Page 121 of Seven of Hearts

“Not yet,” I said with a sigh. “I’m starting to panic. We can’t agree on anything.”

“What about Kyle?” Zoey said. “You know, like Kylie but a boy.”

“Absolutely not,” Bridget, Kristin’s friend, shouted from across the room. “You’ll curse the child.”

Logan shook his head.

“There’s not really a masculine version of my name, so I’ll just have to wait for y’all to give me a niece,” Zoey said.

“Hunter’s a good name,” Hunter called out.

I looked at Maddie and Hannah Jane. “So, the family is no help.”

“Oh yeah,” Maddie said. “Kristin had some terrible suggestions when I was pregnant with Gio.”

Hannah Jane nodded. “I think Kylie was even worse at coming up with names when I was pregnant with Eloise.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Logan said as he pressed a kiss to my temple.

The ladies forced me to park myself in the middle of the tufted crescent couch and kept my plate full and my drink topped off. Everyone settled in after surrounding me with gift bags and boxes and baskets piled high with everything imaginable.

By the time I had made it through half of the presents, Logan and I were buried in onesies, diapers, and wipes. Will and Hunter packed up the first half of the gifts so that we had room to open the second half.

“You okay?” Logan asked as he swapped the unwrapped baby clothes in my lap for a new bag.

“A little winded,” I said quietly. “A little overwhelmed.”

He nodded understandingly. “I used to feel that way on Christmas morning. Kristin’s friends”—he cut his eyes to the Monday night poker club—“used to do this for us. Christmas...Birthdays...They spoiled us because they knew Kristin couldn’t afford it.”

He paused and helped unpack the gift bag while everyone oohed and ahhed over the fancy baby monitor set.

His voice went quiet again. “On one hand, I loved it. But it was always a tough pill to swallow. It made me feel undeserving because I hadn’t done anything to earn it.” He put it back in the bag, moved it over to the side, and then plopped a neatly wrapped box in my lap. “But as I’ve gotten older and can look back on it a little more objectively, I’ve come to realize that’s the whole point. Let people love you just because they do.”

I leaned into him and rested my head on his shoulder, soaking in what family felt like.

It was something we both craved for vastly different reasons. Even though I was grateful for the community that had brought us in as their own, it was still overwhelming.

We managed to tackle the tidal wave of presents, and said profuse thank yous. When the pile was reduced to a sea of tissue paper and wrapping paper, I slipped out of the room with the excuse that I needed to use the bathroom.

A hand clasped around my arm as I rounded the corner to slip up the stairs.

“Oh my god,” I gasped as I pressed my hand to my chest. “You nearly made me pee myself.”

“Why are you escaping?” Kylie asked as she crossed her arms. “Because if it’s something my brother did, we can fit his body in the trunk of our getaway car and ride off into the sunset like Thelma and Louise.”

I laughed. “Why do you always threaten to kill him?”

She threw her arms around me. “Because I loved you first, and I’ll always hold that over his head.”

“You’re the closest thing I ever had to a sister,” I confessed. “Fights and all. My baby is lucky that he gets you for an aunt.”

Kylie’s eyes softened as she peered around the corner and watched as Logan sat on the couch, laughing and talking with the group. “You brought him back to us.”

“I think the baby did that,” I said as I leaned against the wall.

“No,” Kylie said. “I saw him that night. I was dancing with Bryan, but I saw Logan watching you.” She peered around the corner again. “It was the same way he would look at you when we’d see him in passing in high school.”

She tugged on my hand and made me crane around the corner until I caught sight of Logan looking back at me.

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