Sophie

​

Rob wraps an arm around my shoulders and says, “You know, when I asked you to make yourself comfortable here, Soph, I expected more than a handful of books. I want this place to be ours.”

 

“Is that what you and Dottie were talking about this morning?” I ask.

 

One of the things I love most about Rob, and honestly, it’s a pretty long list that would be boring to anyone but me, is that he has breakfast with the Wise Women Group every Wednesday morning, without fail. They’ve adopted him as another grandson, something that means the world to him now that his own father has turned his back on him.

 

I don’t always go with him, and today I went to my great-aunt’s house to have breakfast with her and Otis instead.

 

“Yeah,” he says, squeezing me sweetly. “It’s been on my  mind. I don’t want this to just be somewhere you’re staying. I want it to be our home.”

 

My heart swells in my chest, and I look around, trying to see it through his eyes. He’s  not wrong. I’ve unloaded my books into the empty spaces in his bookshelf and draped one of my quilts across the back of his couch, but otherwise the apartment doesn’t look much different than it did before I moved in a couple of weeks ago.

 

Here’s the thing: I spent years trying to be unobtrusive and take up less space, and now it’s hard to expand.

 

“I see your point, but it is our home,” I say, snuggling in closer. “And I have proof. We put up the ABBA poster in the bedroom.”

 

“Because it puts me in the mood every time I see it.” He waggles his eyebrows theatrically. “I’m like Pavlov’s dog, but with ABBA.” His expression shifts, becoming earnest and sweet. “But, really. I want you to trick the apartment out with all of your crafts or whatever. Go wild. I’ve seen what you can do.”

 

“You really want me to put out a bunch of girly crafts?” I ask, grinning.

 

“There’s nothing inherently girly about crafts,” he says as he reaches up and runs his fingers across my cheek. “Otis showed me the very masculine macrame he’s making. He offered to teach me.”

 

My cousin Otis and I are preparing to launch our craft business, The Crafty Monster, but we’re starting with pop-ups. He’s teaching preteens and teens to do macrame planters, and he’s gone a little overboard with it, to be honest, given that neither he nor his grandmother have green thumbs. So he’s started giving them away to everyone we know. Hannah has two, and Briar, whom Otis is hopelessly in love with, has seven. She does have a green thumb, so at least hers have been put to use.

 

“Are you going to make one?” I ask, gazing up into Rob’s eyes.

 

“Spoiler alert: I already have, and you’re probably getting one for every major holiday. One of us better figure out how to take care of plants.”   

 

“I love you.” I lift up on my toes and kiss him, so happy my whole body is thrumming with it.

 

“I love you, too, so please, take over this apartment like it’s a hostile invasion. I want every room to look unrecognizable to me. That’s your challenge, Soph, should you choose to accept it.”

 

“Too bad I can’t do that one from your lap,” I say, eyeing him.

 

He grins back at me. “There are lots of other things you can do from my lap.”

 

“Prove it.”

 

Smiling wickedly, he leads me over to the couch and pulls me into my lap, then turns on the TV and finds a home decorating show.

 

“Inspiration,” he says, leaning in to kiss my cheek. “But I think you should have your friends over while I’m at band practice on Thursday. It’ll make you feel more like it’s your place too, and Hannah will bully you into putting up more stuff.”

 

“She probably will,” I say as I wiggle against him with a sigh. I already want more. I always want more with him. “What about Otis? Should I ask him to come?”

 

“Of course. He wouldn’t miss a chance to gawk at Briar.”

 

“Poor Otis.”

 

“I don’t want to think about Otis right now,” he says. T then he slides his hand under my skirt, and suddenly I don’t want to talk about Otis, or anything else, either.

 

What can I say? I’m a very lucky woman. I have a gorgeous boyfriend, I’m starting my own business, and I have amazing, supportive friends.

 

And, sure, my boyfriend is my ex-fiancé’s brother, and my friends are the women he was seeing behind my back (unbeknownst to all of us), but my nickname isn’t Pollyanna for nothing. I’m a woman who’s learned to make lemonade from nothing but lemons and hope. I didn’t used to value that part of myself, but I’ve learned to.

 

****

 

Four days later….

 

“I don’t understand the drums,” Hannah says, reaching for a handful of popcorn. She, Briar, Otis, and I are all sitting around the coffee table in our apartment. They’ve helped me unpack more of my things into the space—and, of course, Otis brought over two new macrame plant hangers as a housewarming gift. Briar gave me a couple of plants to put in them, and Hannah brought over a home brew her brother Liam made. We also made a few watercolor paintings as practice for the next class Otis and I are going to lead and hung a couple of those up too.

 

I’m starting to feel a bubbling enthusiasm for the task of expressing myself—a need to do as Rob said and make this place as much mine as his. Ours.

