by Jillian Dodd
Chase--who at almost ten is very tall for his age--grabs Dani's hand, pulling her toward the play set and yelling, "Dad, can we climb on the rock wall now?"
Phillip reluctantly lets go of me. "Yeah, come over here and I'll show you how to do it."
"We already know how, Dad," our daughter, Haley James says, rolling her eyes. She's only eight, but has already mastered the teen eye roll. She's also a walking contradiction, tough as nails but always wearing something pink or glittery. Because she's our only girl--and I know my mom would have done it if she were here--I totally indulge and encourage her love of all things sparkly and girly. She's a beast on the soccer field, a good gymnast, and both she and Dani are on competitive cheer teams.
Danny, Lori, and their son, Damon--who will be a fourth grader this fall with Chase--let themselves in the backyard, carrying sacks of fireworks.
"We got a ton of sparklers!" Damon says. "And Dad says Chase, Dani, and me can light smoke bombs and snakes this year all by ourselves, if it's okay with you."
"I'm okay with that," I say. "As long as you're caref--"
"Damon," Lori chastises. "I told you that I don't know if I'm okay with it. I think you're all too young to be playing with fire."
Damon and Danny both roll their eyes, giving Lori the same look. It makes me laugh. Damon is going to give them hell as a teen. Lori will freak out and Danny will secretly be proud.
"He's not going to be playing with fire, Lori," Danny says. "Didn't you ever get to light smoke bombs?"
"I'm sure I wasn't allowed until I was in high school," she states.
"We did when we were young," I tell her. "And they won't have fire. They'll have a punk. And I'm sure the guys will give them a safety lesson first."
"Says the girl who used to have bottle rocket wars with us," Phillip says to me under his breath.
"Mommy, Mommy!" our middle son, Ryder says, "do I get to too?"
I bend down and push his sweaty bangs out of his big brown eyes, ready to explain to him that he can't until he's older, but Dani beats me to it.
"Ry, you can't yet because you're only a kindergartener. When you are big like us, then you can."
He points to his chest. "I'm not a kindergartener. I'll be in first grade!"
"How about we let you choose the colors?" Dani says sweetly, herding him toward the swing set. "Get on, I'll push you."
"Look at me, Dani!" Chase yells, showing off as he swings his way across the monkey bars without falling.
"I can do that too, I think," Damon says, running over to try it. Even though they are in the same grade, Damon is almost a year younger than Chase and is always trying to keep up.
Chase effortlessly leaps to the ground and says to Phillip, "Dad, can I do it now? Remember, that thing you promised?"
Phillip nods his head, pulls out his pocketknife, and hands it to Chase.
I watch as Chase starts carving something on the new swing set.
"What's he doing?" I ask Phillip.
"Just wait and see," he says.
Chase works slowly and intently, and I can tell whatever he's doing is important to him. When he's finished, he stands back and looks at his work, folds the knife up, and says, "Dani! Damon! Come look!"
Damon stops playing, looks at Chase's carving, and goes, "Cool," but Dani stares at it, a broad grin spreading across her face. It's the same grin I used to see on her dad when he wanted to do something that was going to get us in trouble.
She punches Chase in the shoulder and says, "Tag, you're it."
I close my eyes tightly, praying he didn't carve bad words into the swing set.
While the kids are running around, Phillip leads me over to the carving.
D.D.
+
C.M.
+
D.D.
=
BFFs 4Ever
Tears fill my eyes as I run my hand over the letters, instantly remembering the dream I had when I was in the hospital so many years ago. "How did he know about your carving?" I ask Phillip.
"I showed him the tree when we were up at my parents' last month. He asked me if he could do it on the new swing set. We'll never be able to tear it down now."
"We're really lucky, Phillip."
"Every morning when I wake up next to you, I remember the day I thought I lost you both. I'm grateful for every day we're together."
"Me too," I say as Madden pulls on my shorts.
"Wadder," he says.
"Does he want a drink?" Phillip asks.
