Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 120631 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 603(@200wpm)___ 483(@250wpm)___ 402(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120631 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 603(@200wpm)___ 483(@250wpm)___ 402(@300wpm)
Her parents had moved south ten years ago, chasing a sense of belonging her mother had hungered for her whole life, a place to finally fold herself into something larger than the family she already had. Her father followed the way he always did, content to want whatever his wife wanted. They expected Jocelyn to come along, to become the kind of daughter who fit the restrictive life they’d craved. She was twenty-one and already allergic to conformity, so she stayed in Hideaway Bay where her unshakable independence was born of sheer desperation and a need to survive.
It had been the best decision of her life. Her friends were here. Her roots were here. She didn’t want to rearrange her life around someone else’s idea of happiness, even her mother’s, so she chose independence, and it suited her.
Thank Odin she’d stayed, because now that Wren married that wondrously horny, emotionally constipated mountain man Greyson Hawthorne, things were getting very real. Wren was already pregnant with their first little belly goblin, and lots of additional babies were sure to follow.
Which led Jocelyn to her next stop…
She and Wren had been best friends since the moment Jocelyn transferred into the third grade. Now was her shot to play the cool, eccentric aunt, which was possibly the closest to motherhood Jocelyn would ever get.
Wren’s pregnancy was lifting the ban on Jocelyn’s soft, squishy side—but only slightly because she had a reputation to keep.
She’d always thought the biological clock thing was bullshit, but her damn clock had been clanking ever since Wren announced her pregnancy. Not cool, since Jocelyn thought it best not to have kids—a decision she’d based on her own insecurities about motherhood and the knowledge that anything long-term scared the ever-loving shit out of her.
That decision still held, no matter how many mixed signals her body sent lately.
Maybe it was her age. Thirty-one hit a lot harder than thirty for some reason. Her choices now carried the threat of permanence, which made her question everything and doubt some things she never previously mistrusted. Basically, the intrusive baby thoughts were annoying, so she kept batting them away, but her brain felt the strain.
So much had changed. While Jocelyn enjoyed a successful career built on fictional men whose emotional availability put every real man to shame, her friends were living the real deal. Greyson and Wren were the exception to the rule. They had that magical romance thing that usually only existed in fictional love stories, but they were real. Their love was real. So real, it sometimes suffocated Jocelyn with quiet envy.
But she had a town full of people who loved her. She didn’t need to belong to one man. Hideaway Bay absorbed her unfiltered, eccentric personality with groomed acceptance. That was enough.
Whatever this biological longing was, she didn’t plan to evaluate it too deeply. She was the kind of woman who knew exactly who she was and what she wanted. She did not shift gears on a whim. That was for sure.
Hopefully, once the newest Hawthorne arrived, the baby fever would pass.
She didn’t want kids, not long-term, which was usually how they worked.
This was just a mild touch of FOMO—fear of missing out. It was a hankering for a maternal gene she was pretty sure she’d been born without. Nothing more.
The thought alone of herself as a mother would be catastrophic, so she never gave it much serious thought.
Wren, on the other hand, would be a fabulous mother. She’d make homemade baby food and organic soaps. She’d be a natural at nursing, and even make her kid’s clothes. She’d have picnics in the grass and probably do other grainy hippy shit Jocelyn would never even think about.
Wren had the kind of patience and sweetness no one ever accused Jocelyn of having, which was why they made perfect sense as best friends. Also why The Universe gave Wren a fertilized embryo and Jocelyn an IUD.
Drift and Dwell, the local home goods store, occupied the ground floor of a converted warehouse at the far end of Harbor Street. Its windows, dressed with artfully weathered rope and glass floats, made the whole storefront look like a Pinterest board washed ashore.
Inside, the air smelled like beeswax and dried lavender. Jocelyn spent twenty minutes in the candle aisle, holding each pillar to her nose until she found exactly the right scent. Driftwood and sea salt were the winners, clean and coastal without veering into sunscreen territory. The cotton wick would burn steadily, without competing with the food.
She added eighteen navy candles to her basket, setting them carefully atop a stack of cream linen napkins. Next, she found a bundle of jute twine thick enough to wrap the centerpieces, pausing to calculate how many spools she’d need.
“Forty to fifty guests, eight guests per table, plus the buffet area…”