If This Was a Movie (Evergreen Park #2)

Chapter 36 – Jules

THIRTY-SIX

JULES

“Oh, look at you three!” Mrs. Donovan shouts at us as we stand in the doorway of the Donovan house, my heart pounding, holding a plate of cookies I baked with Sophie this morning.

It’s the Saturday before Christmas, and we’re attending the annual Donovan family ugly sweater party. Sloane came over yesterday, dropping off three matching sweaters with Christmas cats on them, telling me if we didn’t show up in them, we’d stick out like a sore thumb. Nate told his sister to stop freaking me out, joking that he just convinced me to give him the time of day. He was mostly joking, but I felt the undercurrent of honesty there, like he is still afraid of scaring me off.

Since the snowstorm, things have been…easy.

I’m still scared shitless of the unknown, but I’m moving past it, forcing myself to look past my fears and jump in. Ever since the snowstorm, I’ve spent most of my day at the main house, shuffling over first thing in the morning to steal a few kisses and drink coffee with Nate, then get Sophie up and out the door.

I still sleep in my own bed at the cottage, nervous about what it might mean if we stop pretending I don’t have my own place and how that might impact Sophie, but that’s just about all I do there.

Being a part of his family has been…easy. Surprisingly easy.

But I like it a lot, this new little normal of ours.

And now, I’m being hugged and tugged from Donovan to Donovan as if I belong here, too.

“Our girl,” Sloane says with a smile.

“I’m so happy he hasn’t scared you off yet,” Sutton says, pulling me away from Nate. “Though the mere fact that you convinced him to wear this sweater is proof enough you’re strong enough to endure our brother,” she says, tugging at the sleeve of mine. When she brought them, Sloane told me there was a good chance I wouldn’t be able to convince her brother to wear it, and I agreed.

But as always, he was a team sport, and he smiled as he shrugged it off. It was obvious why, when Sophie came out, she had the biggest smile on her face when she saw her dad.

“Come on, we have to talk,” Sloane says, tugging my arm and looping hers through it.

“We do?”

“We need an update on how bad our brother is fucking this up,” Sutton says, looping hers through the other. “Before everyone gets here.”

“I, uh,” I start, looking over my shoulder at Nate to save me, but he just smiles.

“Be gentle with her. Don’t scare her off. I like this one,” he says with a laugh. And then he winks at me, his sisters carting me off to another room.

Even though it’s strange and different since I’ve never really confided in anyone but Ava and Harper, I filled them in on the last week or so, keeping out the gory details. It feels like what I always thought having sisters would be like, and I’m reminded of just another thing I would have missed out on if I let my fear win.

Being brave is turning out to be so fucking worth it.

Two hours later, I’m standing in the sunroom of the Donovans’ house, watching Nate, Sophie, and a bunch of the kids who came to the party have a snowball fight. I grimace as I watch Sophie and an older boy tackle Nate to the ground, his hands going up in surrender as he laughs.

He’s good with the kids, deciding when a little boy almost knocked over a vase after all of the kids were experiencing a bit of a sugar high that they needed to expend some energy, telling them to get on their jackets and head outside for a snowman-making competition.

It quickly devolved into chaos and, obviously, a snowball fight, and it’s been entertaining to watch. He leans down, propping Sophie on one hip and his cousin’s two-year-old toddler on the other. My heart flips at the sight, thinking of Nate holding Sophie and a kid we made together. Slow down, Jules. We just got past admitting you love the guy.

“You’re Julianne Everett, right? You own First Position?” a man with a plate piled high with cookies asks, ripping me from my daydream.

“Uh, yes! I am.”

“Hank,” he says, putting a hand out. “Approvals for the town.” Ah, so he’s the one holding my place hostage.

“Nice to meet you,” I say, taking the hand and shaking it.

“How’s the place?

“Oh, you know, still waiting for the final improvements, but I’m excited to get back in.”

His brow fires up, and his neck goes back. “Improvements? Is Donovan doing more to it? I don’t think that came across my desk.”