 

I’d never really felt like there’d be an ours up until this summer.

 

I feel Hannah staring at me, waiting for a response, so I say, “What do you mean you don’t understand the drums? Like, as a concept?”
 

She shakes her head. “No. I mean, why would a kid look at all the cool instruments in a band, and say, I want to do that? Make a loud, repetitive noise while other people do all the cool shit.”

 

“You’re still upset with Travis,” I surmise.

 

Travis, Rob’s best friend, recently discovered he has a seven-year-old son—when his ex-girlfriend dropped Ollie off on his doorstep and said “your turn.”

 

Hannah hung out with them on Ollie’s first night in town, and apparently everything was going really well until Travis asked if he could excuse himself to play the drums for a minute. She said yes, since his whole world had been ripped apart, and pulled out the only board game he owned that could be played by a seven-year-old.
 

Cards Against Humanity.

 

Travis was upset, to put it mildly, even though she claims she removed all of the “bad” cards.

 

He asked her to leave, and they haven’t really talked since, even though she goes to some of their band performances with Briar and me.

 

“Oh I don’t care about that,” she says flippantly. “But he does have a pretty high and mighty attitude for someone who is basically a human metronome.”

 

“Are you kidding?” Otis says. “He has a sick talent. You should hear his drum solo in—”

 

“A drum solo, really?” Hannah says, rolling her eyes. “Who wants to hear all that banging around?”

 

Briar says, “I like the drums. They shape the rest of the music.” Then she lifts her glass, staring at the contents with a look of awe. “Your brother made this? It’s really good. What’s in it?”

 

Hannah breathes out a laugh. “As if he’d tell me. He likes keeping everything secret, but of course he can’t do that at work. Another reason why he hates his job. He’s paranoid some other brewer is going to steal his work.”

 

“Speaking of jobs,” I put in. “Any idea what you’d like to do next?” She recently quit her floor manager job at Big Catch Brewing, where Liam still works as the brewmaster.

 

“Maybe I won’t get one at all,” she says breezily. “I kind of like the chaos of not having a job.”

 

She’s kept busy doing makeup for special events, taking catering jobs, and that kind of thing, but Briar looks horrified.

 

Then again, Briar was raised by a man who opens a new business every five or six years, like clockwork. Despite all the yoga classes she takes and the meditation she does, she’s not actually a natural at relaxing. She claims “practice makes perfect,” and she just hasn’t gotten there yet, but Hannah thinks that if you need to perfect your relaxation techniques than you’re doing it all wrong.

 

“Oh, relax,” Hannah says, grabbing a throw pillow and batting it at Briar. “That look you gave me could turn a piece of coal into diamond.”

 

“I didn’t say anything,” Briar objects.

“You didn’t need to. A look says a thousand words.”

 

“Especially with Briar,” poor Otis says, giving her a puppy dog grin. “Your eyes are so expressive.”

 

“Thanks, Otis,” she says with a sweetness I hope he doesn’t misinterpret. Intellectually, he knows Briar isn’t ever going to be interested in him as anything but a surrogate little brother. But he still acts like she’s his alpha and omega.

 

“Wait, did Rob already have this throw pillow before he moved in?” Hannah asks, lifting it up to examine it. “That seems unlikely. Men are allergic to throw pillows.”

 

“I like throw pillows,” Otis says. “What else are you going to wedge under your head if you don’t have a sweatshirt lying around?”

 

“He’s right,” I agree. “But Rob’s mom did buy him that.”

 

I met her last week—she’d specifically flown here to meet me, which was terrifying, but she and her husband Raymond are really sweet. We’re going to Montana for Thanksgiving to stay with them and their potbelly pig, who apparently joins them at the dinner table (but not on it).

 

“Called it,” Hannah says, snapping her fingers. “Although if Travis has throw pillows, I'm guessing he really did buy them for himself.”

 

“I feel like that’s intended as an insult,” I reflect, “but I don’t know why it would be one.”

 

“Fine,” she says, setting the throw pillow down and patting it. “I’m annoyed with him. I wasn’t being irresponsible. I was trying to make his kid laugh. That poor kid needed to laugh. I mean, I’ve literally been in his shoes.” She pauses, eyes raised to the ceiling, before laughing. “Okay, fine, my mom didn’t drop me off at the doorstep of a father who didn’t know about me. But abandoned is abandoned. He felt like shit and he needed to laugh. Even if it was a little inappropriate. But honestly, Travis has his head wedged so far up his ass, he’s probably never seen sunglight.”

 

I squeeze her arm. “I’m sure Ollie’s okay.”

 

She purses her mouth and says, “There’s something else I should tell you.”

 

“Have you killed Travis?” I ask.

