Summer with the Single Dad, page 19
Brooke snorted. “Oh, I know. He’s a real enigma, that one. Love the man to death, but he’s got some real interesting energy about him.”
“Like a nerdy lumberjack bear,” Jordana added before she and Brooke erupted into giggles.
“I only know Jagger when he comes to Bennett’s house early in the morning. So Bennett and I can go running. He comes in, resembling a bear—so yeah, that’s an accurate description—then he growls and flops onto the couch and goes back to sleep.”
Jordana’s eyes twinkled. “So it is like that, then. Hmm?”
Heat infused Justine’s cheeks.
“Leave her alone,” Brooke said, giving Jordana a playful shove. She turned to Justine. “Jordana works at the Town Center Grocery Store. But what you might not know about her is that she’s also taking her yoga teacher training so she can start teaching some classes here. This is actually where we met. Bonding over our desire to master crow pose.”
Now it was Jordana’s turn to get hot cheeks and because she was so fair, they burned bright pink, but it only made her more beautiful. Like a natural rouge.
“I still have about forty more hours of the two-hundred-hour class to go, plus the exam. But Lotus is a great instructor. I’m really enjoying it.” Her gaze drifted to the door when, speak of the devil, but the great instructor herself, seemed to float in as if carried by a cloud.
“All right, everyone,” came Lotus’s breathy voice. “Please find your way into savasana. Feet pointed to the corners of your mat, arms down by your sides, and begin a deep and comforting inhale through the nose and exhale out the mouth. Moans, sighs and all other noises of practice are welcome in this safe and inviting space.”
They all slid down to their backs.
“Have a great class,” Brooke whispered to her with a wink.
“You too.”
Justine was no yoga virgin. Although she preferred running, she did enjoy yoga. She just rarely had time for it. Running, she could squeeze in whenever it worked around her chaotic schedule. But yoga was on someone else’s schedule, and sometimes she was elbow deep inside someone’s chest cavity when the class was going on.
She was stiff at first, unable to get as deep as she usually could into certain postures. But as her body warmed up and they began their sun salutation A, the pull of her hamstrings with each downward dog grew more and more pleasurable. She relished the burn of her triceps when she dropped down into chaturanga, then up into baby cobra, feeling the compression of her spine and the opening of her chest.
Lost to the hypnotic flow of Lotus’s beautiful voice and the way she so perfectly guided them through each posture, Justine was mesmerized and in an almost zombie-like state. Yet, she was also so happy.
It wasn’t until they dropped down to their bellies and into a deep frog pose to open their hips that she snapped out of her trance. But that was only because the thoughts flooded in.
Not all of them bad.
In fact, most of them were good.
But some of them were about Mr. O’Malley, and Bennett’s wife, Carla. The guilt monster wasn’t nearly as loud as he could be, but he was still there, in dragon pose, telling her she was a terrible person and didn’t deserve happiness.
There was someone else there too, though.
And he sounded a lot like Bennett. And his voice was louder, and he was telling her to find her joy, to live her life and live it well. To not drown in guilt or grief because nobody that cared about us would want that. Then she thought about Aya and Emme, and how much she’d already come to care for them. Her mind drifted to yesterday and last night with Bennett, tangled up in the bedsheets—since she invited him back to her bed—and how good it felt to fall asleep in his arms.
As Lotus instructed them to slowly move their bodies out of frog pose and back into their final savasana, tears began to stream down Justine’s face. Then she choked on a sob.
Brooke’s gaze swung to hers, confusion and worry in her green eyes.
What was happening right now?
Why was she crying?
She made to get up and leave the room, but Lotus was suddenly beside her, her soft hand on Justine’s shoulder, urging her to stay seated and recline. “We carry an extreme amount of tension and emotion in our hips,” she said, addressing the class. “It is normal—and also wonderful—to cry or feel a flood of feelings when we do deep hip opening postures. Don’t push those feelings away. Embrace them. Welcome them.” Her eyes met Justine’s. “It’s okay. This is a safe space.”
