“Good,” I forced out, wondering where in the hell that word even came from because right then, I was definitely not feeling good. I was feeling… I blinked and swallowed. I couldn’t begin to put my finger on it except to say I was fundamentally disturbed, as if the axis balancing my safe little world had been altered. “How are you?”
The concern that involuntarily laced my tone was probably not needed, because he smiled at Aly as he situated his daughter a little higher up on his chest and kissed her on the top of her head.
“I’m perfect,” he said through a rumbled chuckle.
Aly took a step forward and lightly tickled the tiny girl’s foot.
The little black-haired, blue-eyed baby kicked more. Her mouth twisted up at just one side, as she was obviously just learning how to control her smile, and she rolled her head back in delight. She suddenly cooed, and her eyes went wide and she jerked as if she’d startled herself with the sound that escaped her.
Aly’s voice turned sweet, the kind a mother reserved only for her child. “And this is our Ella…Ella Rose.”
Ella Rose.
They’d named their daughter after Jared’s mother.
Affection pulsed heavily through my veins as I looked on the three of them, so happy to see their joy. As strong as that emotion was, it wasn’t enough to keep my own sadness at bay, and my mind reeled with the questions I wanted to ask about Christopher.
But those questions were dangerous. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to know. I couldn’t know.
Instead, I reached out to let their baby girl grip my finger. I shook it a little, and that sweet smile took over her face again, this time directed at me as she tried to shove my finger in her mouth.
I just about melted. I was pretty sure this little girl had the power to single-handedly jumpstart my biological clock. “Well, hello there, Ella Rose. Aren’t you the sweetest thing.” I glanced up at Aly. “How old is she?”
“She just turned two-months yesterday,” she answered. “It feels like she’s growing so fast, but I already can’t remember what it was like not to have her as a part of our lives. It’s such a strange feeling.”
My head shook with stunned disbelief. “All of this is crazy.” I eyed them happily as some of the shock wore away, as if being in their space was completely natural. “The two of you ending up together.”
Aly blushed, and Jared watched her as if she was the anchor that kept him tied to this world. Then he slanted his own mischievous grin my way. “Don’t be too surprised, Sam. This girl was always meant for me.”
Good God. How Aly wasn’t a puddle in the middle of the floor, I didn’t know. His words were enough to leave me all swoony and light-headed and they weren’t even intended for me. And I wanted to laugh, because he’d always called me Sam, almost like a tease, a dig at his best friend Christopher, who refused to call me anything but Samantha.
It instantly took me back too many years, and I was there, feeling flickers of that flame that had been missing from my life for so long. But those kind of flames had burned me right into the ground. Those kind of flames hurt and scarred.
“So what about you?” Aly asked, stepping back. “What have you been up to? Do you live around here?”
“Yeah, I live with my boyfriend in the neighborhood right behind the shopping center.”
“You’re kidding me? We do too.” She laughed at the coincidence. “We’re neighbors.”
Here we all were, standing in the same store in this huge city, miles away from where we’d all begun. I almost had the urge to look behind me, fully expecting to see Christopher sauntering toward us, an apparition sent to taunt me in a ruthless twist of fate.
“How is your little brother? I heard he was doing really well after your family moved across town.”
After being thrown headfirst into all these tumultuous memories of Christopher, my walls were down, and this time I wasn’t prepared for the sadness that sliced straight through me. I attempted to steady my voice. “He was in remission for five years, but the cancer just recently came back.”