It Must Be Your Love (The Sullivans #11)(22)

“Can I squeeze in?” She shimmied her hips into the space on the couch between Mia and Sophie. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were bright enough that Mia easily guessed she’d just been off on another little meet-up with Marcus.

There were more women laughing together over by the fountain, including Mia’s mother, Nicola’s mother, Brooke, Sophie’s twin Lori, Ryan’s fiancée Vicki, and Zach’s fiancée Heather. Mia knew she’d get a chance to spend time with all of them later, but for right now, this group of women she was sitting with was just the perfect size so that they could all easily talk together.

Nicola was stroking a gentle fingertip back and forth across the bottom of one of baby Jackie’s feet as she gave each woman sitting with her a big smile. “I’m so happy that you’re all here.” Her blue eyes grew damp as she said, “I love having all my favorite women in one place. What do you say we get together like this every weekend?”

“There are certainly enough Sullivan weddings coming up,” Mia said, “that I think we could probably pull it off.”

“There’s so much love everywhere in this family,” Nicola agreed as everyone laughed, “that when I want to write a good breakup song, I end up having to harass my band and dancers to mine whatever messy things are going on in their lives.”

“You could always just call me,” Mia blurted before she realized what she was saying. She’d said it in a joking voice, but of course every pair of eyes landed on her.

“Do tell,” Sophie encouraged.

Mia forced a grin she didn’t completely feel. “You know the story—if he’s bad news, I’ve got to have him.”

Fortunately, instead of digging for more info, Sophie nodded her head. “Boy, do I know what you’re talking about.” She looked at Mia. “Jake had to be one of the biggest players on the planet when I finally decided to seduce him. Talk about bad news.”

“Fortunately,” Mia said, “he was smart enough to appreciate that you were the best thing that ever happened to him.”

Megan raised her wine glass in a toast. “To our men appreciating us.”

As Mia shifted Jackie’s weight slightly in her left arm so that she could lift her glass and clink it with everyone else’s, she noticed that every one of the women she was sitting with had the same happy smile. Wanting to drown the stupid sense of jealousy that they’d all found love when she was as far from it as she could possibly be, Mia took a long drink from her glass.

“I’ve never seen Marcus like this, Nicola,” Sophie said. “He’s always been so calm and steady, but today he was practically bouncing off the walls, he’s so excited about finally getting to marry you.”

Nicola’s skin hadn’t yet lost the flush from her latest secret assignation with Marcus, and now that they were talking about him, the pretty rose color flooded even more deeply into her cheeks. “I’m crazy excited, too. Sometimes—” She stopped and shook her head as if she didn’t quite know how to put everything she was feeling into words. “Sometimes I wonder how I got so lucky. I mean, if I hadn’t met him that night at the club, and then if Lori hadn’t been choreographing my video and invited him to watch rehearsals the next day, I would have missed out on the best thing in my life.”

“If not at the club that night, you and Marcus would have met another place, another way,” Valentina said softly, which surprised Mia, because she would have said Valentina was more practical than dreamy. “Smith and I always talk about how the two of us circled each other in the film and TV business for years without ever actually meeting, until my sister was offered the part in Gravity. But I think the reason we didn’t meet until last year is because the timing wasn’t right, and neither of us would have been ready for the other.”

“Or you all could have just followed my example and thrown yourself naked at the guy you’d been wanting your entire life so that you ended up knocked up with twins,” Sophie said with a grin.

The group’s laughter was accompanied by more wine and snacks being passed around. As each fell naturally into conversation with the person next to her, Nicola shifted to turn her pretty gaze to Mia.

“It’s really great to see you. I wish Marcus and I had had more time in Seattle after the last show to spend some time with you.”

“And what a show it was,” Mia said. “You were amazing. And you have to know how cute Marcus was out in the audience with me. He’s so proud of you.”

“Poor guy has heard these songs a thousand times already, at least.”

“And he’d gladly sign up for another thousand,” Mia said with utter certainty. “But can I ask you a question?”

“Sure,” the other woman said. “Anything. Especially if you’ll pass the baby over to me first.”

“Nope, I’m not done getting my cuddles in yet. Besides, Valentina already called dibs on the next lap session.”

“But I’m the one getting married,” Nicola protested. “That should push me up to the top of the dibs list.”

“Nice try,” Mia said as she snuggled Jackie a little closer, “but you’re still going to have to get in line for baby love.”

Nothing could make a person feel better about the world than a soft, warm bundle on her lap breathing evenly in sleep. Unlike her friends, Mia had loved to babysit the little ones when she was a teenager. Sure, sometimes they were fussy, but they were also so darned cute. Kids were yet another thing she and Ford hadn’t talked about during their week together. Yes, she’d fallen in love with him, but clearly there hadn’t been any real foundation to it. Not like yesterday, when he’d talked about kids running through the house she’d showed him.