I groan. “Yeah, well, I’d have had to have seen him at some point in the last eight years in order to get a div-”
My sisters waves her hands as she’s nods at the backseat.
“He’s on a big repeating phase,” she says with roll of her eyes. “So…”
“Thanks,” I say with a grin. Stella shuts the car off and opens her door.
“Look, I’ve been pretty flipping busy, you know.”
She wags her brows at me over the top of the car as she opens the back door to get at Carter. “I know, I know, big fancy New York busy-body and all.”
I stick my tongue out at her as she grins.
“I’d just have thought that you’d-”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t okay? We’re still….” I sigh, pushing my hands through my hair as I open mine. “We’re still that.”
Stella gives me a very certain look but doesn’t say anything.
“Look, can we change the subject before we go inside.”
She snorts. “Definitely.”
“How was LA and seeing Kyle and Austin?”
She laughs. “See how long we go without talking? That was like three months ago.”
I make a face and sticks her tongue out at me like we’re teasing kids again.
“It was interesting, and a very long story. He bought a boat.”
I raise a brow. “Our brother or his NFL pal?”
Our youngest brother Kyle is the de facto computer genius of the Hammond family, and has been out in Los Angeles for the past few years paling around with his college roommate-turned-pro-quarterback Austin Taylor. The fact that he’s a newly minted millionaire and never has to work again after selling this computer program he wrote to the U.S. Government seems to be lost on our brother, since he also just took a job with the FBI.
“Oh, Kyle.” She shrugs. “It’s actually a really nice boat. Carter loved it.”
“And he’s really dating the Vivian Ames?”
New boats, swanky government jobs, and dating the gorgeous socialite queen of New York City. Somehow our awkward computer nerd of a little brother became James Bond.
“Oh, she’s spunky, you’d like her.”
I pop the trunk and lug my over-sized suitcase out. “Remind me again how he managed to get out of this?”
Stella rolls her eyes as she pulls Carter out of the booster seat. “Ivy they’re naming a park after Dad. I know you go out of your way to avoid coming home, but it’s sort of a big deal.”
I make a face. “I do not.”
“Whatever you say.”
Carter’s back is to me, and I flip her off, which makes her grin.
“Look, forget about Silas Hart, alright?”
Working on it.
The front door bangs open as our mom comes bustling onto the front porch.
“Oh my goodness! You’re here!”
Stella turns back and arches a brow at me. “Game face, sis.”
Chapter Six
Ivy
As little as I come back here, and as wrapped up in my own life back in New York I am, there’s something just warm about walking into the house I grew up in. It feels wholesome, and comforting. It smells like Christmas trees of years gone by, family dinners at a full table, and summer vacations all at once, and I can’t help but just feel love the second I walk through the front door.
I guess that’s why they say home is where the heart is.
The same soft white curtains, the same wallpaper, and the same collection of wind-up clocks across the mantel. There are the same photographs on the wall leading into the kitchen - expanded a little with more memories, more friends, and Carter now, of course.
The wall is of course less a few pictures too - there’s one of Carter stuffing Jello in his mouth where I know a horribly awkward picture of Silas and I at prom once hung.
Where that’s gone to I can’t even imagine.
Nor do I need to.
“There she is!” My dad comes bursting out from his study, a big grin on his silver-bearded face, his still-thick hair combed back and to the side like it’s been for as long as I’ve been alive.
“There’s my big shot!”
He’s been calling me that since the first blog took off, and he chuckles deeply, his broad-chested frame booming as he brings me in for a big hug, squeezing me tight. He steps back, beaming like the king of a castle - ever the reverend at a pulpit watching over his flock.
He gives another squeeze before he puts an arm around our mom, and I can’t help but grin at the two of them - exactly the same. Maybe a bit grayer, a bit softer around the edges than they once were. But 40 years, five children, and more memories than I can imagine later, they’re still happy.
Still as in love as the day they got married.