Page 2 of Win Some Love Some
Nick. I just want Nick.
Everyone cheered and it was perfect. The whole day had been perfect.
Eighteen.
There were times I thought this day would never come. Like I was going to be stuck being a teenager for the rest of my life.
Only now I was an adult. Things with Nick would change and I was going to start college in a few weeks and my life would finally,finallybegin.
I loved Nick. Adored my family and my hometown and wanted to get my degree so I could come back and teach English at the high school. I knew this town and these people were my future. I just wanted to be…different. Older. An adult who could make my own decisions.
“Did I miss it?” Vanessa came bouncing in through the sliding glass door, with someone’s child in her arms and another three trailing closely behind her. My mother was the Pied Piper of Calico Cove. Where she went, kids followed. I think it had something to do with her Disney Princess voice and her capacity for mess.
“It’s okay, Mom,” Bethany announced. “I blew out the candles for Nory.”
Mom’s shoulders slumped and she looked at me over the throng of people between us and mouthed,I’m sorry.Then,What did you wish for?
I just smiled and shook my head.
Vanessa and Roy, who were one hundred percent in the running for Best Adoptive Parents in the United States of America, were still parents. And their expectations and their rules were beginning to…chafe.
I was ready for freedom.
And Nick.
Bethany stood on the bench and bowed from the waist, soaking up every bit of the attention. She was an absolute ham. The world was going to have to watch out for her. Unable to stop myself, I leaned forward and jammed my fingers into her armpits. She screamed and curled up into a ball that I pulled off the bench and set on the floor, because she knew the rules of the house.
No standing on the bench at the dinner table.
Rules that hadn’t applied to me in about thirteen years, but prior to growing out of that habit, I had been a regular abuser.
I met my dad’s eyes from across the room again, and for a second we shared one of our quiet moments. We didn’t have to say a word to communicate. The two of us had a hive brain and it made everyone else in the family a little nuts.
When did you get so old, kiddo?
I love you, too, Dad.
“Toast!” Someone shouted, maybe Jackson, and the chant caught on. “Toast! Toast! Toast!”
“Okay, okay,” I said.
“Someone give her a drink.”
Nick pushed one of Mom’s champagne glasses in my hand, full of bubbly liquid.
“She’s eighteen, not twenty-one!” Dad yelled.
“It’s Sprite,” Nick shouted back, but winked at me.
“I saw that,” Dad said.
I lifted my glass and everyone fell silent. Not going to lie, Bethany and I had a lot in common. I didn’t mind the attention.
“Sometimes,” I said, “It takes my breath away to think what a miracle it is that I ended up here. In Calico Cove. With you.” I looked at everyone, but landed on Nick. “A million tiny things had to happen to get to this point and when I look back on it, it looks like fate. Like I was meant to be here. If it weren’t for Dad…” My throat got tight and I took a second to breathe. I got weepy whenever I thought of my dad. “And his willingness to take on an infant he didn’t know, the child of a cousin he barely remembered, none of this would have happened. I don’t remember when it was just the two of us…”
“He wore you in one of those infant carriers on the boat. Pulling in pots with you on his chest. Darndest thing I ever saw,” shouted Frenchie, who worked with Dad down at the docks. Everyone laughed.
“But I remember when Mom came and made us a family,” I said. There was a chorus of cheers and I caught sight of Mom in the back of the room, right next to Dad. Crying. Of course.
