Page 122 of Double Your Standards
My niece blinks up at me, her blue eyes wide. Penny just snorts, going along with the lie, as I adjust the hat on the child's head before she runs over to the beach where her brother is currently building a sandcastle.
“That’s a good one. Last week I forgot about the tooth fairy and told her she doesn’t work on the weekend. The tooth fairies are obviously unionized. You do whatever works,” Penny agrees.
“I can’t believe you’re giving me another niece,” I say, and Penny smiles brightly.
Penny was meant to be a mom. She loves it more than anything and it shows. I can’t deny that I’ve also fallen in love with Brynn and Hudson. I can’t believe I get to be an aunt, a real aunt.
When I was married to Will, they always felt likehisnieces and nephews notours. I’ll never remarry again, but they’re absolutely my niece and nephew in every sense that it matters. I love them; I babysit on occasion and I plan on being the coolaunt that they come to when they’re in their teen years and loathe their parents.
“Seriously, keep your paws off her for once,” Gavin jokes, as the brothers and Jessa take their beach chairs.
“What can I say? We make cute kids,” Lincoln says, resting his hand on Penny’s stomach.
“I won’t deny that,” Ben says, as he hands me a cold drink and takes a sip of his own.
“Oh my god, Hudson, don’t eat sand,” Penny suddenly shouts. Both parents are up in a flash as Hudson cries, his fist and mouth full of sand.
Jessa is on Aiden’s lap, laughing at something he said and I know without a doubt they’ll be sneaking off somewhere in a matter of minutes.
“Do I need to get a spray bottle or something?” Ben jokes.
Aiden glares at his younger brother, giving him the finger. Some things will never change.
It’s evident that the smitten gene is prominent in the Carlson family. Even their parents, for as much as Maggie and Jeff bicker, I’ve learned they’re still madly in love. I hope that Gavin and Ben still feel that way decades from now.
If you would’ve asked me my first night at Avalon if I could ever picture decades with another man, let alone two, I would have told you that you were crazy. But with Ben and Gavin—I can see it.
I can see them arguing over what food we should order for the millionth time. I can see us on this same damn beach in our sixties reminiscing on all the trips we’ve had here.
We understand each other on such a visceral personal level, it’s hard to explain to most people. Ben and Gavin have spent every day of their lives together. Their bond between one another is something I’ll never truly grasp. But what I have witheach of them is profound. There’s no hiding. I never feel like I’m numb. I’m living life to the fullest and that’s how it should be.
“Want to take a walk on the beach?” Gavin asks with a smirk.
“Only if I get to come this time,” Ben says, and I grin at him.
I take one of their hands in each of mine, a position I’ve had to get used to as we trail footprints in the damp sand.
“I think next summer we should spend a whole month here, without all the riffraff,” Gavin says.
“You mean your family?”
“Our family. Yes,” he says, squeezing my hand.
“I think I’d like that.”
“And the other thing?” Ben says, and I look between the two of them, wondering what they have up their sleeve.
“I think we should build a place that’s ours together. I know you probably don’t want to sell your Aunt Helene’s place, but going back and forth between the two seems ridiculous when we all wind up usually sleeping at the same place anyway,” Gavin says.
He’s not wrong, and it wasn’t something I brought up because things work the way they are now. But the idea of having a place where we can call home and not just a spare set of clothes and a toothbrush does sound pretty perfect.
“I think I’d like that,” I say.
“Thank god,” Ben muses, and I bump his hip with mine.
“So, where do we start?”
“I already have my realtor looking at lots,” Gavin says, going on about what the ideal lot would have.
Maybe our relationship isn’t the normal progression of things, maybe it’s complicated. It’s not how I ever pictured my life—it’s even better.
