Broken Strings

Two

When she came back, some of that softness was present on her face as she asked, "How's the wedding planning going? Anyone ducking out with cold feet?"

Travis shook his head and sipped again from his water. "You kidding? Jake and Piper are solid. Nothing is going to disrupt their nuptials. Especially if my mother and Piper's mama have anything to say about it."

"They're that excited?"

Travis stared at her flatly. "They're already talking about grandbabies, Ginger. The two of them are hoping that Piper comes home from the honeymoon with a few buns in the oven."

Ginger bit back a laugh. "Do Piper and Jake even want kids?"

"Eventually, or so Jake tells me. But not right away. He's gonna have some school debts once he finishes up and Piper's only working part-time right now at the high school. There are a few retirements coming soon so she's hopeful that she'll get a full-time teaching position but she's not quite there yet. I think they both want to be a bit more settled before bringing a kid into the mix."

It made perfect sense to Travis. At twenty-four, he was nowhere near ready to be a parent. The thought of having his own kid basically crippled him with horror. He barely knew how to take care of himself! He and a baby were sure to be a train wreck.

That was part of the reason he was so eager to let his older brother take the lead and be the first to take the marriage step. Because surely – no matter how much time they wanted to wait – eventually the kid step would come for Jake and Piper.

Travis thought that he needed to take a spin at being the fun uncle before he even considered becoming a responsible dad.

Though, Travis supposed, of the Grant siblings, he was probably the one destined to be the last to take the marriage and the kids step. Without a doubt, Jake was going to beat him but as time went on, Travis was certain that his younger sister would too.

Not that it was surprising exactly. Bailey had dated as little as Travis had until she'd come home from Nashville for a stint and met Noah Hartley. Everything between those two was just so gods-damned cataclysmic that no one could deny they were a match made in heaven. Really, it was just a matter of time until Noah popped the question.

Which left Travis as the single sibling.

He didn't mind it per se. Well, he hadn't until his best friend Stephen Mackey had started dating Noah Hartley's little sister, Caroline. Even then Travis' gripe wasn't with being single.

It was being the only single person in a sea full of couples.

If it wasn't for the boredom that ensued, Travis could have borne being single. But Jake was always off with Piper. Stephen came to work – he worked for Travis' father on the Grant ranch – and then promptly took off to go hang out with Caroline at the house she shared with her brother. Bailey was almost always at Noah's these days and if she wasn't there then she was away in Nashville, meeting with music executives and label representatives as she worked out the kinks that went along with writing and recording her second solo album.

And while Travis didn't begrudge his siblings their happiness, he sometimes did feel as if he were behind them, somehow.

It was why he'd asked Ginger out on a date to begin with. Bailey had mentioned that Ginger thought Travis was cute – how Bailey knew this, Travis still had no clue for Bailey had refused to divulge her source and Ginger was adamant that she'd never had that sort of conversation with Bailey – and he'd decided to take a leap of faith.