It’s Wednesday and although not as busy as on the weekends and still fairly early, the parking lot of the Backyard Edge is more than half full. I pull around back where most of the staff parks and find the spot beside Sophia’s Jeep empty.
They’ve had to hire some new staff for both the kitchen and the dining room. Lea was back at work since last week, something Kaga had not been too pleased about, but she announced she was going stir-crazy at home. Sophia suggested training Lea so they can eventually share management of the restaurant. Ouray had been on board, and Kaga was satisfied knowing his wife wouldn’t be on her feet all day.
As for me, I’m happy there’ll be some relief for Sophia. She has a tendency to push herself and I suspect the time will come when work will become too much. Already she gets tired quickly.
I slip in the back door and find her in her office, her head resting on her arms on the desk. Softly closing the door behind me, I drop the papers I brought with me on the desk and bend down to press a kiss to her neck. Startled, her head snaps up and she would’ve clipped me in the chin if I hadn’t taken a quick step back.
“It’s only me.”
She swings around her chair and looks a little disoriented.
“Shit. Was I sleeping?” She doesn’t wait for an answer and immediately follows it with, “What time is it?”
I take her hands and pull her to her feet, looking down at her belly, which is getting quite pronounced. I love watching her grow with my babies. Everything about her is getting fuller. Fuck, it makes me want to beat my chest and howl at the moon. Sinking down to my knees, I put my cheek to the soft swell.
“What are you doing here?”
She sounds like she’s smiling and I feel her fingers comb through my hair.
“Can’t I come say hello to my girls?”
I tilt my face up and catch her shaking her head at me.
“How do you know it’s not boys?”
“You never had morning sickness.”
She laughs at me, as she often does these days.
“And what is that supposed to mean?”
I shrug and get to my feet. “I read somewhere that means it’s a girl.”
“You know you can’t believe half of what you read on the internet, right? It’s an old wives’ tale. There’s another one that says exactly the opposite. If you really want to know we can ask when we go in for the next ultrasound.”
She snuggles in my arms and I inhale the shampoo I massaged into her scalp this morning. If my brothers could see me—washing hair, rubbing lotion on her skin, massaging her feet when she gets home—hell, they’d never let me live it down, but I like taking care of her in any way she’ll allow.
“Maybe not a bad idea,” I mumble in her hair. “We’ll know what color to paint the room.”
She leans back and looks up at me suspiciously.
“Room? What room? I thought we’d agreed we’d let it rest for a while.”
I gently turn her to the desk and unroll the plans I’ve been drawing up.
“What is this?”
“It’s the A-frame. With an addition.”
I point at the single-level add-on cutting into the slant of the roof on the west side of the existing house. I drew five different versions—all adding three bedrooms and one bath—but this one will be easiest to complete. It also leaves the option of eventually bumping up one more level should we decide we need more room.
“Honey,” she says putting a hand on my chest. “It looks amazing, but you can’t just build on to a house we don’t even own. And I know for a fact the reason Meredith rented it out in the first place is because she’s not ready to let it go.”
This is where I get to flash my shit-eating grin.
Because she’s wrong.
Sophia
Two weeks later.
“I still can’t believe this.”
I’m sitting on the back deck with Meredith, watching her dog, Beau, romping around with Van Gogh. The boys—Tse, Jay, and Ravi, who spends quite a bit of time here—are cooking today. Most of it is being done on the big new grill Tse came home with a few weeks ago, thank God. But to be on the safe side I hid some frozen pizzas in the bottom of the freezer yesterday. Tse does not have a great track record in the kitchen.
Fortunately, according to Meredith, Jay is pretty handy with the grill so I’ve been able to relax and get to know her a little better.
We signed the paperwork on the house four days ago and on Monday construction on the addition will start. Tse is determined to have everything done before Christmas so we can have my family over. I’m still walking on clouds.
Meredith chuckles.
“You say that now, but you may get sick of finding me on your deck.”
That had been her only request when she agreed to sell us her house; she could pop in on occasion to sit on the deck when she had a craving for the peaceful mountains.
“Doubtful.” I put a hand on my blossoming baby bump. “I look forward to it and once these two are here, I imagine I’d enjoy some adult company even more.”
The house is ours. Both our names are on the deed, something Tse surprised me by insisting on, even though three-quarters of the funds came from him.
“Sorry to be nosy, but are you planning for a big family?” she asks. “I couldn’t help notice the three additional bedrooms with the option for further expansion.”
“No plans.” At least not on my part, I’m not sure how I’ll manage with the two; I haven’t dared think that far ahead. “But I do have family we’d like to have room for when they visit. In fact, one of my nieces was supposed to come this summer, but the circumstances were never right.”
“And the boy?”
“Ravi?”
