Page 71 of The Ex Puck Bunny
Then a little person wraps around my legs and Grady’s hugging us tight, calling, “Mama! GG!”
We scoop Bunny into our arms for our first family hug.
EPILOGUE 1
We’ve beenone big happy family living at my house on Cornflower Cul-de-sac. I almost think Mr. and Mrs. Rice don’t want to move out. Down the line, we could finish off the space over the garage and make it into an in-law apartment.
All things considered, it’s been great. We eat dinner together when I’m able to be home. Plus, I get all the time I want with Heidi and Bunny.
Well, not as much alone time with my fiancée as I’d like.
Right now, she, her mom, and Bunny just returned from the party supply store for last-minute items for Bunny’s second birthday celebration.
I meet them in the driveway. She rushes at me full speed with a unicorn balloon that’s twice her size. It beats the air and bops her in the back of the head, but she doesn’t care, wearing the biggest smile on her face.
“Look, a unee-corn and she flies!” Bunny runs in a circle to show me.
I scoop her up and play airplane with her and the balloon as we head into the house. It’s helium-filled and if she were tolet go of the string, it would be gone and we’d have a very sad Bunny on our hands.
Mrs. Rice and Heidi follow with a few bags while talking about plans for the birthday party. Heidi made the executive-mom decision to do Bunny’s birthday party on her actual birthday, which is today, a Tuesday, instead of waiting for next weekend.
“How many pizzas do you want me to order and have you heard back from the Reynolds yet?” I ask.
“Cassie texted to say Moira is sniffly so they’re going to skip.”
“That leaves us needing about ten, not that the Reynolds would eat an entire pizza themselves.”
“Have you seen Bryce lately? He grew an inch this month.”
A smile slides across my face as I realize how domestic we sound even though this is all so new.
Heidi catches my grin and one grows on her lips as if realizing the same thing.
“It’s not like you’ve never planned a party before,” Mrs. Rice says as if realizing what we’re both thinking.
We turn toward her, wearing identical expressions of confusion.
“Don’t you remember when Derek had chicken pox?” Mrs. Rice asks.
Mr. Rice enters the room and chuckles. “I sure do. He got mad at me for calling him ‘Spots.’”
Mrs. Rice says, “Back then, the conventional wisdom was to let all the kids in the house get chicken pox at the same time. Thankfully, Heidi only had three spots. Grady, you didn’t come down with it until about a week later.”
“I remember the oatmeal bath and that pink stuff.” And how Mrs. Rice took care of me when my mother didn’t. I wish I could find the words to thank her, but the memorycomes back and I’m a bit choked up, especially now being on this side of things and having an adult understanding.
Getting to know Heidi as a single mom and then welcoming me into her and Bunny’s lives has been a game changer. I no longer resent my mother and am incredibly appreciative of the people who quietly stepped in to fill the gaps—the Rices, my hockey coaches, and Mrs. Murphy, my junior high school homeroom teacher. She used to teach home economics before she shifted to social studies and insisted I learn to cook by bribing me with cookies. Plus the Spaglietti’s who own the pizza shop where I worked before I was of a legal age. They let me fold boxes to start and then I worked my way up and learned the family marinara sauce secret.
Mrs. Rice continues, “Anyway, in between bouts of chicken pox was Derek’s birthday. He was miserable from the itch and having to postpone the bash. The two of you stepped in and made signs, decorations, and ice cream sundaes.”
Heidi smiles. “Now, I remember we added the last of my pink heart birthday cupcake sprinkles to the ice cream. It was all we had.”
“Derek hated that.” I laugh.
She shrugs. “Since I liked them, I figured he would.”
“This was around when Ed got his new video camera and you two made a video of yourselves jumping on the trampoline.”
Heidi looks at me. “We made a video together all those years ago? I don’t remember that part.”
