Page 29 of Lock 'em Down

“Leif?” Mom questions. Her smile is tight. Ha! I guess I did need that silent, not so subtle, warning about not embarrassing her.

“Sorry.” I clear my throat and point toward the bar. “I need a water and it looks like our server needs a hand.”

“I’ll, uh, I’ll help,” Cami volunteers, standing too.

Her mother gives her a look she ignores and the two of us relocate to the bar, making sure to round it so we’re out of our mothers’ lines of vision.

“What the hell is going on?” Cami hisses, some of her spunk returning.

It’s such a relief to see that I don’t call her on it. Besides, we don’t have time. “Our mothers are setting us up.”

“Well, yeah.” She tosses a hand in the air. “I got that part. My mom’s been doing this for the past few months, ever since—” she cuts herself off and shakes her head.

Ever since what? I want to ask but I don’t.

Instead, I offer, “Yeah, my mom’s been on a rampage as well. She’s spent the last year bouncing between my brothers’ places, setting them up and screwing with their lives.”

Cami works a swallow. “Did it work?”

I consider her question. Think about King and Rory, Jake and Gardenia, Jensen and Bailey. “I guess so. But I’m not like my brothers. And besides?—”

“We’re already married.”

“That.” I flag down a bartender. “Can we get two shots of tequila?”

“Tequila?” Cami looks horrified. She leans to the left and quickly straightens. “Our mothers are right there.”

I shrug. “My mom will expect this from me.”

“My mom…” Confusion crosses her expression.

“What?”

“My mom will too,” she admits, disappointed.

My eyebrows tug together as I try to understand the dynamic between Cami and her mother. It’s complicated, that’s for sure.

I flip my chin at her wrist and the watch she’s wearing. “She know about the tattoo?”

Cami snorts. “Not yet.” She looks at me, her blue eyes turning softer. Honest. “I was ignoring you.”

I snort. “No shit.”

“I was scared,” she admits, biting the corner of her mouth. “But, honestly, I was going to call you tomorrow after my mom left. It’s…” She pauses to shake her head. “I can’t do this with you with her…here.”

“I get that, babe. I do.” The tension between Cami and her mom is obvious to strangers. “But we gotta come clean.”

Her eyes slam into mine and I watch terror swirl in her irises.

Damn. What the hell went down between her and her family? I reach for her hand and press my thumb into her wristband. A gentle reminder of the ink hiding beneath—a wave. Weren’t we supposed to ride the wave of life?

Yes, I get how fucking corny it is. But we were drunk. Case in point—we hit up the chapel right afterwards.

“All you can do is crest and coast,” I murmur, recalling words my grandfather, my dad’s dad from Norway, told me when I was a little kid.

“What?” Cami asks.

The bartender places down our tequila shots and I toss some bills on the bar.

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