As much as I appreciated the sentiment, I argued that I was not grumpy.
I was temperamental. There was a difference.
Braden just laughed but I was being completely serious.
I told him that, too.
He laughed harder.
Impossible man.
“Mum!” Beth threw open my office door but I was braced for it. I was already facing the door, waiting to hear her latest catastrophe or thrilling story. Every day in a preteen’s life was wonderful and horrifying and life or death.
At least in my preteen’s life.
“Mum, we need to go shopping on Thursday night. Please! It’s Cassie Hogan’s birthday party and I can’t go in a dress that everyone in my class has already seen.”
“You own a thousand dresses.”
Beth made a face. “Mum, let’s not exaggerate.”
“No, because we wouldn’t want to do that.”
She ignored my sarcasm, very much used to it and adept at it herself. “Please, Mum. Amanda and Sarah said they’re getting new clothes for it.”
“And if Amanda and Sarah ju—”
“Don’t say ‘jumped off a bridge.’ Everyone says that. And you’re a writer, Mum. Doesn’t that mean you have to be original or something?”
I stared at her, trying very hard not to burst out laughing. It would only encourage her and the girl teased me enough. I didn’t think a day had gone by when she didn’t tease me about my accent. Living with Braden for so long, I’d picked up Scottish inflections in a way I hadn’t when my mom was alive. Now I had this weird American-Scots accent that Beth loved mimicking. “I’m sorry, were you asking me for something?” I asked.
Beth smiled sweetly. “Please, Mum.”
Shopping. Hmm. I knew only one way we’d get through it.
Ellie.
Ellie was much better at the shopping thing than I was. It was hilarious how my kid could be so much like me, and yet such a girly girl like her Aunt Ellie. Beth had more clothes and shoes and nail polish and pink and posters of an irritating, globally successful boy band on her bedroom walls than twenty preteen girls put together. “Fine. But we’ll ask Aunt Ellie if she’s free to come with us.”
Beth patted my shoulder, giving me an unintentionally (or at least I hoped) patronizing smile of sympathy. “Already did. We both know you hate shopping. I only asked you to join us out of politeness.”
“And I have the credit card to pay for the dress,” I reminded her.
“That too!” Beth grinned cheekily and sauntered out of my office. “Mum’s busy,” I heard her say snottily.
“You went in!” my nine-year old son replied.
“I’m older.”
“That’s your answer for everything,” Luke whined as he barged into the room. “Mum,” he raced toward me with all the exuberance and energy of his age. Fuck, I envied him. “Where’s my football socks?”
I brushed his dark blond hair off his face and he ducked to the side to avoid any more grooming. “Which ones?”
“My lucky ones,” he said, like it was obvious. Only nine, and already giving me the “duh” voice. I wanted him to be four again and always running to his mommy for cuddles.
“Damn time and its envy,” I muttered.
Luke made a face. “What?”
“Remember talking rule number two.”
“Mum,” he whined, lolling his head from side to side, “I’m too old for that.”
“Rule number two,” I insisted.
“It’s not ‘what,’ it’s ‘pardon.’” He rolled his eyes.
Seriously. I was so sure the rolling eyes thing happened later with boys. Of course, Beth had been rolling her eyes at me since she was three.
“I haven’t washed your lucky socks yet. You don’t have a game until next Saturday.”
“But I’m going to play Five-a-Side on The Green with Allan.”
“And you need your lucky socks for that?”
“Yeah. I want to win.”
“Baby, I’m guessing by how thin those lucky socks of yours are getting, they only have so many more games in them. Do you really want to waste their luck on a non-game game?”
As he opened his mouth to speak, I said, “And you’re not playing Five-a-Side football that far away from the house.”
I had to stop myself from smiling. When my son frowned, he frowned. Somehow he managed to put all of his face, not just his brows and eyes, into the expression. It was impressive. And adorable. Which I’m sure is not at all what he was going for. “It’s only five minutes away.”
“In a city, five minutes away is far enough for some miscreant to steal you from us.”
“What’s a miscreant?”
In answer, I handed him my dictionary. Accustomed to my method of teaching them to reach for knowledge themselves as much as possible, Luke flipped through it for the answer. “Did you ask your dad if you could go?” I said.
“Yes, but he said no.” Braden strode into the room with our youngest, Ellie (so named after her aunt), in his arms. Ellie was eighteen months old and already a total daddy’s girl. I couldn’t blame her really.
Right now, however, Braden was scowling at Luke. “What have I said about going behind our backs to ask the other once one of us has said no? When one says no, the answer is no, Luke.”
Luke scrunched up his face, and I could sense a tantrum on the horizon. “I’m bored!”
Yup.
“And I said that I’d come with you if you wanted to play football on The Green.”
“No one else is bringing their dad! I’ll look like a wee kid!”
“News flash,” Braden leaned down, shifting Ellie in his arms, “you are a wee kid. And if you raise your voice at me again, I will ground you for a week.”
“Ground me, then, because I cannae go out anyway!”
“It’s can’t,” I threw in.
“Cannae, cannae, cannae!” he yelled, jumping up and down.
