Chapter 39
The next few days rambled on. Janet went to the doctor and scheduled her surgery. She talked to Sully and agreed to work 10 hours per week while she taught to maintain her health insurance coverage, something she now realized she could not do without. Eddie was a fixture at the bar and in her home. Some time she would come home from her early shift and find him fixing something that had needed attention for some time. Things had never been better. They no longer tried to make each other happy, they just did make each other happy.
Nick kept busy with the windows and realized he didn't miss Aubrey as much as he thought he would. His mind was preoccupied with Sam. Even when he worked with Carter he kept thinking. 'Would Sam go see this?'
Phil was making progress too. His current goal was to take the garbage to the can once a day. He often did it at night or when Pizza Girl was there but he was doing it.
Owen and Alison's party came up quickly. Janet was working on last minute prizes for the children's games and wrapping a small scrapbook she made for them as a gift when Eddie came thru the door.
"EDITH! I'M HOME!" He said joyfully. As he entered the kitchen to drop off the food he was surprised to find dinner in the crock pot. Yum he thought. Chicken stew.
"Hey Bear." Janet said coming from her bedroom. He handed her flowers from the grocery store and the mail. After a quick kiss she asked, "How was your day?"
"Good, and yours?"
"Great. I just finished the things for the Rowans and plan to take them over after dinner. I was thinking we could stop at Cold Stone on the way back." She said flipping through the mail. "Damn."
"What's wrong?" he said grabbing a beer.
"Nick's results." Janet said holding up an envelope.
"Whoa"
"What do you think we should do?" Janet asked.
"Call him?"
"But we have the Rowan thing tomorrow. It's gonna hit the fan. Is it fair to them?"
Eddie took a big swig of beer as he thought. "Yea got a point. Maybe we should do this tomorrow after Owen and Alison's thing."
"Yea," Janet said putting the letter in her room. She hid it in her dresser under the blue jeans she didn't wear any more.
"Aren't you curious?" Eddie asked as she walked out.
"Yea but it's not my news. Besides you know Sam is Nick's."
"Yea, I guess. Tomorrow should be different. I saw Ikey today, he's not going even though Owen said it was ok. He got some girl to go with him to the casinos in Connecticut so they're leaving tonight and will be back tomorrow."
"Cool." Janet began scooping out their dinner into deep bowls. They sat in front of the TV watching news and ESPN and ate their dinner in relative quiet. Just as they finished Hannah called with a wedding emergency. As Janet took the call Eddie cleaned up their dinner and washed the dishes. He had come to see Janet's home as an extension of his but still didn't feel comfortable about leaving her to do all the cleaning. At his house Phil was home all day but here Janet worked as hard if not harder than he did. He enjoyed her house so much more which was why he tried to bring it up to the beauty it could be.
"ARGH." Janet said out of frustration.
"Wedding the devil giving Hannah some problems?"
"No the printer spelt Ray's name as Roy."
Eddie couldn't help but laugh.
"Wait…. If that's not enough to make you laugh, he's the printer for Castaldo Construction."
Eddie nearly spit out his beer.
"I told her I'd call the printer that does Sully's menus, maybe he can help her out." She said getting on the internet. Janet found the number and called the guy at home. He was very cordial and told Janet to have Hannah call him immediately. With a little work he'd be able to get them done by Sunday.
Janet hung up with Hannah, having given her all the information. She told her that even though it was a rush job he wasn't charging her more. That he was really hoping to become Ray's new printer.
She then returned to the couch and ESPN.
"So with all this wedding talk, what kind of wedding do you want?" Eddie asked trying his best not to imply anything.
Janet smirked at him. "As a girl I always dreamed of a princess wedding, white gown, family friends. The whole shebang. But this is my fifth time as a bridesmaid or maid of honor. Two of the couples are already getting divorced. So I'd have to say marrying the right guy is more important than the one day. I'd still want family and friends, kinda like the Rowans' are doing. Maybe I'd elope to Vegas. Nah the Grands would get upset. I don't know. Maybe in the church on Nottingham. The big white one. My folks were married there. I went to Sunday school there as a kid. What about you?"
"Guys don't care so much about it. At least no me. Any opportunity to party and I'm there."
"So you'll be my date to Hannah and Ray's wedding?"
"Sure." He answered quickly and confidently. "I know it ain't gonna happen. Nicky's gonna be the dad and he'll never let Ray adopt him. That will bring a stop to this nonsense."
Janet couldn't figure out what the nonsense was. Hannah and Ray, the wedding, Nick and Hannah, Sam. Janet just let it drop.
"Nick a dad, pretty crazy." She answered trying to get off the whole wedding topic.
"Yea. How about you? You ever think about having kids?"
Inwardly she groaned. That didn't work she thought. "Yea kids would be great. They kind of make you immortal. I just hope they turn out as great as Sam. And you?" she added hoping that if she made him uncomfortable he'd change the topic.
"I always wanted a big family, nine boys, a baseball team!" He laughed. "Guess I'm getting too old for that."
"How do you know you don't have nine already?" she said with a twinkle.
"OK EDITH. Enough of that." He said throwing a pillow at her. "Three I think will be good." He continued. "But not all at once. My cousin has triplets, girls. The house is complete kios all the time."
Janet laughed. "So did the Sox win?" she asked hoping this would bring an end to the conversation. "I think I missed it on the ticker."
Finally the conversation changed to something more neutral.