The Next Best Thing. Kristan Higgins

great, buddy!” Parker says. “Give me a blue kiss, okay?” She leans over and puckers, and Nicky laughingly obeys.

      “Want one, Aunt Wucy?” he asks. Though he’s lately mastered his L sound, he still calls me “Wucy,” which I find utterly irresistible.

      “I sure do, honey,” I answer. He climbs onto my lap and obliges, and I breathe in his smell, salt and shampoo and sugar and hug him tight for second, relishing his perfect little form, before he wriggles down to play with his Matchbox cars.

      “I gotta get going. Books to write.” She sighs dramatically.

      Parker is the author of a successful children’s series—The Holy Rollers, child—angels who come down from heaven, don roller—skates and help mortal kids make good choices. Parker hates the Holy Rollers with a mighty passion and wrote the first one as a farce…stories so sticky—sweet that they made her teeth ache. However, her sarcasm was lost on an old Harvard chum who ran the children’s division of a huge publishing company, and The Holy Rollers are now published in fourteen languages.

      “What’s this one about?” I ask, grinning.

      She smiles. “The Holy Rollers and the Big Mean Bully, in which the God Squad descends to beat the shit out of Jason, the seventh—grade thug who steals lunch money.”

      “Beat the shit out of Jason!” Nicky echoes, zipping his car along the window.

      “Oops. Don’t tell Daddy I said that, okay?” Parker asks her son, who agrees amiably.

      “Want me to keep an eye out?” Parker asks, scooping up Nicky’s little cars into her buttery leather pocketbook.

      “For what?” I ask.

      “For your new husband?”

      “Oh. Sure. I guess,” I say.

      “Now there’s a can—do attitude!” she says with a wink, then takes my nephew by the hand and breezes out, her blond hair fluttering in the wind.

       CHAPTER FOUR

      ETHAN WAS TWO YEARS BEHIND ME at Johnson & Wales. I didn’t know him until my junior year—while I’d grown up in Mackerly, the Mirabelli family had moved to town and opened Gianni’s my second year of college. They heralded from Federal Hill, the Italian section of Providence, and their restaurant was an instant success. I’d eaten there a time or two, but I hadn’t met any of the family until Ethan approached me one day as I was lounging on the grass at school, sketching out my final project for Advanced Cake Decorating.

      “Aren’t you one of those bakery babes from Mackerly?” he asked. I grinned and affirmed that indeed I was.

      “I’m Ethan Mirabelli,” he said. “My family owns Gianni’s. Do you know it?”

      “I sure do,” I said. “Best food this side of Providence.” I shaded my eyes and took a better look at young Ethan Mirabelli. Fairly cute. Lively brown eyes, mischievous smile, the kind that curled up at the corners in a most adorable way. “Do you work there?”

      “Not yet. My brother and dad are the chefs now, but maybe someday. What about you? Are you in the chef program, too?” he asked, sitting on the grass next to me.

      “Pastry chef. I’m a sucker for dessert,” I answered.

      “She loves sweet things,” Ethan murmured, lifting an eyebrow and giving me a sidelong glance. Flirt. I grinned again. “You’ll have to come in and try my mom’s tiramisu,” he said. “It’s the best in four states. Including New York.”

      Ethan and I became instant pals. We hung out together, met for lunch a couple times a week, sat together on the old couches at the Cable Car theater and watched foreign movies, snickering inappropriately at the love scenes. “Sex in German,” Ethan murmured. “How awful.” The couple next to us glared, then muttered to each other—in German—sending us into gales of silent, wheezing laughter.

      We didn’t date, but we were compadres. He was a sophomore, I was a senior, and we were at the age where that still sort of mattered…my almost twenty—two felt much older than his still nineteen. He couldn’t go out for a beer—not legally, anyway—and I was interviewing with hotels and restaurants while he was years away from graduation. And though he was pretty cute and very fun, it wasn’t, as we girls liked to say, that way. We never held hands or kissed or anything. We were just friends.

      A few months after we met, Ethan and I shared the short ride home to Mackerly, and he brought me to Gianni’s.

      “Hey, guys,” he called as we went into the kitchen.

      “Hey, college boy, nice of you to drop by and visit the working class” came a voice, and Jimmy turned around, and that was that.

      His eyes got me first…blue—green, ridiculously pretty. The rest of his face was awfully nice, too. Gorgeous cheekbones, generous lips, a little smile tugging at one corner. Time seemed to stop; I noticed everything…the golden hair on his muscular forearms, a healing burn on the inside of one wrist. The pulse in his neck, which was tan and smooth and seemed to urge me to bury my face there. Jimmy Mirabelli was tall and strong and smiling, and I didn’t realize I was staring at him—and he at me—until Ethan cleared his throat.

      “This is my brother, Jimmy,” Ethan said. “Jim, this is Lucy Lang. Her family owns Bunny’s Bakery.”

      Jimmy took a few steps over, and rather than offer me his hand, he just looked at me, and that little crooked grin grew into a slow smile that spread across his face. “Hi, Lucy Lang,” he murmured as I blushed. Ethan said something, but I didn’t hear. For the first time in my young life, I’d been hit hard with lust. Sure, I’d had a couple of boyfriends here and there, but this…this was indeed that way. A warm squeeze wrapped around my stomach, my mouth went dry, my cheeks burned. Then Jimmy Mirabelli did take my hand, and I almost swooned.

      Hours after I left the restaurant, Jimmy called the bakery and asked me out. I said yes. Of course I did. And when Ethan and I drove back to school that Sunday night, I thanked him for introducing me to his brother. “He’s a great guy,” Ethan said mildly, then listened as I gushed some more.

      Jimmy Mirabelli was, I quickly learned, the missing link in my life—a man.

      It hadn’t been easy for Mom, raising Corinne and me alone. She’d done her best—we had enough money, with Dad’s life insurance policy and Mom’s small but regular income from the bakery. Mom wasn’t a bad mother, but she was a little distant, not the type to ask where we were going or with whom—she said she trusted us to make smart decisions, and then she’d turn back to her crossword puzzle or true—crime novel, her parenting done for the night.

      I grew up in a constant state of father—envy. I adored my friends’ dads…the approval, the affection, the strictness, the rules. I remember Debbie Keating, my BFF from grade school, getting absolutely chewed out for wearing a trashy tank top and blue eye shadow to our seventh—grade dance. Boy, did I ever want a dad to make sure I wasn’t trashy! To protect me and adore me the way only Dad could. My small and precious cache of memories told me my dad had been a very good father, and a good father loves his daughter like no one else. He adores her, protects her, bails her out when she gets in trouble, defends her from her mother’s chastisement. He urges her to be whatever she wants (president, astronaut, princess), and later in life, advises on which boy is good enough for her (none) and when she can start dating (never).

      But, given the Black Widow curse, men were scarce in my life. I had no uncles, no grandfathers, no brothers…my closest male relation was Stevie, and you already know about him. Corinne and I used to try to summon our father, sitting in the closet where my mom still kept a few of his clothes, holding a coat or a sweater against our faces, chanting, “Daddy, Daddy, talk to us, Daddy.”

      Mom never even considered dating, but I enjoyed picturing her with another guy, marrying him, some gentle, kind soul who would