Page 1 of Waiting for Forever
Chapter One
Paige kicked back in the Adirondack chair and took in the sheer madness surrounding her, grateful for the glass of wine in her hand. Wine was a necessary provision whenever attending a Sparks family event, especially nowadays, as her cousins had all settled down and were starting to have babies.
Paige looked around at the five kids ranging from newborn to three years old, most small enough that they were still being held by their parents. Evan was pushing his tiny daughter, Eryn, around the yard in a little car as his wife, Annie, watched, cradling their newborn son, Ezra, in her arms.
Diego was coddling his daughter, Eliana, though that was little surprise. Both Jeannette and Luc complained about Diego being a terrible “baby hog,” rarely putting the girl down or sharing her with them. The words were always spoken with genuine affection rather than anger, of course. Luc and Diego grew up in foster care, and Diego, whose parents were in prison for selling heroin, was determined his daughter would never know anything but love and a stable, safe home, things he’d never had growing up.
Her cousin Sydney was chasing around her ten-month-old son, CJ, who had just learned how to crawl, and Paige wasimpressed by how fast the kid could move. Macie and her husband, Coop, were watching Sydney dash around behind him as their own one-year-old, Henry, sat atop his father’s shoulders, giggling as Macie played peek-a-boo with him.
The fact there were already five next-generation Sparks would have been overwhelming enough, but in addition to those kids, Paige was also entertaining herself by counting pregnant bellies. She was surrounded by them.
Her brother Tyson and his partners, Harley and Caleb, were sitting at one of the picnic tables in Evan’s backyard. Evan and Annie, like Tyson, had bought a house on the lake, so the family typically alternated between their two houses in the summer so they could beat the heat by swimming if they wanted to. Not that heat was an issue today, as it was early November. Fortunately, they lived in Texas, so they were currently enjoying a beautiful seventy-degree, sunshiny day.
Tyson’s hand rested on Harley’s very pregnant belly, while Caleb hovered like the nervous father-to-be he’d become. Paige was shocked the guy wasn’t wearing a baseball glove, just in case Harley dropped the baby right here. The fact Tyson was a doctor, and perfectly capable of delivering their child if necessary, did nothing to reassure Caleb that she was fine at the picnic, despite being eight months pregnant.
While Caleb was all jitters and anxiety, Paige was over the moon about becoming a first-time auntie to their little boy. She had serious plans to spoil her nephew rotten.
In addition to her sister-in-law, Harley, Paige’s cousins Lacy and Adele were also pregnant. It was Lacy’s pregnancy that had brought them together today, as they were holding a gender reveal party.
Paige wasn’t sure when the world had become quite so insane, but in the last three years, she’d attended more bridal and baby showers, bachelorette parties, gender reveal parties,and weddings than she could even begin to count. And that was on top of the typical celebrations like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the Fourth of July. She swore it felt like she was attending a special family occasion every other damn weekend. And while it was all wonderful, it was also, in truth, exhausting…and expensive.
Today’s reveal was taking place during dessert, as Paige’s aunts had baked a special cake in their bakery, filling it with pink or blue M&Ms that would announce the gender. Paige tried to work up some enthusiasm, but apparently she’d hit her limit on celebrations.
Not because she wasn’t thrilled for her family. They were the greatest people on the planet, and they deserved nothing but happiness. It was just…with each passing party, it had become more and more obvious that while her family members were all moving forward with their lives, she’d been standing still in hers.
Well, maybe notcompletelystill.
At work, she was on fire.
As manager of Sparks Barbeque, the restaurant she ran with her cousins, she was making very exciting changes. The restaurant was owned—and supposedly operated—by her uncle TJ, though there was no one in Maris, Texas, who really believed that. Uncle TJ did little more than sit at the bar holding court, leaving the actual running of the restaurant to the Sparks girls. Eventually, Macie and Adele, TJ’s daughters, would inherit the place, but neither was interested in running it any more than their father. They were content to work the bar, wait tables, and entertain the patrons with their lively stories.
So, they left the major restaurant decisions, scheduling, and bookkeeping to Paige, deferring to her, as Macie called it, “fancy-ass business degree.”
Paige had been pursued by countless consulting firms and financial service institutions after graduating top of her classwith an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin. There’d been some very lucrative offers, but Paige had known from the moment they put that diploma in her hands, the only place she was going was back home to Maris and the restaurant—much to her father’s dismay.
Judge George Sparks had always had extremely high expectations for her and Tyson, and while she loved her father very much, she’d also felt a great deal of pressure growing up trying to please him. She and Tyson had both been valedictorians of their classes, served as presidents of various clubs, and Paige was still, to this day, the only kid in Maris to never miss a single day of school from kindergarten to graduation.
They’d even written an article about it in the local newspaper—like that wasn’t totally mortifying. The headline simply read, “Perfect,” in regard to her perfect attendance…and it went a long way toward solidifying her role as a big-ass nerd amongst her classmates.
Dad had been delighted by the job offers coming in as graduation approached, discussing the pros and cons of each for weeks before she finally found the courage to tell him she wasn’t taking any of them. When she’d expressed a desire to come home and run Sparks Barbeque, things took a decidedly frosty turn.
His displeasure had been so deep and intimidating, she’d very nearly caved and accepted one of the other offers, but in the end, it was Tyson who told her to stick to her guns. Her beloved big brother reminded her that the only person walking around in her shoes washer, and she needed to find her own happiness without worrying what others thought—even Dad.
Those words had stuck with her. So much so, she’d given them back to Tyson when he’d been dealing with the blowbackfrom Dad over his unorthodox threesome relationship with Harley and Caleb.
“Hey, Paige. Did you hear back from the Food Network people yet?” Sydney asked, when little CJ crawled over to her.
Paige shook her head as she bent down and took the little boy’s fingers in her hands. Now that he was somewhat mobile, CJ was chomping at the bit to learn to walk. He used her fingers to find his feet, wobbling unsteady while giving her a three-tooth grin.
“The man said he’d be in touch next week, so hopefully I’ll find out soon.” Part of her being “on fire” at work had to do with getting Sparks Barbeque featured on a show with the network. There was a new show—similar to Guy Fieri’sDiners,Drive-ins, and Dives—that toured the country, checking out barbeque joints. Each episode was filmed in one restaurant, and Paige was working overtime to convince the show’s producers that Sparks Barbeque should be on their list to visit.
Between the show, and researching packing companies and food distributors so that they could mass produce and sell their barbeque sauce, and the fact she wasthis closeto making a deal on acquiring the store next to them on Main Street so they could double the size of the restaurant…
Yeah, she was killing it.
And those weren’t even the biggest of her plans. But she hadn’t shared her real hopes for the future of the business to anyone yet.
Sydney crossed her fingers, then scooped CJ into her arms and headed toward the food table. “Time to feed Thor,” she joked, using the nickname they’d given CJ, who was legit the biggest, strongest baby Paige had ever seen.
