Page 47 of Except Emerson (Detroit ABCs #7)

“N o matter what, it doesn’t really matter.”

“I know,” Levi answered. “I know that.”

“Because it’s just a personal opinion,” I continued. “It’s only subjective ideas from someone who might have woken up with gum stuck in her hair, so she’s in a bad mood and lashed out.”

“And we know all about the gum problem,” he said, and then looked over at our son. Ice and peanut butter had saved Everett from scissors and a buzz cut, so his white blonde curls were still intact. He was also never allowed near Aunt Ava’s purse again.

“ Es una cuestión de opinión ,” Hernán chimed in.

Everett sat on his lap and they were reading together from a book that our friend had also read to Lucía when she was a baby.

It had been in one of the boxes that we’d carried out to his car when he’d moved to Las Vegas, but it had come back with him to Detroit in his suitcase so he could read with the little boy that he liked to call “ mi nieto .”

“ Es una cuestión de opinión ,” I repeated. “Didn’t I just say that?”

“But you said it in English,” he reminded me, and that was true. I’d never progressed too far in speaking Spanish, but I did understand a whole lot more than I used to. “Everett, ? qué es ?” He pointed to a picture on the page.

“ Oso ,” my son said, and Levi grinned and bent to tickle him. All three of them laughed and then so did I. “Mama,” he said next, and reached out his arms for me.

I picked him up and we cuddled, and Levi got in on the action, too.

Everett had been born twenty-one months before by emergency C-section after I’d gone into labor early, and my husband had been a rock for me until he’d first held our son in his arms. Then he’d lost it, and I had, too, and we’d been hugging a lot ever since.

Not that Levi had ever stinted on affection, and that was just fine with me.

In fact, I was thinking about the physical contact we’d had last night, just the two of us.

It had been without the usual protection.

If we were lucky, Everett August would have a sibling, but we were in no rush.

“We did so well the first time,” Levi had whispered while we’d watched our baby boy sleeping in his crib.

And I had always wanted siblings, people like Ava and Liv.

Everett already had five amazing cousins, and one more on the way.

Fortunately, both of my sisters-in-law had plenty of help, which Ava had agreed to accept.

After her second shoulder surgery, she’d allowed that maybe she would let go of some things and ask for a hand with others, because we all needed her in one, happy piece.

But Levi and I also needed to step up and do our part in expanding the love in the Lassiter family.

So the night before, I’d nodded and taken my husband’s hand, and once we were in our bedroom…

But for now, we had other things to deal with.

“Are you nervous? You shouldn’t be,” I told Levi, and Everett reached out for his favorite friend, Coral the cat.

She considered our little boy to be just that: ours.

Like, she was his cat mother, and she took her duties seriously.

When I put the baby on the floor, she checked him over, nudging him to be certain, and then allowed Hernán to reclaim him.

The three of them walked into the kitchen of what had been August’s house but was now ours.

We hadn’t heard from him since the day he’d left, which we considered a good thing.

It meant he was still in hiding and, we believed and hoped, doing better than ever.

“I think that one of us is nervous,” Levi said. He pulled me closer and admitted, “Maybe I am, too.”

“It’s just someone’s opinion, and you already know what I think. I love it so much, and so do your parents and your sisters. Hernán, María del Carmen, and Lucía were crazy about it and so was the whole Curran family. Everyone who read it thought it was the best book in the world.”

“I certainly heard those words from you,” he conceded.

“Because it is. You wrote best book in the world.”

“You know, even if the review is bad, I’ll be ok,” he said. “You’re remembering your mother, but I’m not her. No matter what it says, I’m going to sit down at my nice desk and write something else.”

It was a different desk from the one I’d given him when we’d decided to move in together.

It had turned out that, in fact, all the parts in the box were necessary in construction, or the piece of furniture really didn’t work right.

So we’d built a new one together and there was nothing left on the floor at the end, and Levi used it every day.

He’d been able to leave his former job at the real estate firm because his writing career had started to take off as he published short pieces that found a nation-wide audience.

And then, one day, he’d announced that his book was done. I’d gotten to read the finished product and it was, without a doubt, the best in the world. Ever. He’d just received an email from his agent with a review attached, and I was sure that it said only wonderful things. But if it didn’t…

“I know you’ll be fine,” I answered firmly. “I know it.”

“Then let’s take a look,” he told me, and we went into the little room next to the kitchen that was his office. He sat in his desk chair and I sat in his lap.

“Ready?”

I nodded. He clicked and then read aloud the words on the screen. My stomach, which had been in knots, started to rise up through my throat.

“Well,” he said, and leaned back. “Holy shit. I guess she didn’t wake up with gum in her hair this morning. She liked it.”

“She loved it,” I corrected. “She absolutely loved it, and she’s absolutely right about that.”

“I love you,” Levi said. “I absolutely do.”

And that was the bond I’d always been looking for. I’d found it, and there wasn’t anything better.