“I would love that,” I answer as I add the sugar and bitters to the glass before mixing in the bourbon. I pin her with a glare. “Is this what you want though? Don’t think you have to live here because you don’t want to go home and to avoid homelessness.” I chuckle. “I can help you look for a place and pay for it for that matter, if you need time.” The last thing I wanted was her to live here out of convenience.

“JP.” She shakes her head. “I was kidding about not having other options. I could go live with Chloe in a heartbeat. My liver would hate me.” She blanches. “But I want to be here. I want to be with you wherever you are.” She frowns. “Any chance you could get a job at a big fancy hospital across the country? I’ll transfer schools and then we can only see my parents on Christmas and Easter, maybe?”

“You would hate that.”

Christmas is huge in the Monroe household. I’m talking the absolute works. They had two huge Christmas parties and had Christmas-themed dinners every Saturday in December inviting anyone who was having a rough time that holiday season. Recently divorced, dumped, widowed or estranged from family, they opened up their house to anyone that didn’t have anywhere to go.

“I hate awkward or angry tension more.”

I strain the contents of the glass over two glasses with an ice cube inside. “I was actually thinking about going back to my old hospital. Whitney, baby, running away from this isn’t going to help. I don’t want you transferring schools unnecessarily and we need to at least try with your parents. If after you graduate law school, we haven’t made any progress then we can talk about it because I’m not about to allow their grandchildren to feel an ounce of that bullshit.” I see the stars in her eyes instantly over my words and I give her a smirk. “After you graduate,” I tell her instantly in case she’s having any thoughts on starting to try for them now.

“That’s two years away, JP.” She drops her head back as she picks up the glass, that I’ve just dropped the orange peel inside. “I’m fine with waiting that long to start trying for a baby but we have to potentially endure two years of my parents behaving like that,” she says, hitching a thumb over her shoulder to indicate what happened an hour ago. “Before you’re open to moving?”

“I don’t think it’ll take that long. I know them. They’re pissed. They have a right to be and I would be too.”