A kid after her own heart. Lauren took a handful and passed over the bag. “We’ll eat the sandwich next, so I don’t get in trouble for just feeding you candy.”
“You won’t get in trouble.” Aervyn seemed very sure. “Mama’ll be happy you’re bringing me home. Thanks for keeping me.”
Lauren nuzzled his head and swiped some more peanuts. “It was fun. I’ve missed you.”
“Why can’t you live in Berkeley? Then we could have sleepovers a lot.”
“My job’s in Chicago, sweetie. I help people find the right place to make their home. It helps them be happy, and I like doing that.”
Aervyn considered. “Don’t people like to find homes in Berkeley?”
“They do, and I bet other realtors do a really good job being their helpers.” Slippery slope, thought Lauren. “Also, Nat lives in Chicago, and her job is there, too. She’s my best friend, so it would be really sad for me not to live where she lives.”
Aervyn scowled. “But she promised me I could play with the baby. How can I do that if the baby is in Chicago?”
Lauren was confused for a moment, and then caught the edge of Aervyn’s thought. Oh, the baby in Jamie’s precog. “It would be a lot of fun to have a cousin to play with, wouldn’t it? But the baby Uncle Jamie saw wasn’t real. He was just a possibility for the future.”
Aervyn shook his head. “Nuh uh. The baby is in Nat’s belly now—I saw it. It’s teeny. Mama says babies grow really fast, though.”
Lauren started to tell him there was no baby in Nat’s belly, and then remembered who she was talking to. This was the kid who chatted with the planet. “There’s a baby in Nat’s belly? Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Auntie Gemma had a baby in her belly at Christmas, so I know how to look. Nat’s baby is a lot smaller, though. Mama says that sometimes really starter babies split into two or three. That’s what happened with Ginia and Mia and Shay. So I watched to see if Nat’s baby would split, but it hasn’t yet. I hope it does—then I could have three cousins.”
She was having a conversation with a four-year-old about fertilized eggs dividing into triplets while he watched. Cripes, life changed when you were a witch.
The in-flight movie was starting, much to Aervyn’s delight. He had one parting shot before he settled in to watch. “So see, Nat has to come to Berkeley so I can play with the baby. She promised. And you can come with Nat so you won’t be lonely.”
Lauren wisely kept her mouth shut and let the movie grab Aervyn’s attention. He had, however, given her plenty to think about.
Nat pregnant? Obviously a surprise, but given the way things seemed to be headed with her and Jamie, most likely a happy one. She figured any guy who missed a four-year-old as much as Jamie missed Aervyn should be okay with fatherhood.
Lauren tried to imagine her best friend as a mother. That wasn’t hard either. Nat would finally be able to create the family she’d always wanted.
Or join the one Jamie already had. Aervyn had a point. There were plenty of playmates and lots of help with a baby in Berkeley. In Chicago, they’d only have her. Somehow, in a middle-of-the-night baby crisis, Lauren was pretty sure any sane person would rather have Nell, experienced mother of five, ride to their rescue.
So why was everyone so convinced Nell and Jamie would live in Chicago? Was it all because of Jamie’s precog? That seemed like a flimsy reason, given all the weight on the other side of the scale.
Nat’s studio? Yeah, that was big. But would Nat trade that for Jamie’s rowdy, arms-wide-open family? With a baby on the way? Heck, yes. And Berkeley wasn’t exactly an awful place to open a new yoga studio.
Lauren leaned back in her chair, unsettled and lonely, and let thoughts ramble around in her head.
…
Nell set two drinks down on her kitchen table. “You want cookies to go with this?”
Lauren held her stomach. “No, thanks. Aervyn and I ate enough snacks on the plane to fill my food quota for a week.”
Nell laughed. “Aunt Jennie’s coming over this afternoon to train Aervyn and Ginia. You could join them—it would help you work up an appetite for dinner. I know she’d love to see you. She doesn’t know you’ve come in early.”
“I need to do a little more shopping, but I can take care of that tomorrow.”