JUDE – ELEVEN YEARS LATER

“Hey, you can’t read in the front row!” Nora whispers.

Though my wife’s sitting directly on my right, I can’t see her face, because she’s looking at our ten-year-old daughter, Vaughn, on her opposite side.

It’s a scorching day for early June, and we’re all seated in folding white chairs in the grass on the field behind the high school. Before us is a stage lined in black cloth with a giant banner over it congratulating this year’s graduating class. 

Which includes our son, Jack Kelly.
My palms sweat; my eyes prickling already. Damn, I’m getting choked up and things haven’t even started yet.

My little Cap, graduating high school.
Jack switched back to his real name when he started playing baseball seriously in the fifth grade. We still call him Cap at home sometimes though. He gives us a little eye roll when we use it, but it usually comes with a grin, too.

“Wish I brought a bigger hat,” Chelsea says behind me.
“Want me to fan you?” Seamus asks.
I turn around to see my brother-in-law waving his hand in my sister’s face and then sneaking a kiss while she giggles.
“Hey! This is important business,” I admonish the two of them with fake seriousness. “Not every day my son graduates high school.”
“Not every day we have to watch our parents making out in full view of the whole high school!” their daughter Imogen says, looking pained. She’s twelve and just as steeped in parental disdain as Vaughn, apparently.
The three of us adults burst into laughter, which helps alleviate that choked-up feeling—at least for a moment.
I turn back around, leaning into my wife and kissing her hair.

All I can think is it’s a good day.
The sky is a bright blue; a brilliant sun beating down on us. On my other side, Eli fiddles with the camera—I asked him to film this instead of Nora, so she could concentrate on watching in real time. The rest of my brothers and sisters and their families are spread out in the row behind us, and a quick check of my phone tells me Farrah and her husband should be arriving at any minute, too. Their plane was cancelled yesterday, stranding her in London overnight, but she texted to let me know she landed stateside over an hour ago.

Still, I’m antsy to get on with it. I’ve read the commencement program several dozen times already, and kind of wish I’d brought a book like my daughter to keep me distracted. But Nora’s right, it’s probably not the most polite thing to do.

I glance over Nora’s head to Vaughn, who’s popped out her ear bud and is giving her mom an indignant look over her e-reader. “Mom. Seriously? Back me up, Imogen!”
“Huh? Oh. Yeah, totally, whatever you need!” Chelsea’s daughter says, clearly not knowing what she’s backing her cousin up on, but trying anyway.
Vaughn does an exaggerated hair flip to Nora as if to say, “See?”

I press my fist to my lips, clearing my throat to keep her from seeing my grin.
I love that girl, attitude and all.

It has nothing to do with how much Vaughn looks like a little replica of her mother, though I adore that about her. Her bright red hair hangs in long waves on either side of her pale, freckled face; and while she doesn’t make videos like Nora, she loves reading. Her favorite place to be is hiding behind a book. Which she’s currently trying to do instead of sitting slightly impatiently like me, waiting for things to get started.

I love Vaughn because she’s her own person. She loves fiercly and gets indignant about injustice and…never misses an opportunity to read.
“Siobhan, this is your brother’s graduation,” Nora reminds her.
Vaughn groans. She still dislikes her full name. Probably because we pull it out when we mean business.
“There are like, five hundred names on that thing.” Vaughn points her chin to the commencement program Nora’s fanning herself with.

I tsk and shake my head like it was nice knowing her. “You know you’re going to get The Look, right, Vaughn?”
That earns me an icy glare that has me biting my cheek so I don’t laugh.
It used to be that I’d laugh and then she’d laugh. We’d set each other off. These days, the hormones have hit early and she doesn’t seem to smile as much as she used to. Nora assures me it’s temporary, but damn, I miss my girl’s smile. It’s the perfect mix of me and Nora. It’s wide and easy like mine, but somehow beautiful and soft too, like her mom’s. Sometimes I’ll still see it when she’s watching her favorite dark comedy or when I catch her off guard with a bad Dad joke. But right now it’s the opposite: an adorable furrowed brow and full-on frown.

Nora lowers her glasses. I know she’s leveling her gaze on her daughter by her tone alone. “Siobhan.”

It’s the same look and intonation Nora gives me when she knows I ate the last of the ice cream. Or that time I hurt my knee playing tennis and tried to hide it.
Vaughn winces.
The Look always works.
“Okay, fine,” our daughter says. “How about I promise I’ll put it down when they start talking.”

What a negotiator. Nora sighs but agrees to the tacit truce.
Vaughn sticks her earbud back into her ear and holds the e-reader up to her face again.

Nora turns toward me, gracing me with her beautiful face.
Even though Vaughn can’t hear with her music on, she leans into me and lowers her voice to a whisper. “If this is the pre-teen stuff starting already…that means we’ve got”—she counts it out with her fingers—“eight more years of it! Or more!”

I blink, trying to distract myself from the little tingle that ran over my skin from her warm breath on my ear. “Maybe longer,” I whisper back. “If she sticks around.”

Nora tucks her bottom lip between her teeth, and I can see the little battle in her mind.