With a lump in the back of her throat and hot tears still tumbling down to her temples, Justine nodded and lay back into savasana. A hand on the other side squeezed hers and she glanced over to find Brooke smiling at her.
She smiled back and exhaled through thinly parted lips.
Closing blurry, tear-filled eyes, she engaged in more deep breathing, following Lotus’s final guided meditation and allowing all thoughts—good and bad—to stay out of her conscious mind.
Focusing on her breathing was good.
Meditation was good.
By the time they said “namaste” with their hands at heart-center, the tears were gone and the knot at the back of her throat had shrunk.
“Oh, that was soooo good,” Jordana said, all doe-eyed and smiley.
Brooke nodded as she rolled up her mat.
“Did you know that about hip openers?” Justine asked as she took a sip from her water bottle.
The two women nodded.
“I’ve cried a lot in yoga over the years,” Jordana said. “Especially during my divorce. I was known for a while as “the crying chick,” apparently.”
Brooke snorted.
Lotus was busy saying “goodbye” to other people, but she made her leave of them and floated back over to where Jordana, Brooke, and Justine stood. She singled out Justine. “You okay?”
Justine nodded and huffed a small laugh through her nose. “I think so.”
“Hip openers are powerful.” Curiosity burned in her pale-blue eyes, like she wanted Justine to elaborate on why she cried.
“Seems like it.”
Lotus seemed lovely, and so did Brooke and Jordana, but she really didn’t know these women very well, so opening up to them wasn’t on the agenda. At least not yet.
Or ever.
Justine had never really opened up to anybody. Not really. And she didn’t have girlfriends. She didn’t have a village, or a tribe, or girl posse, or whatever. She had acquaintances. And she and Tad had friends—couple friends. Most of them were other doctors. But none of them had reached out since she left. Since she and Tad split up. Which meant, clearly, they’d all picked their team, and it wasn’t Team Justine.
That lump in her throat was back, but this time for an entirely different reason.
She didn’t have any friends and up until this moment, she’d never really felt the longing for any. She had work, she had Tad. What more did she need?
Apparently, a whole heck of a lot.
Fresh tears pricked the backs of her eyes and she swallowed past the chestnut at the back of her tongue.
With eyes that could see down to Justine’s very soul and probably read her mind, Lotus rested her hand on Justine’s shoulder. “I hope we’ll see you here again sometime.”
“I’m sure you will.”
Lotus gave her a final, friendly squeeze, then floated away on her little cloud like some fairy goddess in Lululemon leggings.
“Booch and Bagels?” Jordana asked, tucking her yoga mat under her arm.
“Um, yeah,” Brooke said. “I hear they just rolled out a Strawberry Mint Kombucha that I’m dying to try.”
“Meet you there.” Jordana picked up her pace and was out the door with everyone else, leaving Brooke and Justine together as the final stragglers in the yurt.
“Booch and Bagels?” Justine asked.
“It’s that little kiosk thing in the square. They sell kombucha and bagels. All homemade. From scratch. Organic. It’s become a bit of a thing now. Jordana and I meet for yoga, then we meet for booch and bagels. You wanna come? Or do you want me to drop you back off at home first?”
Home.
It felt as weird as it did wonderful to have Brooke refer to Bennett’s place as home.
“We have time to kill before we have to be at the funfair, right?”
“Loads,” Brooke said. “It doesn’t start until five. The kids will come home from school before then.” A sly look glinted in her eyes. “Unless you’re itching to get back for sexy-time with Mr. Serious?”
The heat was back in Justine’s cheeks. “Let’s go get some booch and bagels.”
Brooke smiled with her whole face, the morning sun making her green eyes glow like cut emeralds. “You won’t regret it. Their caramelized onion one with avocado and a fried egg, is amazing. It will change your life.”
