“Uncle Jack!” Amelia rushes to the door, launching herself into his waiting arms. “You were gone forever!”

“Hello there, princess.” He hugs her tight, groaning and rocking her.

“It’s a bear hug!”

“It sure is, am I scary?”

He loosens his grip, and she looks at him with her eyes slightly narrowed, seeming to ponder whether he is or isn’t scary. “Not really. But you’re scratchy.”

Jack laughs, rubbing his camping beard on her cheek. “I was in the wilderness, searching for dinner.”

“Did you find any?” Amelia asks.

He turns, grabbing a pizza box. “This is all I caught.”

She giggles and then turns to me. “Can I have a piece?”

“One and then it’s bedtime. I know you can’t resist pizza,” I tell her.

We head into the kitchen, and I set Amelia up with a small slice. “How did camping go?”

Jack rolls his eyes. “I swear, these girls are absolutely ridiculous.”

About three years ago, Jack quit his very successful job as an accountant and decided that the mountains of North Carolina would be an ideal place to teach survival skills for the . . . random idiots willing to pay him to keep them safe. Not that there isn’t danger out here, but we’re not in an area where hikers go missing.

This trip, he was gone for almost two weeks, showing them how to fend off any animals and find food sources. It sounds like complete fucking hell to me, but he loves it.

“Was it another bachelorette party?”

“No, thank God. Those girls were another level of insanity.”

“You did sleep with the maid of honor,” I remind him.

A sly grin forms, and he looks lost in the memory. “She was a gift from the heavens. Mouth like—”

“I get it.”

“Like what?” Amelia asks.

“Nothing, Princess.” Jack shrugs and grabs a slice of pizza. “No, it was a company retreat, a lot of bonding and in ways I don’t think they anticipated.”

“You mean they didn’t like taking a shit with their boss behind a bush?”

He laughs. “No, they most certainly did not. I think they thought we’d be camping and a lot less of the down and dirty.”

“Yet another reason I said no when you asked me to come work with you.”

“Chicken shit.”

I couldn’t care less if he thinks that. I like being outdoors, but some of the crap he tells me about, I’m totally fine with skipping. Not that my life would allow for it anyway. I couldn’t spend nights on end on the mountain and away from Amelia.

“That’s enough about me, tell me what’s new here.”

“Not a thing.” Other than the last few weeks have been fucking fantastic.

Jessica was here two nights ago, and last night, we had some pretty amazing sex over video. Sometimes, modern technology is a goddamn gift.