I tuck a wisp of Nora’s hair that’s escaped the thick, loose braid hooked over her shoulder behind her ear. It’s run through with a few strands of silver now, which somehow only makes her look more beautiful. “You know what I think, Nor?”
“What?”
“I think you want her to stick around,”

Nora groans. But she reaches for Vaughn’s hand on her knee, interlacing her fingers with our daughter’s. “It’s true. I never want her to leave.”
Vaughn doesn’t look up, but she doesn’t pull her hand away from her mom’s, either. For all her tough talk and eye rolls, she’s still an amazing kid.

I tuck Nora into my shoulder and cup a hand to the back of Vaughn’s head. She leans in against her mom and back against my head too, never taking her eyes off the book.

The speeches start up a few minutes later, just as I see Farrah rush from the parking lot to a seat near the back. I give her a wave and she waves back, tapping her wrist and giving an apologetic look. I shake my head. It’s fine. Jack’s going to be happy she’s here. She came all the way from Tokyo, where she ended up settling, just to see this.
Finally, with us all getting a little overcooked, they start reading out names of the graduates. My heart clamps as I look at my son, up in the middle of the thick line of kids lining up next to the stage. He’s deep in conversation with the dark-haired girl in front of him, who he’s known since kindergarten. No, they’re arguing, though it doesn’t look serious. In fact, I see the way his eyes stay on her when she turns forward again, tilting her chin up. He can’t see her face but she’s got a little smirk on it. Looks like she won.

Jack’s gown only reaches past his knee—the kid grew tall. He was a beanpole up until his junior year, just like his old man at that age. Now, at eighteen, he’s filled out. All that baseball. The kid never took to tennis, but the minute he picked up a baseball bat—after years of Eli practically begging—he was a goner.

“He’s got your arm,” Eli said to me after a game of catch when Jack was about Vaughn’s age. My brother held out his hand. His palm was bruised from the force of Jack’s pitches. “It would be a crime to baseball if he didn’t take it all the way.”

Luckily, no crimes were committed. Jack’s being actively scouted by several top colleges. His top three choices right now are all on the west coast, which makes me and Nora slightly ill whenever we talk about it, though we show Jack nothing but support.

They’re calling the J names now, which means Jack Kelly is up soon. He’s already approaching the steps on the side of the stage.
He must feel my eyes on him, because he looks over at us and grins, giving us a little wave.

Damn, that kid is handsome. He wears his dark hair cropped close to his head, but it’s a little shaggy on top. Nora was fussing with it earlier, swiping at the tears streaming down her face as she did it.

My throat gets prickly, but I wave back, grinning my face off.
I know it’s my job as his dad to say he’s a good kid, but he really truly is. Just like he’s always been. He worked summers at my foundation since before he was technically old enough to work, until baseball camps took over. Baseball camps where I insisted on screening every adult he’d come into contact with. Overkill maybe, but hell if I’d let anyone tell my boy he wasn’t anything but the best, most deserving, hardworking kid in the whole fucking world.

I force myself to focus on the Jack he is now. The boy who’s pretty much a man now, or will be after today.
Already I can hear all four of my siblings and their families behind me rumbling, starting to make noise for Jack.
Nora takes my hand, squeezing hard. “I can’t believe this is really happening,” she says a little breathlessly as Jack climbs up the steps. There are only a couple of kids in front of him now.

My damn eyes are leaking as I kiss her knuckles. “I can’t believe a lot of things, baby. But here we are, fucking blessed.”
“Shit, Jude, I’m trying to keep this a family movie!” Eli snaps.
His wife’s not next to him to whack him—to point out he just swore himself. She didn’t want to take any of the attention away from Jack, so she’s meeting us back at our place for the party.

I do it for her.
“Ow! Eli exclaims. “What the fu—” Then he cringes as he realizes what he’s saying. “I’ll edit it out.”

“Jude!” Nora says, squeezing my hand so tight I wince.

“JACK KELLY!” The announcer says, and finally it’s Jack crossing the stage, grinning wide.
It’s all I can do not to leap out of my chair.
Instead I bring my fingers to my mouth and whistle as hard as I can. Then I holler out my son’s name and try to watch him accept his diploma through the blur of wetness in my eyes.

“Jack,” I say, my heart thundering with pride. “That’s our Jack.”
Nora’s openly weeping, her shoulders shaking.
I pull her in against my chest, kissing her head.
Then I see a sight that rivals seeing Jack up on that stage.
Vaughn, grinning ear to ear, clapping as hard and enthusiastically as her little hands can manage. “That’s my brother!” she yells to everyone and no one in particular. 

I laugh. Then I laugh-cry. I’m a mess, but I don’t give a fuck. That’s my boy, and that’s my girl, and next to me is my Nora and together, we’re the perfect family.

They’re calling the next name now, and Jack is waving at us once more, heading back to his seat on the other side of the aisle.

“Look what we did, baby,” I whisper to Nora once Jack’s next to his friends again, out of our line of sight.
My beautiful wife looks up at me and smiles, her eyes still streaming with tears. “Look at what we did,” she whispers back.

I kiss her then, taking her full, gorgeous lips against mine, cupping her face with both my hands. My love. My life. My family.
And my heart, filled to the fucking brim.

Thank you for reading the Play With Me bonus scene!

The fifth and final book in the Quince Valley Romance Series is coming October 27, 2023! Preorder Griffin’s story in Mess With Me to get it the minute it drops!