Will
Max and Jensen patted the table with their hands, a rumbling drum roll.
“How was the honeymoon?” Sara asked, and everyone groaned.
“I don’t care about the rudding honeymoon!” Max play-yelled. “I hear enough about their sex life on a
normal day. Tell me where you’re moving.”
“I can’t take it,” Chloe said, gripping the sides of her chair. “I swear to God I am going to lose my shit in
a violent way if you’re even thinking of moving to the West Coast.”
“We’ve decided,” Hanna said to the table, “and we are moving to . . .”
She looked over at me, and in unison we proclaimed, “Cambridge!”
A chorus of cheers rang out, with everyone congratulating us both, congratulating Hanna on landing
Harvard. We raised our arms in a toast, glasses clinking loudly.
“Boston?” Chloe said when she returned her wineglass to the table.
“That’s like two hundred miles.”
“Are you happy or annoyed?” I asked her. “I can’t really tell.”
“I’m . . . not sure, either,” Chloe admitted, brow furrowed. “I was pr eparing myself for something really
traumatic.” She squinted across the table at us. “Boston is sort of an annoying distance. It’s too far to
drive regularly, but feels silly flying. Plus, it’s Boston.”
“Not to me,” I told them. “I’ll be down here three days a week.”
Sara passed me the baby, searching her purse for something a little quieter for Anna to play with than the
spoon she was currently banging against the table. I turned her to face me, puckering my lips for a kiss.
Anna reached forward, grabbing my mouth in her chubby fist.
“Are you staying up there for the holidays?” Sara asked. She returned with a rattling plastic thing before
noticing Anna’s death grip on my face, which, no surprise, Max was happily witnessing. “Oh, jeez, Will,
that must hurt!”
Sara urged her daughter to swap my mouth for the toy, and Annabel promptly used it as a hammer
against my forehead.
“Oi!” Max yelped, finally leaning forward to steady her hand.
“Ouchie, lovey, be soft. That hurts Uncle Will.”
“Apparently Anna isn’t thrilled about Boston,” Bennett said dryly.
“It’s okay,” I told Sara, leaning in and kissing Anna’s cheek. “She should learn these moves. She’s one
now; you never know when she’ll get into a fight in the alley behind the daycare.” I kissed her little nose.
“And it d epends on what Hanna’s folks want to do around the holidays,” I said. I glanced at Hanna, who
just shrugged.
“Chloe and I will host,” Bennett interjected. “Dad and Mom are headed to New Zealand for the month, so
we’ll have it at our place.
And I don’t want Sara having to do anything strenuous with a one- month old.”
We all stared quizzically at Bennett for a beat before deciding in unison to not question his sudden
sentimentality.
I eyed Sara’s protruding stomach. “You look like a movie prop.”
She groaned. “I know. Just get her out of me already.”
“When was your due date again?” Hanna asked.
“Yesterday,” Sara whined, sweetly. “They say the second one usually comes early. They lie.”
“You know what usually helps with inducing labor . . .” Chloe sang and Sara glared at her.
“We tried that.” She held up her hand, ticking off on her fingers: “We tried sex, and spicy food, and
walking. I swear the only thing left is a scalpel.”
Max winced bodily beside her and Hanna leaned closer to her other side, putting her arm around Sara’s
shoulders.
I listened as my wife laid out the details of Harvard’s hiring package, and leaned back in the chair,
making faces at my goddaughter. Relief coursed through me like a drug and I couldn’t help but feel the
tightness of emotion rise in my throat. We’d built a life here, and I didn’t want to lose these friends. I
didn’t want to be too far from the people we loved.
We had looked online at houses in the area; we had talked about how our schedules would mesh. We had
discussed our shared need to remain near our family: both hers and the chosen one here with us now. In
Cambridge, we would be close enough to the Bergstroms that it would be Hanna’s turn to hassle Jensen
about dating, and close enough to these idiots to share holidays.
I glanced at Hanna as she chatted happily, bubbly as ever. She grabbed a napkin and drew the layout of
her lab, before looking guiltily up to me and then flipping over the napkin and drawing the floor plan of
the house she thought she liked.
Massachusetts had no idea what was coming for it, but I did.
This beautiful boss across the table from me was about to take over the whole goddamn state.