Page 93 of His Best Friend's Baby

“But I’m serious, Julia. We have to go slow.”

“Oh,” she said, “we’ll go slow.”

“Jesse!” He turned to see Ben running across the hardwood floor to latch onto his legs. Jesse pulled him up, held him in his arm so Rachel could pull her son close, too. They made a good circle that way. Strong.

He still saw Mitch when he looked at Ben, but he saw the best of him. All the possibility Mitch had.

“He’s a good boy,” Jesse whispered.

“The best,” Julia cooed, kissing Ben and then kissing Jesse.

“There’s going to be a story about the accident tomorrow morning in the Los Angeles Times.”

Julia looked stunned. “Caleb doesn’t waste any time, does he?”

“Apparently not.”

Ben patted Jesse’s lips. “Kiss,” he said. And Jesse gave him a loud wet raspberry on his forehead until Ben squealed with laughter and pushed him away.

“I want to go talk to Agnes and Ron tomorrow.”

“Okay.” Julia nodded.

“Kiss!” Ben shouted and Jesse leaned down again and raspberried the boy until he screamed.

“I want you to go with me.”

Julia took a deep breath. “Of course. We’ll do it together.”

“Together.” Jesse sighed, and he’d never heard a better word.

“Kiss!” Ben yelled and Julia and Jesse leaned through the small space that separated them and kissed each other on the mouth, the first of a million kisses just like it.

EPILOGUE

JESSE HOPPED OUT of the Jeep and checked his watch.

Five minutes late. Julia is going to have my hide.

He reached around the back bumper and grabbed the object of mental anguish that had caused his delay.

He was a smart guy, good with his hands, but putting together the blue bike with a red banana seat and silver streamers off the handlebars had him tearing his hair out.

But the finished product was really something to behold. Shiny and new, not a training wheel in sight. Just the sort of thing that would make a five-year-old’s birthday.

Ben was going to love it.

He swung the bike clear of the Jeep and jogged across the street toward Ladd’s.

Hopefully, Julia would be so high on fried chicken that she wouldn’t notice he was five minutes late. Everyone invited to the party knew the only reason it was at Ladd’s was because all Julia, six months pregnant, and Rachel, four months pregnant, could think or talk about these days was fried chicken. Luckily, Ben was pretty fond of it, too.

Jesse and Mac, on the other hand, were getting pretty tired of it.

Once inside the dark interior, he headed toward the sound of Ben and Margot—his toddler niece—laughing in the back room. He pushed open the door and nearly ran into Agnes, carrying an empty plastic pitcher.

“Hello, Agnes,” he said with a smile. Julia told him he had to smile more with Agnes, make more of an effort at being friendly because the scrooge of his youth was actually scared of him, now.

“Jesse.” Her eyes darted to his then away toward the bike. “Oh, he’ll love that.”

“Let’s hope so.” He stepped aside so she could get past him.

“Thank you, Jesse. For having us today.” She said the same thing at every family function, as if she were out on parole and it could all be taken away from her with one wrong move.

He knew the feeling, had lived with it every day for the first year he and Julia were married. But every day after that, it had gotten easier to believe that what he had was real and his.

“Agnes,” he said and could barely believe it as the words came out of his mouth, “you’re part of my family now.”

He felt Julia looking at him from across the room, could hear Ben laughing. Rachel and Mac stood in the corner, tying a balloon to Margot’s pudgy wrist. Nell and her boyfriend were there, too, as well as the other women from Petro and Holmes Landscaping with their kids.

This is my family, he thought, never tired of the realization.

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