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Nick: Then we’ll go ahead with the plan.
Allison: Looks like it.
Nick: I’ll tell the family today.
I dressed in jeans and a polo shirt before leaving the penthouse. Getting used to a smaller space would be a challenge. Allison’s house was cozy, but it’d been years since I’d lived in anything smaller than four bedrooms. I only needed one, but I liked the flexibility of having a home office and spare rooms. I even had one with a pool table. But I could give up the pool table and everything else to make sure that Annie and Jack wouldn’t be carted off to the middle of fucking nowhere by their grandparents.
I’d have to seriously think about what to do with this place in the interim. I didn’t want to sell it. And I didn’t really like the idea of renting it out and having someone else live here either.
Just then, a genius idea came to mind: I’d put it up for rent but ask for a very high price so no one actually took it.
To make things work, I’d probably need to live with Allison and the kids for at least a year, maybe two.
Wow.Two years. Was I ready to put my life on hold like that?
I had to be.
I arrived in Essex right on time. The parking lot of the hotel was full, so it was impossible to see who else from the family was here.
Gabe and Maddox had done a fantastic job with the space. When they first told me they’d applied to the city to open a hotel, I’d been wary because both of them had separate businesses too. But they made it work. They’d initially planned to open it somewhere else, but then we got wind that Dad wanted to snatchup this property, and there was no way in hell we wanted him back anywhere near Boston. Fortunately, my brothers decided to buy it first. It had driven Dad right back to Australia, where he was also working in the hotel industry. He’d stayed there ever since, and I, for one, hoped we’d heard the last of him.
I headed straight to the huge backyard that went around the building. They had an outdoor area for guests too. The picnic was in the section that had previously been an adventure park that belonged to Maddox’s fiancée, Cami. She’d been against selling the business to him in the beginning. I thought my brother would fail to convince her, but eventually he did—and then some.
Quite a few members of the family had already arrived. The picnic was very informal. They’d brought out wooden benches and tables I’d never seen around the hotel perimeter before.
Cami waved at me. “Welcome.”
“Good morning. Hey, nice spot,” I said.
“Only the best for the family,” Maddox replied.
Gabe was holding our nephew, Ben, in his arms. I swear, sometimes I couldn’t believe how fast he was growing up.
“Was the drive okay?” I asked my grandparents, kissing Gran’s cheek.
“Of course,” Grandad replied in a stern voice. “It’s only forty minutes. We’re not dead yet.”
I exchanged a glance with Maddox, but he didn’t say anything. You never knew what mood the grandparents had woken up in. Sometimes they owned up to their age, and sometimes they didn’t.
I greeted everyone else after. Spencer and Penny had to be around somewhere, too, since Ben was. Maddox, Gabe, Colton, and Jake were here with their respective better halves.
Jake was holding his daughter in one arm. I had to give it to him, he never put that girl down. Then again, I never likedputting Annie and Jack down either whenever I was with them. I was looking forward to spending more time together as a family, even if the reason and logistics around it were complicated.
“Are we supposed to get food from inside?” I asked.
“The staff will bring out baskets so it looks like a real picnic,” Gabe explained.
“Besides,” Maddox added, “it’s a very convenient way of carrying stuff. We’ll eat from paper plates.”
“It was such a great idea to have a picnic,” Cami said. She was sitting on one of the benches, eyes closed and enjoying the rays of sunshine on her face.
“I knew you’d like it, fiancée,” Maddox said and bent at the waist, kissing her forehead.
“When are you going to put a ring on that, Maddox?” Gran asked, which made my brother laugh.
“I already did, Gran, but we’re both busy with other things. We want to give our wedding a lot of consideration.”
I never thought I’d catch an opening so soon, but here went nothing. Besides, my brother would thank me for taking the attention off them. Gran was getting bored now that her matchmaking had been too successful and had started nagging everyone about their wedding dates.