“What?” Nathan asked.
“Your new puppy.”
“You mean it?” Nathan perked up, and Klea set her tablet playing cartoons aside to stare at Joe with big gorgeous eyes that looked so much like Morgan’s.
“Yeah, buddy. There was a litter born at the construction site. Uncle Bryce is looking after them and thinking about keeping one for himself. But he said you can have your pick first.”
“Really?” Nathan’s eyes grew wide and Klea high-fived him.
“Do you think I could name it?” she asked her brother, who was a perfect little man, always looking out for her even though she didn’t really need him to. Joe knew that feeling well.
“Yeah, definitely.” Nathan beamed. “And we can take him for walks and play fetch in the yard.” Then he hesitated. “But what will happen at the end of the summer? What if there’s no room for the puppy when we go home?”
Joe looked to Morgan then, and she fielded the question, delicately as ever. “No matter what happens over the next couple of months, things are going to be different afterward. Remember? We talked about it.”
“Are we coming back at all?” Klea asked, making Joe aware just how damn intuitive she was.
“We don’t know yet, pumpkin,” he answered honestly. “We have to see how things go.”
“But even if we do, it will be to a new, bigger house with plenty of space for your dog. I swear,” Morgan told the kids. Then she reminded them, “None of those things are as important as knowing that wherever we end up, we’ll have each other. Right?”
“Right.” Klea nodded, then settled into her seat, picking up her tablet and clicking play on her video, apparently satisfied.
Nathan spent the next two hours straight talking about how much he loved the puppy he hadn’t even met yet. Morgan flipped through her phone, saving ideas for merchandizing a bakeshop nook inside Devra’s restaurant in addition to drafting recipes she thought would complement Devra’s menu. And Joe felt lighter than he had in a while, reminding himself that the crew would be taking this same road out to see them in less than a month. A month that was going to be filled with interesting and intense new work that would make the time fly by.
With every mile they drove, he smiled a little more.
Maybe, just maybe, they weren’t as screwed as he’d thought.