“I…I’m not actually sure what’s next. He was fixing a water leak and redoing insulation.”

“I approved that to residency this week,” he says, confusion clear on his face.

“I’m sorry. What?”

“That was approved last week. All of it. Insulated installment, drywall, structural. He did a great job and did it quickly, too. Your building is completely ready to live in again.”

“Oh, I…” My mind drifts off to when we were there the other day. Now that I think about it, most of the work seemed to have been done, just needing a bit of paint and for the tools and materials to be cleaned out.

Has Nate been done all this time?

I wait for the irritation to hit at that potential truth, but it doesn’t come. Instead, I fight the urge to laugh at the hoops I’m realizing he was jumping through to convince me to stay longer.

“Excuse me, I think I just spotted Shauna’s thumbprint cookies on that platter, and I’ve been listening to Tom brag about them for years.” He walks off to a cookie platter, and I look around the room for Nate.

He spots me, a bit of nerves on his face, and I give him a look that makes him smile. I make my way to him, but Sutton grabs my arms, tugging me in the opposite direction.

“Oh my god, please do not leave my side right now. My ex from high school is here, and I want to die,” she says, eyes wide.

“Where?” I ask, looking around.

“My god, you’re terrible at this. Not a sneaky bone in your body, is there? Come on, I’m taking you into the other room to show something.”

“What are you showing me?” I ask, increasingly confused.

“Literally anything that isn’t in this room,” she grumbles. “And you’re not allowed to leave my side.” Her head is tipped down like she’s some starlet trying to avoid the paparazzi.

“Sutton, I—” I start, but she’s already tugging me out of the dining room into the family room, Nate watching with a slightly amused shake of his head. As we leave, a man with bright green eyes and dark brown hair watches us leave, not even glancing at me, eyes locked on the middle Donovan sister.

“Can I help?” I ask, stepping into the kitchen where Mrs. Donovan is washing dishes in red-and-green striped gloves. She gives me a warm smile and shakes her head.

“Oh, no, sweetheart, go on and enjoy the party!”

I step in further and give her a shaky smile. I came into the kitchen hoping for some vague semblance of peace, on account that I had spent the last hour and a half having Sutton drag me to meet every single Donovan family member in order to avoid her ex. I met aunts, uncles, and long lost cousins, all of them telling me how many wonderful things they have heard about me from one of Nate’s sisters, Sophie, Mr. and Mrs. Donovan, or Nate himself.

To say I’m overwhelmed would be an understatement.

I bit my lip before confessing, “I’m not going to lie; it’s so fun out there, but it’s overwhelming. I’d love some quiet if you don’t mind the company.”

She looks at me with an understanding smile.

“Why do you think I’m in here? Tom loves this, all the people in our house, and don’t get me wrong, I do too, but dang, it gets loud.” I laugh and nod before she tips her head to the drying rack. “Grab a towel, you can dry.”

I give a relieved smile before I move over to her, grab a holly-covered dishrag, and start to wipe off the dishes, stacking up the clean plates. We move in silence, Mrs. Donovan washing and me drying, my occasionally asking a few questions to know where to put some of them away before she finally speaks.

“You know, we’re so grateful Nathan found you, and you’ve been spending so much time together. Sophie also just adores you, you know.” I give her a genuine smile.

“I’m just incredibly grateful he was willing to help out with my place,” I say, grabbing a platter that held the mini meatballs I absolutely need the recipe for. “And that he needed help with Sophie.”

“Oh, yes, the girls told me all about her little wish to Santa. My goodness, she really does have quite the imagination. I’m sure Nate was so relieved to have a way to make her wish come true. He’s so terrible at telling her no. But you know, you really do look like her doll.”

I smile and shake my head.

“No, I meant with the babysitting since Claire left.”

Mrs. Donovan pauses, staring at me. “What?”

“Well, that’s why I’m staying in the cottage. You know, to help get Sophie off the bus and…” My words trail off when Mrs. Donovan rolls her lips between her teeth, trying to stave off a laugh. “I feel like I missed something.”