Justine chuckled as they climbed into Brooke’s SUV. “Change my life, huh?”
“I’ve told Clint that it’s almost better than sex with him. Almost.”
As Justine sat in Brooke’s passenger seat, a new warmth spread through her. A warmth of hope. Of belonging. Although she never felt out of place at the hospital because she knew her role, knew that she belonged there, this was different. This was a different kind of belonging. This was being part of a community. Of a village.
Was this what girlfriends talked and joked about? Would she ever feel comfortable enough to add to the cheeky banter about her sex life? Did she want to?
She glanced over at Brooke, who sung along to the Backstreet Boys playing quietly on the stereo. Brooke grinned at her and reached forward to turn up the volume, a questioning look in her eyes.
Justine nodded, and soon the music was blasting and they were belting out the lyrics to “Everybody” with the sunroof open, the windows down, and the wind in their hair.
Yes, she absolutely did want to feel comfortable enough.
She wanted all of it.
She wanted to belong.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The funfair was just that—fun.
So many kids ran around with long strands of raffle tickets clutched in their sweaty little palms. The green tickets would get them entry to a game, bouncy castle or the cake walk. The pink tickets were what they earned if they won a game. Then they could trade those tickets in at the prize table. Lots of tickets for bigger prizes and a few tickets for smaller prizes.
Vendors from all over the island were there with food trucks and stalls, and anybody who could, contributed to various raffle baskets you could pay and enter to win.
Justine dug into her purse and pulled out a fifty-dollar bill, then wrote her name on fifty slips of paper before stuffing them into the different buckets for the different baskets. Her hand was cramping by the time she was done, and she wasn’t sure her phone number was even legible.
She didn’t actually need anything in any of the baskets, but it was fun and for a good cause.
“You know you can just come back to the winery and have more wine,” came a familiar voice behind her as she shoved two dozen slips of paper into the bucket that corresponded with the wine and charcuterie board basket.
Spinning around, she grinned at Naomi, who once again wore denim overalls, this time over a white tank top. Her thick, brunette hair was in a single Dutch braid down her back and gold-rimmed aviator sunglasses covered her green eyes. “Naomi, how are you?”
Naomi stepped forward and tugged Justine into a hug Justine wasn’t prepared for. So it was a touch awkward. They both knew it too, and Naomi chuckled as she pulled away. “Sorry, should have mentioned that I’m a hugger. I’m good. How are you?”
“Well, after I left the winery, I went back to my cabin to find it flooded.”
Naomi’s mouth dropped open. “No.”
“Yeah.”
“So … so where are you staying now?”
“A travel trailer has been rented for me and arrives today.”
“But …” Naomi paused and her brows bunched beneath the frames of her shades. “But where are you staying until then?”
“Um … one of the McEvoy brothers offered me a room in his house.”
“Oh!”
“They’re all about customer service.”
And Bennett definitely knew how to properly service her.
“I’ll say.” Naomi’s mouth curled up into a small, playful smile. “Which brother?”
“Um … Bennett?”
“Mr. Serious.”
“You’re the second person to call him that today. Why?”
“Because he is dour and, like, never smiles.”
Justine frowned. Bennett wasn’t dour. And he smiled all the time. What were these women getting at? A part of her wanted to dive into this more and ask what gave Naomi that impression, but Aya and Talia ran up to her with another little girl similar in height to Talia. They all had different colored snow cones in one hand and fists full of green and pink raffle tickets in the other.
“What flavor is that?” Naomi asked the girl. They had the same shade of green in their eyes, as well as smiles. And of course, thick, dark, curly, brown hair. This had to be a daughter, or a niece, or some relation.
“Blue raspberry,” the girl said, tipping the bright blue cone toward Naomi.
Naomi made a face that said, “No way.”
The girl shrugged.
“Justine, this is my daughter, Honor. Honor, this is my friend Justine. She—”
“Lives with us,” Aya announced with pride. “And it’s been great.”
