Searching for Neverland (47 page)

The crowd exploded again, and when the
y
calmed down, Zack started talking again.

“Alright, so we’re goi
ng to close out tonight with a
song I wrote for my fiancé, Emily,” he said, as he searched for Emily in the crowd and all around me female fans grumbled about Zack being taken.

Once Zack found Emily, he winked at her, and she blew him a kiss back, and I decided they were one of the most adorable couples I’d ever met.

“This song is called
Without You,
and it’s on ou
r new album that drops next month
, but you’ll be able to hear it on the radio next week, right Molly?” Molly nodded apparently, because Zack faced the crowd again and said, “Yeah, next Tuesday, it’s availab
le for download, so go buy it
!”

The crowd lost it again but quieted down as soon as Zack launched into the song.

“I heard he proposed with this song,” Josh whispered in my ear. “How do you think I’m going to do it?”

Shivers went down my spine at just the thought of him proposing, and I grinned like an idiot.

“I don’t care,” I whispered back. “As long as it’s you who’s asking, I’m saying yes.”

“What are you two whispering about?” Allison demanded, hands on her hips.

I looked over at her and Casey standing there watching us. I didn’t think they’d heard any of our conversation. It was too loud, but still, I sort of wanted to keep what Josh had told me private – at least for now.

“Sex,” I told her. “Hot, dirty, sweaty sex that I’m planning to have with your brother later.”

Josh and Casey laughed, and Allison made a face. “That’s gross. We share DNA.”

“Well, we’re not inviting you to join us,” I told her.

“Casey can join us, though,” Josh chimed in, and I smacked him on the chest.

“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Sean suddenly said, as he came up next to Casey and took her hand.

“What are you doing?” she asked, eyeing him warily.

“Claiming you,” he told her.

“Why?”

“Because you left me all alone in bed this morning, and I didn’t like it.”

“Sean!” Casey admonished through gritted teeth, and I was pretty sure Sean shared something she didn’t want anyone else to know about.

My eyebrows shot up into my hairline. “Excuse me?”

All eyes were on Casey and Sean as she threw her arms up in the air. “Fine! We’ve been sleeping together for the past month, okay?”

“I knew it,” Allison cried, pointing her finger at Casey. “I knew it. The way you were looking at him on Saturday night when he was talking to those girls. You were so jealous.”

“You were?” Sean asked, his eyebrows rising in question as he looked down at Casey.

Casey’s face turned red
, as Sean’s arms encircled her waist and pulled her against him
.

“No, we’re just doing the friends with benefits thing. I told you that. No strings,” she insisted, but we all knew she was lying
by the way she was looking at him adoringly
.

“It might have started out that way, but you love me now,” Sean teased,
as he leaned down to kiss her.

“I do not,” she mumbled into his chest
.

“She totally loves me,” he said, looking around at the rest of us. “Finally!”

We all laughed.

“Sean’s been trying to get in Casey’s pants for years,” Josh whispered in my ear, and I looked at him in surprise. He nodded in confirmation. “He’s always been in love with her.”

I shook my head slowly. “I never knew.”

“Yeah, well, you also never knew I was in love with you either, so you’re pretty dense.”

“Hey, not cool.”

“I’m only teasing,” he said, as he pulled me close to him again. “Now, please tell me more about that hot, sweaty, dirty sex you want to have with me, because I’m seriously semi-hard just thinking about it.”

I looked up into his sparkling blue eyes and pushed his light brown hair out of them. “We don’t have anywhere to have sex, dirty or otherwise. We’re staying with my parents, remember?”

“We have an office, with a couch,” he reminded me, and I was suddenly counting down to when the party would be over.

Epilogue

“Can we open presents?!” Tanner asked.

“No, we’ll open them after dinner,” my mom told him for the hundredth time.

Every five minutes, one of the three kids asked that question, but then again I hadn’t ever seen a pile of presents as big as the one under the tree at my parents’ house, unless you counted the one at our house
, so I knew they had to be pretty excited
. Josh and I had gone a little nuts buying presents, but it was our first Christmas with Caleb and Savannah, so we wanted to make it special for them.
And apparently my parents had done the same thing. But the kids deserved it.

Caleb had h
ad a rough couple of months, so
we’d started taking him to see a therapist once a week. He’d finally been able to process everything he’d been holding in for years and deal with his feelings about his mom and her suicide, and he’d been making such amazing progress. He was also making friends at school, and he and Tanner had gotten close, even though they were a grade apart. At least once a week, my mom would bring them both back to her house where they would play video games or ride bikes or play catch in the backyard.

Caleb had never played baseball before, but he really seemed to enjoy playing with Tanner, so Josh had been working with him, and we were planning to
sign him up for
Little League in the spring. He seemed to have a natural talent, and even though he’d be behind most of the kids his age, we knew he’d catch up fast.

Savannah had taken the news of her mother’s death hard. We hadn’t told her about the suicide, knowing she would never be able to process it. We’d just told her her mommy was in heaven.
She’d asked a lot of questions
and cried and didn’t understand why her mommy had to leave, and for the first few months, most nights she’d have a nightmare and end up our bed, but they’d slowly been subsiding.