She turns the tap off, drying her hands on a free towel, and turning to me, arms on her chest.

“We’re a big family, sweetheart. Up until recently, I was the one getting Sophie off the bus most days, and any night Nathan had to work late, we’d all take turns on who got to hang with our favorite girl.” She looks at me, a twinkle in her eye, giving me a small wink that looks so much like her son’s. “Except for recently, of course.”

“So Sophie…” I pause, trying to process what he’s telling me. “Nate didn’t need a babysitter, did he?”

She shakes her head, a small smile on her lips. “That boy, always working to get whatever he wanted. He never lied as a kid, knew that would get him into the most trouble, but he would play around with the truth.”

“Hmm,” I say, lost in my thoughts and finding myself once again conflicted by what she’s telling me. Nate lied about needing a sitter. Or, I suppose, all of the Donovan kids did, all to give Nate the chance to try and win me. A surge of guilt rises as I think about all of the trouble everyone went through just because I was stubborn.

“Just like his dad,” she says, then gives me a small smile. “You know, when I first met Tom, I ran away from him.”

I choke out a laugh. “I’m sorry, you ran away?”

Mrs. Donovan shrugs. “I was at some party in high school, just had my heart broken, and this cute boy comes over, talks to me all night, and buys me a soda. He was sweet, and I really liked him, but at the end of the night, I ran off and didn’t give him my number.” She smiles and shakes her head, grabbing a platter and putting it into a cabinet. “I was just scared because I just had my first real breakup, and I didn’t want it to happen again. So I never talked to him again, and that was that.”

“Except…” I started because, obviously, that was not that at all.

She smiles. “Except a year later I was moving into my dorm for college and he was helping the freshman. We bumped into each other, and he made me drop the box I was carrying. We both scrambled to pick things up, and lo and behold, he found the bottle cap.”

“The bottle cap?”

“From the soda he bought me. I’d kept it for some silly reason. Tom had planned on letting me be, but he says he saw that bottle cap and knew I felt something that night, too. So he spent the next month wearing me down, asking me out, and flirting with me until I gave him a chance.” She tips her head toward the living room with a smile. “The bottle cap is in a frame there.”

My mind moves to a similar story, one where I ran away from Nate and kept my own momento.

“I like to think the Donovans hold some kind of magic. Like when we find our person, there’s a bit of chaos, but in the end…”

“It’s magic,” I say with a smile.

“See, you get it,” she says, the same smile on her lips.

“Were you still scared? When you met him again?”

“Ah, yes. I’d had my heart broken again in between and swore off men altogether.” My heart stops beating at the familiar refrain. “But Tom never stopped prodding.”

“Like father, like son.” I smile, and she smiles back, some quiet secret passing between us that I like a lot.

The door to the kitchen opens, a wave of sound flooding the space as Mr. Donovan walks in.

“Ah, so this is where the pretty girls are hiding out,” Mr. Donovan says with a smile, stepping into the kitchen and leaving the door open.

“Sometimes you just need some peace and quiet from this family,” Mrs. Donovan says.

“You got any more of those thumbprint cookies? I think Hank ate ‘em all before I could get any.”

“That’s a bold-faced lie, Thomas, because I saw you eat at least five before anyone even came here.”

“I get them once a year!” Mr. Donovan tsks but moves, reaching for a box over the fridge.

“I knew you loved me,” he says, seeing an entire box of the cookies he loves there. But just as he reaches the box, the front door opens, slamming against the wall as it’s flung open. All eyes move in the direction of the noise to see Claire standing there, eyes watering, a suitcase and a large duffel at her feet.

And then she starts to cry.

“Oh, my god, Claire!” her mother says, shoving the cookies at her husband and moving. She moves at lightning speed, seemingly reaching her daughter before I can blink and wrapping her in her arms. “What happened?”

“He dumped me!” Claire cries into her mother’s arms.