Yeah, I belong to a boxing gym. I go on weekend mornings or any other time I feel like beating the shit out of a heavy bag. It's strangely calming.
Sorry but it has to be said. That is the hottest thing I’ve ever heard.
I bite my lip, considering my next move. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m nervous about something other than him for a change, or that I haven’t been nervous around him since the day of our first run more than two weeks ago, or the memory of my head on his shoulder and his head on mine, but I decide to be a little bold.
Me
Is it?
Jeremy
You bet it is.
Well, if you think that’s hot, you should see me in the ring.
You do that?
Sometimes. It’s fun. My gloves are pink.
You’ll have to come see it sometime.
I would…really like that.
I have to go. I’m sitting in the car outside my office right now.
You’ll be amazing, Ems. I’ll be thinking about you.
I could spend some time considering why rereading a handwritten note and a few flirty texts have almost completely eradicated my nerves and replaced them with the kind of butterflies that meanI like a boyand notI’m so nervous about today I want to die, but instead, I grab my bags, push open the door to the car, and walk up the front steps to my office.
I knew Hallie, Julie, and Molly were already here since I saw their cars out front, but what I didn’t expect was to see them sitting around the kitchen island, and for Julie’s mom, Rachel, to be occupying one of the stools. Or the box of donuts sitting in the middle of the island. Morning donuts are reserved for our most important days—lately used mostly for breakfast stories of the sexy variety—so seeing them there has me freezing in the entryway, my emotions bubbling right up to the surface again and my bags dropping to the floor so I can wipe at my eyes.
At the sight of my tears, all three of my friends start to get up from the table, but Rachel motions for them to sit back down and gets up herself. She says nothing at first, just wraps me in a hug, and when her arms are around me, she starts to whisper into my ear.
“It’s a big thing you’re doing today, Emma. Everything you’re feeling is normal. I am so proud of you, honey.”
I close my eyes for a second, soaking in her words and feeling every ounce of the love and affection Rachel exudes in abundance.
When my parents died, I was lucky to have my grandparents step in to raise me. They were loving and supportive and were there for me every step of the way. But what they weren’t, was parents. I forced myself to be okay living without a mom and dad because there was nothing I could do to change it.
Then Rachel Parker stepped into my life.
It was Thanksgiving during my first year of law school. I had recently met Molly, Julie, and Hallie, and we were basically inseparable. A week before the holiday, the four of us got a little drunk on tequila and I let it slip that I was dreading going home. Thanksgiving was my parents’ favorite holiday. Every year we had a special Thanksgiving breakfast just the three of us and then a massive dinner with all my aunts, uncles, and cousins. Friday morning, we went Black Friday shopping together and had brunch at our favorite diner before coming home and spending the rest of the day on the couch in pajamas.
My grandparents tried hard to keep all our traditions going, and most of them made me feel happy, but not Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving was a big fat reminder of what I no longer had, and I hated every minute of it.
When Julie heard that, she demanded I come home with her and refused to take no for an answer. She and Hallie told me their families spent the holiday together every year, and Benbrought his friends too, they said, so it was a big chaotic mess of the families they were born into and the families they were making for themselves. I was too old, Julie insisted, to do things that made me feel terrible. And she was right. I explained it to my grandparents, who only wanted me to do what was best for me.
So, I went to Julie’s house, and two things happened.
I met Julie’s brother Ben’s best friend, a former professional hockey player with scars on his knee, haunted eyes, and a smirk that gave me butterflies.
And I met Rachel Parker.
In Rachel, I found the mom I had been desperate for since I lost my own so young. It didn’t matter to her that I wasn’t her blood or that I was twenty-one years old and could certainly take care of myself. I was Julie’s, so I was hers. As simple as that.
She put my number in her phone, and she used it. She called for no reason and texted to check in. She sent me emails and letters and fun packages when I was drowning in finals. She reminded me to breathe and floss and eat a cupcake after a bad day and call my grandparents to say hi. She checked on me when I was sick and sent presents on my birthday and gave me back things I was so used to living without that I didn’t realize how desperately I had been missing them.
Hallie and Molly are hers too, but Rachel Parker is the kind of mom who gives each of her kids exactly what they need. What I needed was a little extra mothering, to make up for the years when I had none at all.
