Page 47 of Baby for my Best Friend's Brother

Emma and I were immune to Quinn by then though, and we were more interested in Jason. He wasn’t famous yet. He was working for a small agency that he later took over. He had two artists in development, one of whom went on to have a career and one who didn’t. We thought he was probably our age, but he looked like he was trying to look younger.

“I don’t think I liked him,” Emma said later, as we drove back to Waterford Village. Her voice was gentle, and the criticism was about as harsh as it got for her. “He doesn’t seem very nice.”

I laughed. I was already working with her dad in LA by that point. I knew how few people valued being nice in the entertainment industry. “No, but if they want a shot in hell at making it, they don’t need a nice manager.”

“It’s more than that though. He seems creepy.”

I hadn’t formed much of an opinion of the guy one way or another. He’d kept his eyes fixed on the stage, his mouth flat and expressionless. Then, about fifteen minutes in, he’d slid his sunglasses back down over his eyes, even though it was dark outside, and left.

That night at Jimmy’s had changed Quinn’s life.

What Emma and I didn’t know then was that our life was about to change, too. It was a good thing we only drank soda that night, because we found out a week later that we were expecting Noah. Now, seven years later, I was bringing him to Jimmy’s for the first time since he was a tiny bean in his mom’s tummy.

I told Noah about that on the way over, and he loved it. He loved any stories that had to do with him and his mom.

When we walked in, Noah looked overly impressed by the sad facade of Jimmy’s. “Wow,” he breathed, and his eyes got wide when he spotted his aunts setting up on stage.

“Noah!” Quinn stood up from behind Joanne’s drum kit. “Come up here! See what it’s like.” She grinned at me over his head, clearly glad to be back on stage where she belonged. I smiled back, but a dart struck my heart. She had always been too bright and beautiful to be limited to a place like this. She deserved Madison Square Garden.

I walked over to the bar where Jimmy, a large man with an impressive head of long dark hair and a penchant for not doing the top three buttons of his shirts, greeted me like a long-lost friend. “Callum Evans!” he roared, coming around the bar and wrapping me in a bear hug that practically lifted me off my feet. “I haven’t seen you since you were a kid!”

I laughed and hugged him back. “You saw me when I was twenty-eight, Jimmy. I was at their graduation party.”

“Were you? I don’t remember.” He set me back down but clapped me again on the shoulders. “I’m remembering little Callum Evans from the neighborhood who used to mow my lawn for ten bucks.”

I vaguely remembered a younger, trimmer Jimmy who was my first lawn care customer, back when the lawn mower was almost too heavy for me to push and I buzzed the grass too short. He always said it looked great anyway, then showed me how to adjust the blade height. I knew he’d fallen on some tough times since then. The bar had floundered. His wife had moved out. He still had that big grin on his face though.

“The rate still hasn’t changed, Jimmy.”

He laughed, his large belly shaking. “I hear it has, hot shot lawyer.” He clapped me on the back and started to say something else, but just then, the sound of the bell over the door rang, announcing more arrivals. We both looked over to see Moira Collins coming through. She was wearing a long, gauzy skirt, the hem carefully knotted up and held in one hand to keep it from dragging through the pools of rainwater gathering in the old parking lot that needed to be repaved.

Her long hair, a faded version of Quinn’s red, was damp and curling. Her eyes that were also like Quinn’s lit up when they fell on Jimmy and me. She dropped her hem, smoothed out her skirt, and came over.

“Hi Moira,” Jimmy said in an altogether different voice than he’d used for me.

Noting the look on Jimmy’s face, I said hi to Moira myself and then made an excuse about having to get Noah out of the way. In truth, Noah didn’t look in the way at all. He looked right at home, sitting behind Joanne’s drum kit. He could barely see over the snare, and the cymbals dwarfed him, but he looked happy.

“Don’t you dare get this kid into drums, Joanne,” I warned as I approached.

“Aw, your house is big enough,” she grinned. “You won’t even hear him.”

“Just soundproof one of the rooms in the basement.” Quinn came over to join the teasing. Up on the stage, she stood about a foot taller than me. She looped an arm around my shoulders and leaned her head down until it touched the top of mine. It was casual and intimate, and no one on stage looked surprised to see the two of us like this. I wrapped an arm around her waist.

“Your mom just got here. She’s with Jimmy by the bar.”

Quinn twisted to find her. I knew she was seeing what I did because she went very still, and the bellowed greeting that was rising in her throat slid back down. “Oh,” she said quietly. “That’s interesting.”

“What’s interesting?” Renee asked, and then she saw it too.

“Looks like Mrs. Collins might be coming back to the old neighborhood,” Mia joked. “This time as Mrs. Jimmy.”

“That’s a bit of a stretch,” Quinn said drily, pulling her gaze away from her mom. “Also, how do we not know Jimmy’s last name?”

Shoulder shrugs all around. He’d just been Jimmy ofJimmy’sfor so long that he didn’t need one.

“We’ll ask your mom later,” Mia teased.

Everyone was laughing. Noah was coming around the drums to find out what was so funny. Quinn’s slim arm was around my neck, and then I heard the sound of the bell again. I turned to see who it was, expecting it to be an old neighbor.

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