At one twenty-eight, my gaze adhered itself to the diner’s entrance. Fallon was miraculously dozing in the noisy diner, my plate of food had been devoured, and time was running out. Isaac had promised to have his brothers there by one-thirty if they were coming. If they weren’t there by then, I decided to wait for awhile longer, just in case they were running late. I didn’t have anything else to do and didn’t really want to jostle Fallon in the middle of a nap anyway. But, I really hoped they would arrive in time.
As the minutes passed, I sipped on my soda, not letting the door from my sight. I could feel my blood pressure slowly rising as the clock above the door ticked its way to the deadline. The second hand completed another rotation under my watch, and they were officially late.
“Looks like it’s just you and me today, kiddo,” I said, giving Fallon a sad smile. She was wrapped snugly in a green blanket with a little yellow hat covering her soft wisps of brown hair. Her eyes slowly fluttered open, but she didn’t cry. She just looked up at me when I spoke to her, “Hey sweetie. It’s pretty loud in here, do you think we should go?”
A quick glance at the door told me that it was now almost twenty minutes until two. They weren’t coming.
I could only image the terrible things they could say about me, the assumptions that could be made. It wasn’t my fault that I had become enamored with Isaac Hanson, that we had gotten lost in each other’s worlds for a few wonderful months. But, that wasn’t how it would look to most people, especially not given his special circumstances. Hopefully, they would come to see that I wasn’t a money-grubber and lying about Isaac’s paternity. If Isaac’s own brothers weren’t supportive, I knew things would be very hard for us, at least for awhile.
I started to pull on my coat, fighting back tears of disappointment and fear, when the bell above the diner’s door jangled. Isaac’s face came into view, a look of relief washing over his features as he spotted me. A long breath cascaded from my lungs and I relaxed for the first time since I’d walked in myself.
But when he started to walk toward me, I spotted a big problem: there weren’t two brothers following him, only one. Having spent a lot of time on their site since the previous winter, I immediately recognized him as Zac. So where was Taylor?
“I’m glad you’re still here,” Isaac said as they reached me.
“I was about to leave,” I admitted, rising carefully.
“I know we’re late, I’m sorry.” He looked like he wanted to say more, but instead gave me a smile and gestured towards his brother. “Julianne, this is Zac. Zac, Julianne.”
“Hi, Zac,” I greeted, extending my hand towards him. He reached forward and gave my hand a firm pump, smiling at me.
“Nice to meet you,” he said. I wanted to ask where their wayward brother was, but was distracted by Isaac moving towards Julianne’s stroller.
“Oh, you’re awake!” he grinned as he bent over to pick her up. He looked over at me once she was in his arms, “I can’t believe she’s so calm.”
“You just jinxed it, you know that, right?” He rolled his eyes at me before sitting carefully. Zac and I followed suit and Isaac angled himself towards his brother.
“This,” he started proudly, “is Fallon.”
“Oh my god, I can’t believe you have a baby,” Zac said, looking amazedly at her, “Can I hold her?”
Isaac looked over at me, asking for permission. I laughed a little and finished off my soda.
“Of course you can. You’re her uncle,” I chuckled, though inside I was a little nervous. I knew Zac wasn’t going to drop her or anything, but I had just met the guy a minute ago and he was going to hold my daughter?
As I set down my now empty glass, I corrected myself. Our daughter.
“What’d you have?” Isaac asked, looking at my plate.
I knew exactly what he was doing. He was trying to distract me so I wouldn’t ask the question he was apparently dreading. I cared about him enough to wait until we were alone together, since he obviously didn’t want to talk about it in front of Zac.
“Tuna melt. It was really good,” I explained, “Evidenced by the fact that I damn near licked the plate clean.”
He laughed, and reached over to give my knee a squeeze. I wanted to feel something when he did it, a tingle, a surge, anything. I wanted to be wrong about my previous assertion. I wanted to be in love with him.
But, the action passed as most do, fleetingly and unremarkably.
“Well, there’s a unit open in my building that’s available. I took care of the paperwork this morning and we can move you in any time,” Isaac beamed.
“It’s going to be awhile before I can do any heavy lifting,” I told him, trying to keep my voice down. Zac really didn’t need to hear about that.
“No worries. We’re going to take care of everything.”
“You two?” I asked, unable to help myself. He refused to meet my gaze and nodded at the wall just to the left side of my head instead.
“Yeah,” he started before forcing on a smile and looking directly at me, “As soon as you’re packed and ready, we’ll get started. And I was thinking we could maybe go pick up a few things today at Crate and Barrel.”
“Crate and Barrel?” I asked incredulously, “No way, Isaac. Target will be just fine.”
“Target it is,” he conceded, and I noticed that the corners of his mouth twitched, showing traces of a true smile.
“Well, she’s just perfect, isn’t she?” Zac asked as he looked up from Fallon.
“Of course she is,” Isaac said, reaching over to gently rub his hand over the top of her head, “I’m sorry, I just can’t get over how calm she is!”
At the table next to us, a cell phone started to ring obnoxiously, obviously on its highest volume setting. Without hesitation, Fallon started to wail. Zac’s eyes opened wide and I reached over to rescue him, taking her from his arms.
“You did this,” I told Isaac as I held her to my chest and patted her back.
“I did not.”
“I’m pretty sure you did,” Zac laughed, “So, you guys are going on a shopping trip today?”
“Apparently,” I replied softly, not bothering to remove the traces of annoyance from my tone.
“Only for things you need,” Isaac amended, “Stop worrying so much.”
“I just don’t want you to spoil her before she’s a week old,” I lied, covering up for my fright that he would be purchasing an entire condo’s worth of furniture. Apparently, that wasn’t his intention and I was so relieved.
Fallon must have fed off of my renewed sense of calm, because her tears started to subside. She snuggled into my shoulder as her tiny lungs settled back into shallower breaths.
“Well, Julianne, I just wanted to let you know that even though this is totally crazy, I’m really happy for you two and I’m excited to get to know you,” Zac said once Fallon had been placed back in her stroller and was again dozing.
“I’m really glad you’re here. I know that this is all really sudden for you guys, but it’s been sudden for me, too. I was completely resigned to doing everything alone, including raising her. I know we would have been okay, but…” I trailed off, hating the hormones still coursing through my body for making me get choked up.
“You don’t have to worry about that any more,” Isaac said, reaching for my hand. My free hand swiped tears from the corners of my eyes while the other laced fingers with Isaac. A feeling of comfort swept over me as the hard warmth of his digits slid between my own.
I looked over at him and found him looking back at me. His thumb swept over the back of my hand.
“Ooo. They have malts here?” Zac blurted as he perused the menu lying on the table before him.
“I could go for a malt,” Isaac agreed.
“Me, too,” I smiled.
I still didn’t know where Taylor was, but at least Zac was being supportive. I watched as Isaac and Zac talked about Fallon. It felt good to be sitting with them. I was alone so often, the knowledge that I would soon be around others all the time was a huge emotional relief.
I had a hard time tearing my gaze from my hand that was being held by Isaac’s. The action felt completely natural, and as I had noted before, surprisingly comforting. It still wasn’t love, but at the moment, comfort was good enough.