“Take me off speaker, Dad.”
“I can’t, son, I have other things I need to do right now.”
And with that, Andy disconnected.
He looked to Jagger. “You have her?”
“Yes,” Jag answered what he thought was unnecessarily, but he was not yet a dad.
Andy nodded and turned, “Liane, honey, come here.”
Liane wandered to him, and the minute she got close, she was in his arms.
Hellen was holding Haley.
Archie sniffled into his chest.
“Welcome to the family, Jagger,” Andy remarked sarcastically.
Before Jag could say something to try to defuse the situation, Archie’s phone rang in his hand.
Andy looked to it and declined the call.
That hurt to witness, and it probably killed Andy to do it.
But Elijah would have to be fucked right the hell up if he didn’t feel the worst of that.
Not there, by his choice. Blocked out, by his actions.
Knowing he caused pain and unable to do anything about it.
Also on him.
Which would be gutting.
At least it would be to Jagger.
Jag decided not to reply to Andy’s remark. He just held Archie with one arm and caught her around the back of the neck with his other hand, giving her a reassuring squeeze.
“One thing I know right now, I need a flipping cupcake,” Hellen declared.
Haley cry-laughed, so did Liane, and Archie turned her head, pressing her cheek to Jagger’s chest, but she didn’t let him go as she said, “I do too.”
“I’m eating three of those babies,” Andy announced.
“I’m so, so glad I doubled the recipe,” Haley stated.
“I’m so, so glad you always double the recipe, Mom,” Liane said.
“Well, I have to send my girls home with cupcakes.” Her gaze fell on Archie and she concluded tentatively. “All my girls.”
Archie lurched in his arms and shoved her face in his chest again.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t—” Haley began quickly.
“You should.” Archie’s voice came muffled, but no one missed it.
He knew this when Haley whimpered.
So did Liane.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Hellen said, holding tight to her mother even as she shuffled her mom in the direction of a box of tissue. “It’s good Jagger and me are badass or this would be totally pathetic rather than just mostly pathetic. And just to note, I’m epically disappointed that Archie’s turned to the dark side and become a crier. This is completely messing with my plans to have a girls’ night viewing of The Fault in Our Stars.”
He felt Archie’s body start shaking with laughter in his arms and he could have kissed Hellen for it.
“What? I’m not badass?” Andy asked.
“It’s impossible for Dad Units to be badass,” Hellen returned.
“She better not say that around Hound,” Jag whispered in Archie’s ear, and her shaking got worse.
Hellen continued in her attempt to lighten the atmosphere, and she did it with a threat to Andy. “But do I have to share with the class what happened when you and me watched Me Before You together?”
“Please, God, don’t,” Andy begged.
Liane giggled.
So did Haley.
“Dad can get the weepies,” Archie confided in a mumble.
“Right,” Jag mumbled back.
Everyone started migrating back to the dining room as Archie pulled her face out of his chest.
“So, as you now know, I can have my not-so-chill times.”
“You losing it in the face of the pain of someone you love, pain that someone else you love is causing, let me go on record as saying is all kinds of hot,” he shared.
“You think everything I do is hot.”
“That’s because, so far, everything you do is hot.”
Her mascara was totally fucked up and her eyes were already a bit swollen.
But she made even that hot.
He didn’t share that.
“I’m really looking forward to meeting Hound,” she said.
And shit.
He needed to get on that.
He shifted them so they were still connected but aimed at the dining room table.
He then started them that way.
“He’s looking forward to that too.”
She gave him a squeeze.
While he was returning it, Andy caught his eye.
And Jag knew, even if fathers of daughters with dead mothers didn’t have long memories, he was still in with this family.
Because Andy Harmon cried at sad movies, loved and helped raise two girls who were not his own, adored their mother, and put up with a ton of shit from his son because he was his son and he loved him too.
So that was the house he built.
And that was the people he had in it.
And Jagger was now in that house.
So that was the way it always was going to go.
Jag made sure Archie was seated before he took his own chair.
And as Andy put cupcakes on plates and passed them around, everyone got two.
Except Andy, he took three.
And Jag, who got three too.
* * * *
Jag was on his back, Archie curled into his side, nuzzling his skin with her nose and mouth and trailing her fingers over his chest. He had his arm around her and was tracing random patterns on the skin of her shoulder.
They’d fucked, she’d cleaned up, and they were in her bed even though they’d planned to spend the night at his pad (after the emotion of the day, he wanted her to have her space).
It was dark because it was late.
But the space by the bed lit up with her phone going again.
She had it on silent.
And neither of them had to look to know who it was.
“How many is that?” he asked softly.
“Who cares?”
She did, he knew.
He said nothing.
Her brother was blowing up her phone.
She didn’t block him, but she didn’t pick up.
To take her mind off it, he urged, “Tell me about Haley’s ex.”
She drew in a breath, let it go, which he hoped was letting the shit happening with her brother go (at least for now) and gave it to him.
“I’ve only seen him a couple of times. Never met him. Liane played lacrosse in high school. He came to a few games. He’s a workaholic. He abandoned them without officially abandoning them, if you know what I mean.”
“I do,” he confirmed.
He felt rather than saw her nod.
She then continued.
“Haley tried to get him to work on their marriage, not his job, he kept promising he would, but didn’t. She got fed up with it, and when he was away on business, which he was a lot, she had the locks changed. Asked him for a separation. He’s not big on failure and wouldn’t even discuss it. He also wouldn’t change his ways and spend more time in his roles as a husband and father. So she saw no way forward except to file for divorce. He’s never forgiven her and he’s not the kind of guy who lets things lie. That means now, even though they’ve been divorced since the girls were little, I think it’s been maybe ten, twelve years, he still intermittently gets in her shit about ‘giving up on them.’”
“What a dick.”
“Yeah, and I will note, I saw him go to a few of Liane’s games. And I didn’t go to all of her games, but I’d say more than half of the ones I went to, he wasn’t there. But Dad never missed one. And Hellen plays the flute, and she’s had some concerts, and I’ve never seen their dad at Hellen’s gigs, not once. My dad…again, always.”