"No," I laugh. "He wants to play with the water."
Phillip turns on the garden hose and hands it to him.
Madden puts his finger across the end of the hose and sprays Phillip as a thank you.
"Ah, shit, that's cold," he yells.
"Shit cold!" Madden repeats. "Shit cold!"
"I think we need a beer," Danny says, heading up to the deck where we'll be able to sit down and still keep an eye on the kids.
Lori, Phillip, and I follow him. By the time we're all sitting down, Danny has beers open and passed around.
"Here's to the good life," he says as we raise our bottles in a toast.
I giggle. "Remember the first time you said that?"
"I do," Phillip says. "Eighth grade. That was the night we got drunk in the tent."
"I didn't get drunk, Lori. I was a good girl," I say in my defense.
Lori takes a swig of beer then teases, "Was that the one time you were good?"
"Probably," Phillip teases back. "Just think, it won't be too much longer and our kids will be doing the same thing."
Danny shakes his head. "I still feel like a kid. It's hard to believe we have six kids running around down there."
"And just think, Dani will start middle school soon," Phillip says. "They say once that happens the next thing you know, they're off to college."
"That's sad," I say, looking down on our children. Life is wonderfully crazy hectic for all of us with sports and jobs and life, but we can't imagine it any other way.
"I was throwing the ball with Chase and Damon the other day," Danny says. "Chase has a strong arm and a naturally good throwing motion. He could be a great quarterback someday. He's going to be tall too, I think."
"The doctor thinks he'll end up about six-five," I say.
"Your son has magic hands," Phillip says. "He can catch better than anyone on their team."
Danny gets a proud father grin. "I think we should do another toast." We hold up our bottles again. "Here's to our children."
"Here's to our children," Phillip and I repeat, looking into each other's eyes. I feel so incredibly blessed to be married to him. He's so sweet and still treats me like a princess. My eyes wander down his shirtless body.
"And our beautiful wives," Danny adds.
"And to our husband's abs," I say, giving Phillip a wink then clinking Lori's bottle.
"Here, here," she agrees.
I mentioned in the dedication that this book was difficult to write. When I plan out a story, I always know the ending first. I've known the basics of this story since before I even wrote That Wedding. I knew JJ would be in an accident similar to that of her parents while pregnant. And I knew she would survive.
It's the part in between that I've struggled with. I knew this story would take me back to a time in my own life that, for the most part, I've tried to forget.
Most of you know that I am very blessed to have two wonderful children. What few people know is that when I was pregnant with our third child, we lost the baby when I was four months pregnant. We'd had a miscarriage before and knew that we would be able to deal with it and move on. But when I went in for a routine D&C, things did not go well. My uterus and bladder were ruptured during surgery, along with my uterine artery. In the short time it took for the doctor to figure out what had happened, I lost a whole lot of blood.
I'm told I'm lucky to be alive.
But, in the process, our dreams of being a family of six were shattered.
Dreams are interesting things. They keep you going when times are tough. They give you hope that things will get better. During the months that followed, I felt very lost. I felt like a failure. Not only was I physically unable to do a lot of things as I recovered from multiple surgeries, I felt like I was letting my husband down. The things that we had dreamed about as a couple were gone in an instant. And while it may be true that I'm lucky to be alive, I feel even luckier that my marriage survived. Because I was a mess.
While writing this book, I did something I haven't done since the surgery.
I read the journal I wrote when I was pregnant for the last time.
Which was difficult for me.
It was like I had read the ending of the book first and knew the outcome before the story even started. And I dreaded the end.
Writing this book has been both trying and therapeutic for me.
Most of the scenes from JJ's time in the hospital mimic my own experiences. I'm pretty open about my life, but this is an event that I don't talk about much. Much like JJ refusing to go to counseling after her parents died, I refused counseling too.
I felt like I lost my dreams that day and it's taken me a long time to recover.
To have new dreams and to be thankful for all the blessings I have in my life.