 

“Har-dee-har-har. No.” She glances at Briar before saying, “I sent an email to Nora.”

 

Aka Gingerbeerbage.

 

Briar and I speak at the same time, saying “Seriously?” and “Why?” respectively.

 

She shrugs. “No one left behind. I wanted to see how she was doing after…” She waves a hand to indicate all the bullshit we went through because of Jonah. It was months ago now, and even though it’s not ancient history, it feels that way. I struggle to relate to the Sophie who was engaged to that man. She was part of me, but not the whole of me. “Anyway, she didn’t respond, but I only sent it this morning, so who knows.”

 

Briar and I exchange worried glances. Hannah is obviously going through something. When I was going through something, she was my rock. Which means I’m also going to be her rock, whether she wants to let me or not.

 

“Maybe it’s time to let that—"

 

But before I can get “go” out and suggest that we go to group therapy or a spa day, there’s a knock at the door.

 

Oh no…is it that teenager down the hall? I’ve been trying to befriend him after he caught me listening in at Rob’s door, but he’s been very resistant to my attempts to be kind.

 

“Who is it?” I ask cautiously, and the door swings open.

 

I gasp, but then Rob walks in with a couple of pizza boxes, looking like he  “We’re not snooping or crashing,” he insists, carrying in his bounty and setting it on the counter of the kitchen island. “We’re just bringing you food and libations.”

 

Travis follows him in with a six pack, which he sets beside the pizza before giving us a two-finger salute. Bixby comes in last with a container of cookies.

                 

“I already brought beer,” Hannah says tightly. “Superior beer.”

 

“This is your brother’s beer.” Travis raises his eyebrows. “From Big Catch.”

 

She lifts her glass from the coffee table. “And this is the beer he made for people he likes.”

 

“Enough with the Beer-Off,” Rob says. I’ve already gotten to my feet, and he spans the distance between us and lifts me up before giving me a twirl. “This place already looks fantastic. Much more Sophie-ish. Can I steal you away for a second?”

 

I glance at my friends worriedly. Hannah is giving Travis a pissed-off look, and Otis is still mooning over Briar. “Are you guys okay?”
 

“We’re great,” Briar says, giving me an I’ll handle this nod.

 

She confided in me recently that she’s nervous about taking over her father’s brewery because she doesn’t have an assertive personality, which is exactly what led to her jewelry business folding. And in true Briar fashion, she’s decided practice will make perfect. She’s challenged herself to do one assertive thing every day.

 

So I take Rob’s hand and follow him into his music room. Now our music-slash-crafts room.

 

He closes the door behind me. My old impulse would be to worry that something bad had happened, or that he was about to share unwelcome news. But there’s nothing on his face but happiness.

 

“What is it?” I ask stepping closer. I reach around his neck and fish out the formerly-known-as-unlucky penny he wears on a chain, running my finger over it.

 

He grins down at me. “I just had to tell you how damn happy it makes me to have you and our friends in this apartment. It’s unreal.”

 

I lift on my toes to kiss him, savoring the solid feeling of him and the brush of his five-o’clock shadow. “It’s very real. It’s the most real thing there is.”

 

He wraps his arms around me, pulling me closer. “And I love your painting, Soph.”

 

“How do you know which one it is?” I ask, laughing.

 

“I know. It’s the one with all the purple and pink swirls and stars. You make good wishing stars. They remind me of the ones we saw that night at The Ginger Station.”

 

“But I don’t have any other wishes to make,” I say, grinning up at him. “They all came true.”

 

“Not even one?” he asks, cocking an eyebrow.

 

“Are you hoping I’ll say something sexual?”

He laughs as he pulls me closer. “I’m always hoping you’ll say something sexual. But no. That’s not what I was thinking. I just wanted to know if there’s anything you haven’t done yet that you’d like to. Something we could work toward together.”

 

I kiss him again, because he needs to get kissed when he talks like that, then say, “The only thing I can think of is that I’d like it if Travis and Hannah got along again.”

 

He smiles, running his hand along my jawline. “Now, that’s a wish only the gods can grant, Sophie Ginnis.”

 

“I don’t know,” I reply with a smile. “I’m feeling pretty lucky lately. Like anything is possible.”

 

“It’s that guitar pick, isn’t it?” he teases.

 

I grip the chain holding the penny around his neck, using it to pull him closer. “It’s you.”

 

And then I kiss him again, savoring this moment, this man, and the knowledge that I have a new life—a life I freaking love—all because Jonah slipped the wrong phone into his pocket months ago.

​

​

Worst Nanny Ever, Hannah and Travis's story, is up next. Preorder it now! 

​

Spicy version:

September 8-11

Apple, Nook, Kobo, and Google Play

​

Sept 12, moves to Amazon and KU

Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon CA, Amazon AU

​