I winced. My kid was loud when he wanted to be. Too loud! “Ah, can it.”
“Right, you’re grounded,” Braden declared.
“Oops!” Ellie cried out and then giggled.
Braden and I looked at each other and struggled not to laugh.
Luke was not in the mood for laughter. “Mum!” he hurried over to me, shifting from side to side like he needed to pee. “Tell him!”
“Kid, bring the noise level down. And you heard your dad. You’re grounded. Believe me, it pains me more than you.”
“Ha ha!” Beth shouted from outside the door.
“You’d better be laughing at your own brilliant thoughts, Beth Carmichael, and not at your brother’s incarceration!” I called.
“Definitely the first one.” She peeked her head around the doorjamb. “And not the funniness of Luke talking himself into a grounding.”
“Shut up!” Luke lunged toward her and Braden caught him by the back of the shirt as Beth took off squealing.
“Oops!” Ellie cried again.
“We need to teach her a new word.”
“I don’t know,” Braden said, letting go of Luke, “it does seem to fit the situation when she uses it.”
“Oops!”
“Or not,” I said.
He snorted as Ellie reached out her little arm toward Luke. “Uke! Uke! Want Uke!”
Luke obliged and held out his arms for her. Once she was settled in his strong little-boy arms, my chest filled with more emotion than I could cope with. “I wish Beth was like you, Ellie,” he said.
Braden smirked. “Don’t worry. One day she’ll be old enough to be just as annoying. Enjoy this while you can.”
Luke sighed, as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. “Fine. We’ll watch cartoons. Since I’m grounded.” He grumbled to his little sister all the way out the door.
And there was blissful quiet in my office.
Braden turned to stare at me.
I stared back.
And then I huffed, “You’re the o
ne that wanted kids.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not the one who was so damn sexy I couldn’t keep my hands off you or my powerful, baby-making semen out of you.” He grinned.
I wrinkled my nose. “Charming.”
“Always, babe.”
“Okay, I thought you knew this already but clearly not, so heads-up: Semen? Not a sexy word.”
He wandered over to me, sliding his hand around my waist to pull me into him. “Noted.”
I melted into his strong heat, unable, even after all these years, to be in a room with my husband and not eventually end up attached to him in some way.
He kissed the side of my neck, and then my printed manuscript caught his eye. “What are you working on?”
“On that subject … my ‘Crabbit Writer at Work’ sign apparently no longer works.”
“Do you want me to get something with a more aggressive tone?”
“Like, ‘Fuck off’?”
“I think that might offend our kids.”
“I don’t think anything offends our kids. We grew those babies with abnormal amounts of emotional thick skin and way too much energy.”
He laughed and reached for the paper. “Enough of the subject change. What is this?”
I turned to face him, absentmindedly tracing patterns on the fabric of his shirt at his chest. “Actually something I wanted you to read before I consider submitting it.”
Curiosity flared in his pale blue eyes. “Oh?”
“I was approached by this author. She asked me if I’d like to participate in a digital anthology. We are to write a novella that’s kind of personal but fictional.”
“How so?”
“The concept is that I write a novella based on what might have happened to me if a pivotal moment in my life hadn’t occurred.”
He shifted, craning to get a look at the pages. “It sounds interesting.”
“That’s what I thought. So I wrote it. I chose to write an alternate reality based on what might have happened if I’d never answered Ellie’s ad for a flatmate.”
“And you want me to read it?”
I picked up the manuscript and held it out to him. “If you’re not busy.”
“Of course not.” Braden accepted the papers. “I’ll read it now.”
That little flurry of apprehension sprung to life in my belly again. “You’re sure?”
He gave me a quizzical look. “Is there anything in here you’re worried about?”
“No. It’s … you might think it’s cheesy.”
He threw his head back in laughter and then laughed harder at my scowl. He kissed the pout off my lips. “You’re Jocelyn Carmichael. You couldn’t be cheesy if you tried.”
I pushed him away playfully. “Once upon a time I would have agreed with you, but then you came along, made me all mushy, gave me three adorable kids who have completely messed up my hormones so I cry at yogurt commercials.”
Chuckling, he settled into my chair and shooed me away. “Go play with the kids. Leave me to read in peace.”
I huffed at the order but moved to exit the room.
At the door, I glanced back to watch as he settled in, kicking his long legs up onto my desk.
I imagined the first words he’d read and wondered what he’d think about where those words were about to take him …
* * *
What if, what if, what if? I’m sure that’s a question we all ask ourselves at least once in our lives. For many of us, I’m guessing we ask ourselves it more than we’d like. Before the year I turned twenty-two, that question haunted me. So much so, I’d confused existing with actually living. But then I met a certain man and a certain young woman on the same day: a day that would change my life forever.
Since meeting them, I’ve asked myself that question a lot less. And in recent years, I haven’t asked myself that question at all.
Until someone asked me to.
What if?
And the words you’re about to read are my answer. I choose to believe this answer because I know with certainty I can’t explain that no matter what time, what day, or what age, I was fated to meet that man and that young woman.
