Page 372 of The Parkers' Handsome Holiday
“Gross,” Ethan said as he walked into the kitchen with Dad just behind him.
Bailey and I sprang apart, and I could feel myself blushing. As if we were a couple of teenagers who had just been caught necking, rather than two fully-grown adults sharing a sweet morning kiss. I cleared my throat.
“Breakfast?” I asked everyone. I glanced at Bailey, remembering how she had confessed to feeling pretty nauseous the previous day. There was a bit more color in her face today, but I didn’t want her to overdo it. She had to eat, though. “Pancakes?” I asked her, figuring that they were probably basic enough that she might be able to keep them down. And they’d be filling as well.
“Sounds great,” Bailey said, while Ethan nodded emphatically.
“Dad, you’re welcome to stick around,” I added.
“Don’t mind if I do,” Dad said, sitting with Ethan at the kitchen table while I bustled around getting out everything that I would need.
Ethan kept everyone laughing with stories about his sleepover. I made a mental note to thank Jake’s parents again, because it sounded like they had put up with quite a bit of mischief from the boys the night before. I couldn’t help glancing over at Bailey. Ethan’s birthday would roll around soon enough. Would she help me plan a party for him?
But I knew the answer to that before the question had even fully crossed my mind. Of course she would. Bailey had made it clear that she was there. That she loved Ethan and I both, and that she wanted to be a family.
I couldn’t help the goofy grin that crossed my face. Dad caught me looking and raised an eyebrow at me. I glanced at Bailey just as she happened to glance my way. She nodded, like she knew exactly what I was thinking.
“Hey, Ethan,” I asked trying to sound casual, “if you found out that you were going to have a little brother or sister, how excited would you be?”
Ethan’s eyes got wide as he looked back and forth between Bailey and I. Then, he got up on his chair and started jumping up and down and cheering. Bailey laughed. “Well, you asked,” she pointed out.
“Ethan, you know we’re not supposed to jump on the furniture,” I chided, but I couldn’t help laughing as well.
Ethan sat back down. “I’m going to teach them everything,” he declared. “Like how to draw and how to play PowerBox and how to shoot a BB gun and everything.” He continued babbling about all the things that he was going to do with his younger sibling, and I had to smile. Bailey was smiling as well, I noted, and it made something warm uncurl inside of me.
Dad nodded at me. “Congratulations,” he said to Bailey. But he grinned, and suddenly he looked a lot less stodgy and formal. “I’m the luckiest man, getting to have my son and my two grandchildren so close by.” He looked over at me. “Of course if you need any help with Ethan or anything else, you just have to holler.”
“Thanks, Dad,” I said gratefully. I knew that Bailey and I could handle things on our own if we had to, but it was definitely a relief to hear that Dad planned to continue being around to help out as needed. Not only that, but I knew that even though he and I had never been very close, he already planned on being just as close to this newest addition to the family as he was to Ethan. That meant a lot to me.
I was nearly finished with the pancakes when Bailey’s phone rang. She frowned down at the screen and then looked up at me. Was that guilt in her expression? What was that about?
“I’ll be right back,” she said, before I could ask any questions. She slipped out of the kitchen. Ethan barely seemed to notice, still chattering away about how excited he was to meet his new baby brother or sister.
“It won’t be for a little while now,” Dad explained to him, shooting me an inquisitive look.
I shrugged in response and tried not to worry. Maybe there was more to the story than just the pregnancy. Bailey and I still hadn’t talked about how her meeting had gone, I suddenly realized.
I remembered what Dad had said before about how lucky he was to get to have his two grandchildren close by, and suddenly I felt sick to my stomach. Was that what Bailey was really worried about? Was she planning on moving back to Nevada? I knew that her job with the casino came with considerably less risk than owning her own company, especially a ski resort. I had always been lucky to live close to my dad; maybe Bailey wanted to raise her child closer to Ian. The two of them had always been close.
I took the last of the pancakes off the stove and, without a word, headed after Bailey. I needed to know what was going on. I could barely imagine moving to Nevada with Ethan, trying to settle in to a new life while Bailey swelled with a child inside of her. But if that was what she wanted, then we would have to talk about things. Bailey and I had been pretty lucky so far, but I knew that relationships were all about compromises.
I walked into the living room just as Bailey was hanging up the phone. “What’s going on?” I asked, and again, there was that guilty look.
“There’s something else that I needed to talk to you about,” Bailey said, sounding nervous. “The casino guys have really liked the work I’ve been putting in. And they’re trying to expand to some new territory overseas. They offered me the position as head of the foreign casino.”
I stared at her, trying to process the words. “So you’re moving to Europe?” I asked slowly, my mind whirling. That was even crazier than I had thought. Moving to Nevada was one thing, but moving to Europe would involve all sorts of changes. Changes that I wasn’t sure that I really wanted to force Ethan to go through. He was already going to have to get used to the fact that he wasn’t an only child; did Bailey think it was fair to force him to do that over in Europe, with none of his friends even on the same continent as him?
“They put together a great offer and everything,” Bailey was saying. “You know, we’d get Ethan into a great international school, and there would still be skiing, and the salary was honestly absurd, plus they’d help with all of the visas and other relocation things.”
“Right,” I said, the word coming out strangled. It sounded as though she was seriously considering this.
But Bailey took a deep breath. “I turned it down,” she said.
“What?” I asked blankly.
“That was Ian who called just now,” Bailey said. “He wanted to talk to me about what I was thinking. He wanted to know if I had talked to you yet and all of that.” She shook her head. “And I just realized that when I picture a future with you, it’s here. In Park City. It’s what you talked about back in Vegas: chilly winter nights snuggled together on the couch. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
I stared at her for another moment and then briskly crossed the room to her, pulling her into my arms and squeezing her tight. There wasn’t anything more perfect that she could have said. She wanted to be here with me, with us. This was the future that she had been dreaming about.