Naomi and Justine shared a look that sent curious tendrils of heat, and maybe embarrassment, careening through Justine’s belly.
Honor shrugged again. “Cool.” She focused on her mom. “Austin asked me to come find you. He wants to know if he’s allowed to go in the dunk tank. He’s in line but I told him he better ask first.”
Now it was Naomi’s turn to shrug. “Sure. Tell him to take off his shoes first though.”
Honor nodded. Then Aya, Talia, and she all ran off, raffle tickets flying behind them like handlebar streamers.
“So … you and Bennett are—”
“He has been very gracious opening up his home to me. I booked my vacation here, away from the busy city, to unwind and find some perspective. I was devastated when I thought I’d have to leave because of the flood.”
Naomi’s mouth curled up on one side into a cheeky smile. She shoved her hands into the pockets of her overalls and rocked backward on her heels. “Whatever you say.”
“We need a doctor! Is there a doctor here? Help! He’s choking!”
Naomi’s bright green eyes went wide. “You’re a doctor, aren’t you?”
Justine and Naomi looked around for the distress call. So did others, the panic around them rising like an incoming tide.
Then they spotted him. It was a small boy, maybe six, and he was turning blue over near the popcorn machine. Two other boys stood staring at him in a frozen state of fright. They were only four yards away.
But Justine couldn’t move.
Just like the boys watching their friend turn from sky blue to cobalt, she was frozen.
All she could hear now was the pounding of her pulse in her ears as her heart thundered against her ribcage. The world around her turned into a colorful blur. Nobody had a face. Then someone ran past her, knocking into her shoulder and jarring her out of her catatonic condition.
When she came to—not that she’d blacked out—she found someone else hammering the heel of his palm into the middle of the child’s back. Out flew the popcorn or whatever he was choking on just as a woman with a flowy skirt and possibly a million bangles on her arms, ran up and scooped the boy into her arms. “Oh, Barnacle. Oh, Barnacle. Are you okay?”
Barnacle?
The man who saved the kid dipped his head when people started clapping. He waved them off, his eyes lasering in on Justine. Or at least she thought he was laser-focused on her. Turned out it was Naomi. His smile grew wider the closer to her he got.
“That was incredible,” she breathed as he stopped in front of her.
He dismissed her praise with a small frown and a headshake. “It was nothing. He is fine now.” Ooh, the man had a thick Italian accent, and the most intense dimples Justine had ever seen. He even had one in his chin. But, of course he did. Three dimples, a lush, thick head of dark hair with plenty of silver, and expressive, hooded, brown eyes. He was a walking, talking, definition of an Italian Stallion. He also appeared to be at least ten years older than Justine and Naomi. Probably late forties. But he looked good. All the women in earshot were gaping at him.
“Ciao, Bella,” he said to Naomi with another, more gallant dip of his head. Then he swaggered off.
“Who was that?” Naomi asked, her mouth open like a codfish.
Justine lifted a shoulder. “By the way, he was looking at you, I thought you knew him.”
Naomi shook her head. “Never seen him before in my life.”
The drama surrounding the choking boy disappeared, but that didn’t mean Justine’s shame over not helping didn’t sucker punch her in the kidneys the moment Naomi cocked her head and twisted her lips, giving Justine a curious look.
“Soooo … what happened back there?” Naomi asked.
Justine dropped her gaze to the grass. “I froze.”
“Yeah, I saw that. You are a doctor, right? Or is it like a PhD doctor? Do you have a doctorate in math? Are you Dr. Algebra?”
“I was a doctor,” Justine said nearly under her breath.
“Oh!” Naomi frowned. “But … you still know stuff, right? Like you don’t just forget how to put in an IV, or stop someone from choking to death?”
It wasn’t Naomi’s fault. She was only asking the questions that a lot of people were probably asking. They were questions that Justine was asking herself. But they were tough questions. Questions she didn’t know how to answer.
