Page 48 of 300 New Year's Eves

“Yeah. Henry does make things easier, doesn’t he?”

“Yes. Very much so.” Jeremy smiles, and it makes Sergio’s heart flip. For as long as Henry has been alive, Sergio has imagined himself at all of Henry’s milestones. And now, thanks to this second, third, ninety-ninth, two hundredth chance, he sees Jeremy there in some capacity, witnessing them as well.

“And I can tell he really likes you,” Sergio says. “He gets so excited when you’re around.”

Jeremy takes his eyes off the road for a brief second and looks at Sergio. “Same can be said about you.”

“What? That I’m also excited to be around you?”

“No.” Jeremy laughs and shakes his head as he returns his gaze to the road. “I meanthegets excited to see you. You were practically all he could talk about yesterday.”

Sergio’s cheeks warm and flush slightly, and he thinks about what Henry had told him before about Jeremy being excited to see Sergio as well. “And what about you?” he asks.

“What about me?”

“Were you excited to see me?”

Jeremy pauses and appears to think about this. He removes his left hand from the steering wheel and tugs at the corner of his eye before answering. “In a way, I was.”

“But not anymore?”

“Well, we didn’t exactly have the kind of reunion I had imagined. So, no.”

A frown pulls at Sergio’s lips. “I’m sorry about that,” he says and takes a breath. “Honestly, I hadn’t realized.”

“It’s fine,” Jeremy says with a sigh. “I shouldn’t have expected you to keep tabs on me.”

“No. I think you’re right. Any decent human being would have.”

Jeremy chances another glance at him again. “You’re not that bad.”

“Tell that to Rose,” Sergio jokes.

Jeremy sucks in a breath through his teeth. “You are right about that. She may take a little more work to impress than I do.”

“A little?” Sergio plays it up. “I’m straight-up terrified of her.”

“You should be. She’s out for blood.”

“I know. But I have it on good authority that she’s simply looking out for you.”

Jeremy’s shoulders slump. He stays quiet as he turns into the Harings' driveway, then hits the button to open the garage door. “It’s not her place to do that. I can look out for myself.”

“And is yourself telling you to look out regarding me?”

“That is yet to be determined,” Jeremy says and brings the car to a stop in the garage.

“I’ll do my best not to raise any alarms,” Sergio promises and exits the car. From there, he moves to where Henry is in the backseat and opens that door to pull his still-sleeping body out of the car. Jeremy reaches to grab him out of Sergio’s arms, but Sergio waves him off. “I’ll carry him down the hill.”

“Thanks,” Jeremy says, closing the car door, then hitting the lock button. Once outside the garage, he shuts the large garage door using the keypad and leads the way down to the barn. He looks over at Sergio again and nods his chin towards Henry. “I’m not sure when he’s heavier. When he’s dead asleep or wide awake and squirming around.”

“Less chance of him kicking me in the balls when he’s sleeping,” Sergio says, deeply aware of the truth of that statement.

Jeremy lets out a whoop of laughter. “Very true.”

“Oh! He’s gotten you too, then?”

“Thankfully, no. But I have witnessed Holden be on the receiving end more times than I can count.”