slid into the driver’s seat, watching me cram my tall frame into the passenger side. “Did you make it a goal to be home for Christmas?”

I sighed, letting out a long breath of equal parts frustration and annoyance. “My goal was to retire from the military.”

“Like Dad,” she finished for me. “Sorry that didn’t pan out.”

Sorry wouldn’t erase the fact that my shoulder was torn. “It is what it is.”

“Grandma Jenny was surprised that you called this morning. And to say you needed a ride home from the airport tonight?” She huffed and pulled away from the curb. “You’re shocking us left and right. Next thing I know, you’re going to say you’re moving back home for good.”

I shot her a side-eye, almost amused. “I’ll be home for Christmas.”

“Not after?”

I shrugged my good shoulder. I wasn’t forty yet and I had a “good” side. That was bullshit. “I haven’t thought about after. Honestly, I’ve barely been thinking about the now.”

I called Grandma Jenny about the crash. Then during the hospital stays, relocations to VA facilities, the surgeries and rehab, I texted them both. Even though they were aware that I had been discharged from the military, I never offered up information about where I’d go. Only today did I tell them I was coming home.

Except, nothing about this felt like home.

Amanda sped along the highway, and while the landmarks and signs denoted familiar places, I felt like an outsider looking in. Like I’d been away for too long and displaced too far away to fit in here again.

Stereotypically, she sped. Pedal to the metal, she was more than cruising once we exited the airport traffic, where she muttered and nagged other drivers even though they couldn’t hear.

“Grandma Jenny teaches you to talk like that all the time?” I teased.

Our grandma had raised my sister all her life. She’d been born as averylast-minute oops. According to how she worded it, my mother had been convinced she was starting menopause, and then a whoops of a pregnancy. I had already left, signing up to serve in the military since the ripe young age of eighteen. Of course, I knew of and about my sister, but I wasn’t there when she was little.

“Oh, come on. People just don’t know how to drive anymore.”

I chuckled, entertained by the irony that an eighteen-year-old could talk like she’d been dealing with this for a lifetime. Around a big yawn, I nodded. “I appreciate your picking me up.”

“No worries, stranger.” She glanced at me, not letting up on her lead-foot driving. “Tired?”

“Yeah.” I rubbed between my neck and shoulder. “Long day of travel.”

“Then you’ll be happy to know Grandma Jenny and I aired out the apartment over the garage for ya and made the bed.”

I grunted a laugh. That wasn’t filling me with hope. Sleep had been hit or miss for months now, but especially since I’d left my troop. I wasn’t sure I’d ever fit back in to the civilian life, and I wasn’t giving it much patience so far.

“What are you in such a rush for?” Returning to Vernford for the holidays for the first time in twenty years just made the most sense right now, but not if we were going to crash on the way. “Trust me, I’m not in the mood for another accident or collision.”More like never.I could waste away the rest of my life without the gut-wrenching hurtle of a vehicle crashing to a stop.

“Gotta get home before eight.” She checked the clock on the dash.

I raised my brows, curious. The closer we came to town, though, I waited with bated breath for this to look familiar. To feel like home. It looked the same. Buildings and roads had been updated, but they were fundamentally identical to what the map in my mind presented from memory. While it appeared like the outskirts of Vernford I recalled from many winters ago, snow blanketing the flat lands of the Midwest, I felt… lost.

Itwasn’thome. Mom and Dad were gone. Kevin Myer was dead. I’d left this place after high school graduation with my best friend, and only I was returning now.

This restlessness seeped into my soul, but it seemed my much younger sister didn’t share that mood. She sped like she couldn’t get back fast enough. “Got a hot date or something?”

“Ha. No. Just work.”

I furrowed my brow, so curious that I ignored the fatigue pulling on me. “Work?” She just turned eighteen and was an honors student. What the heck was she doing working? “You’ve never mentioned a job before.”

“It didn’t feel like a job when I started.” She smiled at me. “Babysitting. As soon as I dump you off at home, I’ve got to pick him up from a birthday party that ends at eight.”

I nodded. “Sorry to be an inconvenience.”

“Youdidcall out of the blue…” she teased, swatting my arm. “You’re not an inconvenience. Grandma Jenny was upset she couldn’t pick you up herself. She’s catering a party.”

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