If you've ever suffered a miscarriage or with infertility, you know how I felt.
Just kinda sorta empty. I couldn't even cry.
So please know the scenes in the book weren't just to torture you. They were many of the things I felt, dreamed, saw, experienced, or hallucinated about while things were going on around me during my own time in the hospital.
None of these experiences have ever left me--even though they happened almost twenty years ago. They are as painful as they are hopeful. Tragic as they are happy.
I hope that you enjoyed the That Boy trilogy. And thank you for being so patient with me. I hope it was worth the wait.
I also have a few special people I need to thank.
Mollie Harper--Thank you for your medical expertise and helping me make Jadyn's wreck and subsequent medical care to be grounded in realism. It's been almost two years since we stayed up late one night in a New Orleans hotel room, eating room service desserts and brainstorming ways to both kill and save JJ and the baby. And your thoughts on how you love seeing a strong man break down made this book that much better. I also can't thank you enough for being one of the very first bloggers to read That Boy back when bloggers weren't reading Indie books. Your Knock my socks off review helped get Danny, Phillip, and JJ into the hands of so many readers. (And yay for becoming "The Vegas Ass" Girl.)
Nigel Blackwell--My brilliant brainstorming partner who probably got sick of me shooting down his storyline ideas. Him: Well, could someone have an affair? Me: OMG! No! Phillip would never do that! Pretty much every suggestion he had, I shot down with he would never do that. It wasn't until I was about three quarters of the way through the writing process that I realized I used many of our original brainstorming ideas, just spun them a bit differently.
Diane Capri--Thank you for helping me figure out what type of accident Jadyn could have that would allow both she and the baby to survive. With you guidance, I learned more about auto accident reports than I ever wanted to know. London was such an amazing trip, and I appreciate all the help and guidance you've given me on the business side of things.
Beth Suit--I think it's possible that you were one of the very first people to message me and tell me you read That Boy. What started as chatting on Goodreads became a wonderful friendship. I suck as a friend. I get involved in my characters and forget the world around me. But you are always there when I come up for air. Thank you for also making sure my books are like, mostly, usually, grammatically-ish correct.
Jenn Sterling--Thank you for your no bullshit, kick me in the pants talk about this book. I greatly value your friendship, and am constantly amazed at your ability to make new friends whenever we travel together. (And for giving me a moment in Boston where I think I laughed the hardest I ever have In. My. Entire. Life.)
Venus, Baby J, and Mandy--Thank you so much for your quick beta reading. It meant I got to enjoy Chaos in Cocoa with you all instead of working. I love how much you all love these characters and how this book affected you. Sorry for the ugly cries!
Connor--Your humor always uplifts me after a day of sitting at my computer and crying. Maybe someday you'll read my books :)
Kenzie--Once again, your input on my stories is invaluable. You are by far my toughest critic and none of my books would be as good if it weren't for you.
Mom--You've been with me on this from the start, reading and re-reading this series until I'm sure you were probably sick of it. You've listened patiently as I talked myself though each and every story. You've made suggestions that made me wonder if you knew the characters better than I did. You've had a profound effect on each and every That Boy book. Although I dedicated this book in a different way, this one is really for you.
Scotty--It's been almost eighteen years since we lost Chelsea Nicole along with the ability to have more kids. I know I was a wreck back then. I know the tables in our relationship were turned upside down. But throughout it all, you loved me. Supported me. Let me find my way. You are my Phillip. My prince charming. My fairytale. I love you.
And to my readers--Thank you for reading my stories.
Books by Jillian Dodd
The USA TODAY bestselling series,
The Keatyn Chronicles(r)
Stalk Me
Kiss Me
Date Me
Love Me
Adore Me
Hate Me
Get Me
Fame
Power
Money
Sex
Love
That Boy Series
That Boy
That Wedding
That Baby
Vegas Love
Jillian Dodd is a USA Today bestselling author.
She currently resides in a small Florida beach town.
Check out my website.
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