Page 109 of Love Me Forever

Dad nodded in agreement. "You can only take things one day at a time. There's no handbook. And even if there was, it wouldn't apply to all kids. Each child is different. Look at all of you. You grew up in the same house, but I could tell by the time you were toddlers that all of you had your own personality. Just take things as they come. One thing I've learned with babies is to stop overthinking. It doesn't help, and planning ahead of time is a waste, mostly because they have their own mind."

"That's good advice," I said. "All right, then. Let's get back to work. We've wasted enough time talking."

An hour later, all the beds were ready. Three looked absolutely identical, but I was sure Bonnie would know exactly what the difference was.

True to my word, I poured everyone beers. We relaxed in the living room, chatting about the hotel and my plans for it.

I had yet to talk to Kimberly about a formal job offer, but I was prepping for that. When she mentioned that she'd thought about living in London for a while, my wheels immediately spun. I didn't have to expand in the US first; there was no reason I couldn’t start abroad. As soon as the launch was behind me, I was going to ask Tim to carry out an in-depth market research to see which was more feasible. I didn’t want him to start right now—I wanted to have my head in the game for the launch.

"I propose a toast," Dad said, "but we need something other than beer for that."

"I've got bourbon." I took out the bottle from the cabinet under the bar, filling a bucket with ice.

A couple minutes later, we were ready to go.

"What are we toasting?" Tate asked.

"The Maxwell family being reunited and growing at the same time," Dad replied. "I'm proud of all my boys. You know, years ago, when we received the offer for the bookstores, we hesitated. We thought it would be good if it stayed in the family. It was our heirloom, after all. I'm sure it would've been in great hands had we not sold it. You're all very capable.”

“Not when it comes to building beds. We needed all of us for the job,” Sam pointed out.

Dad shook his head. “You've all followed your instincts and passions, and we couldn't be happier.”

Half an hour later, we were all semidrunk.

“How am I seeing double now?” Sam asked.

“We had no lunch,” Tate explained.

“Fuck. The plan was to order food,” Luke remembered.

"Speaking of that, where are the girls?" I asked. “They should've been here fifteen minutes ago.”

Dad chuckled. "Counting the seconds, son?"

"No."

Well, apparently yes, I was. I wanted to see the look on Bonnie’s face when she saw the beds.

As if on cue, the front door opened.

"Hey, this place smells like alcohol," Lexi said. She turned toward us, and her jaw fell. “You're all drunk."

Bonnie and Megan came in next.

"We are not drunk," I corrected. "We finished on time and wanted to cheer to our success."

Bonnie kept glancing toward the guest bedroom out of the corner of her eye. She was fidgeting, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. I knew she was itching to see the cribs, but she was being polite.

Straightening up, she said, “Thanks so much for assembling them. Should we order lunch?”

"No. I think if we stay together for much longer, we're going to embarrass each other," Tate said.

"Wait, you mean more than usual?" Lexi asked, sass thick in her voice.

Tate frowned. "What do you mean?"

"It's like a competition between you guys to give each other shit when you're together,” Megan elaborated.

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