Page 74 of Just A Little Joy

“When you say it like that, it sounds bad.”

I shook my head. The backward logic was unreal. “Thank you for not stalking.”

“Oh no, I totally did that too. Look at this one.” Rory pulled me close to the tree and pointed at a photo of me at the gym. “Anders said this was too much.”

“Anders is a smart guy,” I said. “It’s a lot.”

“Yeah, he wouldn’t let us follow you home,” Rory muttered. “Said he’d tell our Daddies if we didn’t knock it off.”

“Tell us what?” Gabe asked from behind us. Rory froze. His eyes widened like a kid caught stealing cookies.

“What?” Gabe repeated, sharper now.

“Nothing,” I said quickly. “Rory was just telling me how they pulled off the ornaments.”

Now that I was looking, the pictures were actually a wide variety—with one thing in common. They were all unflattering.

Every. Single. One.

“C’mon, let’s get some food in you.”

Rory took my hand and led me into the kitchen, around the ginormous island table. The boys were poking and picking at the spread laid out in front of them. Cookies, candy, sausage rolls, little snacky bites—every single thing was something I loved. I had no idea how they’d gathered this much intel on me, but my heart was breaking at the idea that I was going to leave them.

I’d left friends before, and yeah, it had hurt, but I’d never left behind people who went to this much trouble for me. And these boys had. And I was leaving Daddy. And I didn’t even… I didn’t even know what to say.

We stood in the doorway for a couple of long moments before anyone besides Rory and Jakob realized I was there.

“Oh my gosh, you’re here! We were gonna surprise you,” Jakob said with a horrified look. He stomped his foot in frustration. “Could you leave and come back? The surprise might work.”

“I mean, I guess I could, but I’m already here, and I took my jacket off, and it’s raining.”

“Exactly the right answer, Casey. No one should go back out in the rain after they’re warm. Doctor’s orders.” Jakob gave a small nod, then fetched his paci hanging from a ribbon on his onesie and popped it into his mouth.

I took in the room properly then—the boys were openly drinking from sippy cups, or in Owen’s case, a bottle, as he sat on the counter leaning on Anders and slowly sucking on the nipple. Drew had found a chair and was shoveling food into his mouth with both hands. He saw me looking around and calledout before I could even come up with an excuse for why these grown men were in…oh wow, matching reindeer onesies using sippy cups and bottles.

“Dude, I do not care. Let that freak flag fly.”

“Thanks, man. I really appreciate that.”

“You’re welcome,” he said with total sincerity and returned to his plate.

What would it be like to be that unbothered by everything? It must be a trip. What would it be like to go through life like that? And was it too late for me to change my entire personality? Probably. But if I could figure out even a little of whatever magic he had, life would be so much easier.

A tiny seed of something rested in the back of my mind—small, but growing fast.

Daddy wasn’t here.

Daddy. Was. Not. Here.

“Is that a plane? I don’t get it. It’s a TV show, and your clues are a plane and a coconut tree,” Nico groused from the couch. Levi was up at the whiteboard drawing…something. Our game of Pictionary wasn’t going well. Turns out none of us had any actual artistic talent. Except Owen, but he was a terrible guesser, so even his pretty drawings didn’t help because none of us knew what the hell they were supposed to be.

“Fantasy Island,” Levi said. “I used to watch it with my mom. The guy would yell, ‘The plane! The plane!’ You know…reruns?”

Nico looked at him like he’d asked him to hike Mount Rainier at midnight. “No. No, we did not watch that show.”

Laughter burst around the room. Jakob was being way too generous with the wine he’d brought, and everyone was feeling it. Everyone except me. Daddy wasn’t here, and that made everything feel…off. Not fun. Not warm. Not right. Which wasn’t fair because I was the one leaving, and he was the steady one staying. I had no right to be upset he wasn’t here. Asking him tobe here would’ve taken a hell of a lot of nerve on my part. But I still wanted it. I still wanted him. And it was ridiculous to be this conflicted, but I couldn’t get my brain to cooperate or slow down or make sense of any of this.

I needed air. Oh my god, I needed air.