Plan B (Best Laid Plans #2) - Jana Aston Page 0,52

in travel?"

"Sorta. I was a tour guide for Sutton Travel for the last few years, but I recently resigned from that job. It was a lot of travel, at least half of every month, and it's not really practical now that... now that I'm married." Now that I'm pregnant, is what I don't say.

"Did you love it?"

"I did." I'm wistful for a moment, remembering the good times. It was always in my plans to leave that job eventually, so I'm not completely bereft about it. "I've also been growing a travel blog for years and it's become a full-time job in and of itself, so I'll be focusing exclusively on that now."

"Fun! I love to travel. I traveled a lot with my parents. Not as much with Kyle but we always go somewhere during my Christmas break. Usually skiing…" She stops abruptly, halfway to taking a bite of a tiny little tart topped with a strawberry. "Of course we don't have to," she says as if she's just realized things have changed a bit. "Maybe you hate skiing, or traveling in winter."

"I've never been skiing, actually. But even if I hated it I'd happily wait at the lodge sipping a cup of hot cocoa while you and Kyle skied. I'm open to whatever sounds fun."

God, I kinda sorta have a stepdaughter. How did this not really occur to me before now? I feel a huge weight of responsibility looking at Kerrigan's eager, worried face. I wonder how Kyle felt taking this on all by himself? Heck, she's eighteen now, so she's an adult. Imagine what he felt when she was just a kid? But she's still just a kid, really. I think of myself at eighteen and imagine how I'd feel if I'd had no parents.

I'd feel lost.

I'm going to be so pregnant this Christmas. I'm due in February, so by December I'll be the size of Tubbs-McGee. Definitely no skiing for me, but I can still fly through December, I think. I nibble on my bottom lip and make a mental note to look this up later while I assure Kerrigan we can all go skiing or make new traditions. She relaxes a bit and I wonder if that's partly what this lunch was about for her. To feel me out, see where she stood in this new family dynamic.

"How are you going to blog about travel from Philadelphia?" she asks once she's polished off the strawberry tart.

Good question. I have a momentary twinge of unease that my plan is terrible and I'll end up a barefoot and pregnant housewife. In a multi-million-dollar condo. Boo-freaking-hoo, right?

Except I've put a lot of work into this blog and it means a lot to me.

"Well…" I steeple my fingers in front of me while I explain my plans. "Luckily for me the Northeast is huge. I can shift the focus of the blog to Northeast activities, like skiing for example. Or seeing a Broadway show in New York. Or weekend trips to Vermont. There's an endless source of material within a few hours of Philadelphia. A lot of my revenue comes from sponsored posts on Instagram too, and I can grow that audience in a lot of different ways. I'll figure it out."

"Cool," Kerrigan replies. "I can help, if you want. When I'm not in school and Kyle's busy or whatever."

"I'd love that."

"I'm so glad Kyle found you. I think he was worried he was never going to find you, and now here you are."

"Here I am," I agree. She's such a romantic, this one. I was jaded and acting like an idiot at her age. Drinking too much at college parties, hanging out with guys who were not worth my time. I find myself wanting to nurture this sweetness in her instead of teaching her all the ways to get up to no good, like I always did with Violet.

I don't know if I'm turning into a mom right before my eyes or just growing up. Or both.

18

Daisy

I’m going to snoop around my husband’s office. I hadn't planned on it, not really. It wasn't a premeditated snoop, it's just that I've found myself across the street from his office.

No, really.

Honestly.

I was minding my own business, walking down 18th, camera in hand, intent on taking pictures of whatever caught my interest. I was planning on cutting over to Love Park, spending a couple of hours taking shots for Instagram and researching nearby coffee shops, that kind of thing. Except when I got