“Yeah, okay. Fine. I’m in Texas. I’ll text you guys the address, and you can fly into Dallas and rent a car for the drive out to Hobie. But give me some time, will you? I have my hands full with some shit right now and can handle a visit better in a few days.”
“Good, here’s Griff.”
When I heard Griff’s familiar voice let out a great big sigh into the phone, I rolled my eyes and grinned to myself. Fucking drama queen. But god, I adored the guy. It was true—he’d always been there for me.
“I’m sorry, Griffin,” I said softly. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. When I got the call, it really threw me, you know?”
“Yeah, I’ll bet it did. I can’t even imagine what went through your head. Will you tell me about her? Please?”
So I did. We stayed on the phone for another hour while I told him I’d had a surly teenaged sister named Adriana and a single mother who’d worked her ass off cleaning houses and painting nails on the side at a local hair salon. I told him about my mom falling in love with the sheriff and me overhearing people say the sheriff would never marry her as long as that queer son was in the picture.
Griff cried some more, but that time I did too. We’d both left our biological families and wound up living on the streets of San Francisco. But thinking back on all that was a strange kind of bittersweet—because had it not happened that way, we never would have met each other. And I sure as hell could never wish for that.
“She had a baby, Griff,” I said with a wrecked voice. “Her name is Pippa.”
“Oh my god, Nico. That poor thing.”
“Yeah, so, I have her now, but don’t worry. There’s a nice couple who wants to adopt her.”
There was silence on the line for a long time. I wanted to ask him what he was thinking, but I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know.
“Adoption? Wow, Nico,” he said. “How are you handling all that? A baby. Wow.”
I snorted. “I know, right? Me with this four-month-old baby girl. But we’re managing okay. I can’t say I’m sleeping much at all.”
Griff laughed and turned away from the mouthpiece to relay that news to Sam. I could hear them both snicker on the other end and smiled to myself. I finally knew how they felt.
“Listen, Nico. I’m gonna call Mom and see if she wants to come with me. That way if you need help and I have to get back, she can stay.”
“No, Griff. There’s no need for that. I promise, I’m doing fine.”
“I’m not asking your permission. It’s happening. You know she’ll insist on coming anyway the minute I tell her.”
And I did know that. In addition to being a kind and generous woman, Rebecca Marian had six biological children and three adopted children. She was maternal, loving, and supportive of everyone she’d ever met. If there were any family I’d always wished I’d been a member of, it was the Marian family. And short of legally adopting me too, Thomas and Rebecca Marian had done everything in their power to be there for me over the years, including helping finance my tattoo shop.
I wasn’t used to needing others, and I sure as hell wasn’t used to admitting it. But maybe it was okay to do it just this once.
“Yeah, okay. I’d like that, Griff. Tell her thanks for me, okay?” I said.
The following day I showed up at Honovi’s office dressed in a clean button-down shirt and the nicest jeans I owned. I tried to look as put together as I could so the prospective parents didn’t think there was a lunatic in charge of the baby while they were waiting for the process to begin.
Luckily, Goldie had shown up at the house that morning to offer to stay with Pippa so I didn’t have to take her to the meeting. I was uneasy about letting the adoptive parents spend time with her before I had a chance to see what I thought of them. Even though everyone in town sang the praises of the vaunted Warners, I wasn’t about to let my niece go into the arms of a couple I hadn’t vetted myself.
When Hon brought the Warners into the conference room, their outward appearance indicated they probably were the golden couple everyone said they were. Jennifer and Daniel Warner were like catalog parents. Open up the catalog of perfect adoptive parents, and there you saw Jennifer and Daniel Warner.
Daniel was in software sales, and Jennifer was a middle school science teacher. They were so fucking perfect I wanted to slap them. I wondered what their secrets were. Did he hide a BDSM kink? Or was she secretly sleeping with a student? Were they secretly into prepping and hoarding weapons? Were they related to Hannibal Lecter? Fuck, why was this making me so twitchy? Didn’t I want Pippa to go to a loving family?