We’d enrolled her in gymnastics and dance since she had more energy than any of us and needed an outlet to expel it, and the week before we’d all gone to her holiday recital. She’d worn
a white outfit with feathers and a tiara that she refused to take off for three days afterward. I finally convinced her that we could put it on a shelf above the bed in her new room that we’d decorated in a princess and butterfly motif.

After two months of the kids not wanting to sleep separately, they’d finally asked us for their own rooms, and we’d moved them in right before Thanksgiving. We knew they were too old to share long term, but they hadn’t wanted to be separated.

The judge had granted Josh full custody of Caleb and Savannah in late September, following the reading of Carlie’s will and an inspection into our life to ensure we would provide a good environment for the kids. The fact that the kids both told the judge they wanted to live with us certainly helped to seal the deal, and they ‘officially’ moved in even though they’d already been living with us for nearly a month.

And I’m not going to lie, it wasn’t the easiest adjustment for any of us. I was happy to have them there, don’t get me wrong, but at the same time, taking on two kids, full-time, who’ve just gone through a traumatic experience at the same time you’re working to build a new business is a balancing act. Josh and I learned how to capitalize on time together, which was mostly when the kids we
re in school
, and my mom would always babysit, but we weren’t in the habit of pawning the kids off on her. They were ours
,
and we took care of them.

But we went from seeing our friends weekly to having to schedule in time
that would work with our busy lives
. We mostly saw them at the bar when we were working or had them over to our house if we wanted to hang out as a group. And I scheduled times to meet Casey, who was apparently getting serious with Sean, for lunch during the week. It worked, but it wasn’t the same. We all adjusted, but that was
just
what you did when you had a family.

Of course Allison loved to come over and hang out with the kids, and they
equally
loved her. She’d even asked Savannah to be the flower girl in her wedding in May, which thrilled her to no end.

The kids seemed to be happy, all things considered, and Josh and I were great. The bar was busier than ever, and we’d started steadily booking live music on Friday and Saturday nights and had become a key fixture in the local music scene. We both spent a lot of time there
during the first three months we were open
, but now
Brad managed the bar at night, and we’d recently hired
a girl named Cassidy
to be our day
manager,
so
we
could both be home with the kids more often.

The only thing I
’d really sacrificed, besides my
free time, was my MBA. It was just too difficult to juggle classes and a new job and getting into a routine with the kids, so I decided to hold off on finishing. I told myself I’d take a year off, and then I’d go back since i
t was important for me to graduate
, if not for myself for the two impressionable people living with me.

“Taylor,” Savannah said, tugging on the hem of my dress.

“Yes, baby,” I said, looking down into her wide brown eyes.

“Can we open presents? Please.”

I laughed. “Tanner! Caleb!” Both boys magically appeared from around the corner where they’d been listening. “Did you guys actually think I was going to fall for that?”

Tanner shrugged, and Caleb started to defend himself. “You have before!”

I laughed again. Yeah, sure, in the beginning I’d been a sucker for Savannah’s sweet questions, but I soon learned it was how she got her way and stopped falling for her wide-eyed innocence.

I leaned down and picked her up, her red party dress spilling over my arms. “Nice try, guys,” I said, looking over her at them. “And just because you used your sister to try to get what you want, Van gets to open one present.”

Savannah’s eyes got wide as the boys started grumbling that it wasn’t fair, so I led her over to the pile and selected one with her name on it. I had no idea what it was since my mom refused to tell me what she’d bought the kids.

“Take it into Grandma and Grandpa, so they can see you open it.”

Although my parents weren’t related to Caleb and Savannah, both kids had started calling them Grandma and Grandpa, which they loved. And they were getting ready to be official grandparents in a few months, so it was good preparation.

“I need lessons from you,” Taryn said from behind me, her hand on the basketball that her stomach had become in the past few months.

You couldn’t even tell she was pregnant from behind. She was all stomach, and she had that glowing pregnancy skin. And she’d found out she was having a girl, so everyone was excited, but especially Savannah, since she assumed the baby would be a doll for her to play with. Of course I knew Taryn looked better than she felt. Being a future single mom was definitely weighing on her
mind
.

“You learn over time,” I told her, and it was true.

I knew nothing about kids before I took on Caleb and Savannah, and now I felt like a pro – most of the time. There were still a lot of days when I wanted to pull my hair out because Caleb was in a mood and didn’t want to do his homework or Savannah threw a tantrum for some reason or another, but in those instances, Josh was usually the one who could restore order. He was definitely the one they listened to the most, but they’d known him longer. I was getting there.

Taryn sighed and sunk onto the couch.

“You feel okay?”

She shrugged, and I knew her frustrations weren’t from physical discomfort. Noah was back in the picture. She’d finally told him about the baby, and things between them were interesting to sum it up neatly. I didn’t envy her in the slightest.

“Noah called again last night.”

“Then maybe you need to give him a chance,” I suggested.

She shrugged. “I’m not interested. He’s too self-involved.”

“He wants to be a part of the baby’s life,” I reminded her, and that was a good thing.

“And he will be but just not a part of mine.”

“He wants that too now?”

She nodded. “Yeah, he does.”

I shook my head. My sister’s life was non-stop drama.

Josh chose that moment to appear in the living room. “Your mom bought Van an American Girl doll,” he said, his eyes wide.

I shook my head in annoyance. We should have coordinated. I knew there would be overlap. “Is it the same one we got her?”