But still … what if?
Time changes us minute by minute. Circumstance, experience, it all changes us.
So … just because you’re fated to meet someone doesn’t mean that your interactions with that person will play out exactly the same; the ending you share with them will be the same in an alternate world where you met before or after your meeting in this one.
The possibilities are endless.
And exciting.
And terrifying.
* * *
This is my what if …
If someone had told me even two years ago that I would freak out about turning thirty, I would’ve laughed at the absurdity. Age didn’t freak me out. There were worse things in life than growing old.
Like never getting the chance to.
But shit fuckity shit fuck, as it turned out, I was turning thirty and freaking out.
I wasn’t where I wanted to be in life at thirty.
Glancing down at my watch as I poured a customer a draft beer, I sighed. In two hours, it would be midnight and my golden carriage of the twenty-something life was about to turn into a giant, decaying pumpkin.
My early twenties had been fine. I perfected the art of avoiding making real emotional connections with anyone and I was certain that was the way I wanted it. No, needed it. The thought of actually letting someone close enough to me for them to be worth grieving over when I lost them made me suffer full-blown panic attacks.
It was easier to be the friend and not the best friend.
Even my once best friend Rhian thought so. We used to be close in that we didn’t want to let the other too close. It worked for us. It was comforting having her there but not really there. But she married her college boyfriend, James. That changed her and we didn’t really have a lot in common anymore.
The same thing happened with my friend Jo. She worked the bar here with me at Club 39, until Mr. Good-Looking-Arty-Tattoo Guy showed up and she became Mrs. Jo MacCabe. I hadn’t spoken to Jo in … God … I couldn’t even remember how many years it had been.
The guy I was serving lifted his gaze from my breasts and gave me a big, flirtatious smile as I handed him his change. I turned away to deal with my next customer because me and men … yeah … that hadn’t happened in a while.
Like, a depressingly long time.
Like, born-again-virgin long time.
Oh, all right, it had been three years since I’d had sex. There was this incident when I was eighteen … I was sleeping around a lot and I woke up one morning with a guy on either side of me and couldn’t remember how the hell I’d gotten there.
Scary, I know.
So I quit the whole sex thing.
And then when I was in my early twenties, I had a fling with my coworker Craig after a seriously delicious kiss at the bar one night. From then on, I had a one-night stand every few months or so, to curb the need.
Until three years ago when I had a one-night stand with a guy who got extremely clingy afterwards. He started turning up at the bar and watching me. When I asked him to stop, he didn’t, and then I slammed him against the wall, grabbed his balls, and threatened to castrate him if he ever came near me again. Thankfully, he didn’t get off on stalking a woman who wasn’t intimidated by him, and I never saw him again.
So that put me off the whole one-night-stand thing.
I’d been through many a vibrator in the last three years.
God, I missed sex.
Maybe three years was enough time to trust that not every guy was a weirdo stalker.
“You’re quiet tonight, Joss?” my colleague Jeb said to me. “You thinking about writing?”
Jeb was nineteen years old and he thought it was cool that I had a book published. In fact, I’d had several published. Fantasy and paranormal fiction. They did okay. I was nowhere near as successful a
writer as I wanted to be. I was currently flirting with dipping my toes into contemporary fiction. When I told Jeb that, he thought that meant I wanted my characters to be disapproving and disdainful.
I really hoped it was a case of mishearing me. I hadn’t the heart to correct him.
Plus, it was funny.
For not the first time that night, I asked myself why the hell I was still working in a club with nineteen-year-olds when I didn’t have to. My writing didn’t pay very much, but I had a huge inheritance. I hadn’t been that comfortable using that inheritance, but I started easing up on that a couple years ago. After five years of living in a student flat, I finally had enough. I was twenty-eight at the time. I needed a respectable home. So, I used a small percentage of my significant inheritance to buy a nice two-bedroom flat in Morningside. I turned the other bedroom into an office.
“So why the heck am I still working here?” I grumbled under my breath.
Oh yeah.
Because without this job, I’d be a hermit and if I wanted to write contemporary fiction, I needed to, you know … experience life. If only through others.
However, over the last year I’d started to fear getting older and ending up alone. I never thought I’d fear that. I was supposed to be happy alone.
Fuckity fuck.
My biological clock was ticking and I had to wonder if ending up alone and childless was scarier than the thought of possibly losing again to that sneaky bastard Death.
Some days I would ache deep in my chest, this horrifying longing for a child gripping me. And then other days the thought of having a child, only to lose it, scared the shit out of me.
I was a tangled mess of yucky emotions and at midnight that mess was going to look a lot messier.
“Jeb, we’re out of lime. Can you get some from the back?”
He nodded and disappeared to do so.
“A fellow American. And a beautiful one to boot,” a deep Southern voice said from my right.
I turned and found myself staring at a tall, blond, very handsome guy. He had green eyes and right now they were focused solely on me. “A fellow American. And a Southern gentleman to boot.”
He held out his hand. “Travis.”
I shook it, getting a little sexual thrill from the strength in his big hand. “Joss.”
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