The Wedding Agreement by Elizabeth Hayley Page B

at Cass. “I named him after my grandfather, who died tragically the summer before we got the dog.”
    â€œOh.” Cass’ face sobered. “I didn’t mean . . .” Cass cleared her throat as she seemed to stumble for the right words. “You’re right. Mitchell is a strong name—”
    â€œCass.”
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œI’m kidding.”
    Cass inhaled deeply and let her shoulders fall in relief. “I could really kill you sometimes.”
    â€œWell, don’t kill me yet because it’s my turn.” Alex got up to go to the fridge to grab another beer for each of them. Cass had only a few sips left in hers, and though she’d been playing with the bottle and still taking a drink every so often, he knew it was probably warm. Alex took off the cap and handed the beer to her.
    â€œThanks.”
    â€œOkay, what’s your best memory?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œSo, are you passing?” Alex held up the shot glass as an offering.
    â€œNot passing. Just thinking,” she said, taking a long drink from the new beer. “I guess I’d say it was a trip to Disney World when I was eight or so. We’d gone a few years before that because Rachel and Amy were older. But I was too young to remember. So when I was about six I started begging my parents to take me. I was obsessed with fairy tales. I wanted to be one of those princesses who lived in a castle, you know?”
    Alex nodded, thinking that Nina was the same way. He was sure most little girls were.
    â€œI remember getting to take pictures with all the characters: Snow White, Cinderella, Minnie. That was the last big vacation we took as a family. After that we just did smaller trips to the beach or whatever. I’m sure in a one-income household it was a financial stretch for my parents to take a family of five to Disney twice, so it meant a lot that we all got to go.”
    Cass smiled at the memory, a light in her eyes that Alex wasn’t used to seeing. Not that she didn’t usually look happy. She did. Cass was one of the most cheerful people he knew. But he’d never seen her look so . . . content. Peaceful, even. He let her stay that way, not wanting to interrupt her tranquillity.
    After a few seconds of silence, Cass spoke. “What about you? What’s your favorite memory?”
    Alex was sure he must have looked similar to Cass as he thought back to seven years ago. It was always so strange to him how something that seemed so foggy could still be so clear. “The day Nina was born,” he answered. He wasn’t sure he wanted to elaborate, but Cass remained silent, her expression urging him to continue. “Tessa’s water broke on a Tuesday night, and Nina wasn’t born until almost ten p.m. the following night. I was up for, like, two days straight. I’m actually surprised I remember any of it at all.”
    â€œYou didn’t sleep while Tessa was in labor? My sister Amy was in labor for a long time with her first, but she got to rest a bit until the contractions really started getting bad.”
    Alex let out a short laugh through his nose. “Tessa slept a little, but I didn’t. I was too nervous. I was worried about Tessa and about this life inside her that Ihadn’t even met yet. We didn’t even know if we were having a boy or a girl.” Alex ran a hand through the back of his hair, feeling some of the same anxiety he’d felt that night. “I didn’t know how to be a father, and I was worried I wouldn’t be a good one.”
    Cass put a hand around Alex’s forearm and massaged his arm gently. “Nina loves you.”
    Alex knew that was true. But that didn’t mean he was a good parent. Kids loved shitty parents all the time because they didn’t know any better. In his line of work he’d seen it more times than he’d like to admit. “I know,” he said,