Page 91 of Head Over Heels

“Livvy, Livvy, Livvy, Livvy, Livvy!” Katie bellows, and throws herself across the kitchen and into Liv’s arms.

Katie extricates herself from Liv and eyes her suspiciously. “Why are you here?”

“I’m going to stay here with you and your dad, and I’ll get a job here. Your dad thinks I’m going to come work for him, but we’ll have to talk about that.” She winks at me. We did talk a little bit about it last night. About how we could turn the running of the store itself over to Brooks and Rodro and work to build an outdoor adventure arm for the business. I could lead trips, and she and Katie could come along whenever they wanted. Until I knock her up, that is. We both agreed more kids was on our shared list of future goals.

Katie’s face is wary. “And you won’t leave again?”

It’spossibleI get a little teary eyed.

A fearful look crosses Liv’s face, and I know what she’s thinking. Life is uncertain. People leave, they betray you, they make mistakes that separate you from them, they die.

But I will not let her be afraid, not if I can help it.

“You and I, we won’t let her, right, Katie girl? Not if it’s within our power.”

Liv’s eyes fill up with tears.

I draw closer to Liv, and tuck her in tight under my arm against my body. Katie sidles closer, too, and when Liv turns her body toward mine and lays her cheek against my chest, Katie makes herself the bread in our sandwich.

We stay like that for a long time.

“You know,” Liv tells Katie. “Iwasgetting pretty tired of being a come-and-go person. I think I’m really going to enjoy being a stay person from now on.”

“Yay!” says Katie, jumping up and down.

I finish cooking the pancakes and frying up the bacon, while Katie and Liv “make” the table.

I’m done first, while they’re still fussing, and I give them a hard time about how the food’s getting cold, but I actually like it. Even the little vase of wildflowers that Liv sent Katie outside to pick.

When the table’s made, we sit down to eat together as a family.

Chapter 53

Chase

“This is my perfect day,” Brooks says.

“Even though Eve’s here?”

We hiked three miles today, scouting out a new “family-friendly” location. My pack was a little heavier than usual, since over the course of the four miles it gradually took on most of the weight that started out in Katie’s. And there was a good amount of coaxing involved. But it was all worth it. It was worth it to see Katie’s eyes get huge when she saw the lake.

Eve has Katie at water’s edge and they’re looking for lake fairies. Brooks and I are freshwater “pan fishing,” which basically means we threw a bunch of hooks, sinkers, line, lures, and bobbers in our packs and cast without rods into the lake, and have our fingers crossed for something worth eating.

“It was a little awkward at first,” Brooks admitted. “I might add to my list of useful rules that you shouldn’t sleep with your friend’s girlfriend’s best friend. But at the time, she wasn’t your girlfriend. Anyway, it’s been fine. We just talk to you or Katie or Liv instead of to each other.”

I roll my eyes at him. “Mature.”

As often happens these days, my attention wanders from what I’m doing to check out what the other two members of my family are up to. I smile when I see Liv, sitting on a rock, reading on her Kindle. (“One hundred-eighty grams, Chase. Even you can’t argue with that.” “But it’s sonotthe wilderness.” “It’smyversion of wilderness.”)

Liv has made camping her own, the way she makes everything she touches her own, and better in the process. She decorates the tent, she reinvents camp food to make it gourmet, and when she’s uncomplainingly put in the hours to hump her pack up to the top of a gorgeous mountain, her very favorite thing to do is put her feet up, take in the sights, and read a good romance novel.

If this trip with Katie works out, we’ll host a similar one later this summer with several families with kids. We’ve already led a couple of smaller trips, and they’ve been so popular that in some cases our wait lists are twice or three times as big as the number of people we can take with us. We’re in the process of hiring more staff to do trips. The store is doing the best it has ever done, thanks to Liv’s constant supply of new ideas for reaching out to customers. Her most recent was the idea of hosting trips for high school girls in the summer—the first is in a couple of weeks, and Liv has already knocked herself out making a guidebook for what to bring and what not to bring and how to handle all the girl stuff that might come up in a camping context. I didn’t ask her for details.

The store’s doingsowell, in fact, that I’m on track to pay Mike off several years sooner than either of us predicted. Which makes both him and me really happy, as you might imagine.

Oh, and—because I know that someday the store will be Katie’s—if she wants it—Liv and I decided to rename it. We threw a grand reopening for Katie’s Sporting Goods. Liv planned the event and I didn’t even complain when some of the catering was sushi. “Fish theme,” she said, smirking at me, and I shut up, because I decided it would be more fun to take my revenge on her later.

What else? Right. Liv and I didn’t hire Gillian after all. It turned out we couldn’t give her enough hours, because with both Liv and me working in the store, we were able to arrange our schedule so that between the local pre-K and us, we didn’t need to hire a nanny. Gillian was a little bummed, but she found a great job with another family with two little girls, and last I heard, she was super happy.

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